Page 55 of Stream Heat
The driver dropped me off a block from the house at my request. I needed time to compose myself, to decide what I would tell the others. If anything.
As I walked slowly toward the imposing structure that had become my temporary home, I tried to imagine a future where I accepted my designation publicly. Where I managed unpredictable heats and sensory issues while maintaining a professional gaming career. Where I wasn't defined by what I was but by what I could do despite it.
It seemed impossible. The gaming world wasn't kind to Omegas. The few who succeeded did so by leaning into stereotypes, monetizing their designation rather than transcending it. I'd built my brand on being the opposite: sharp, aggressive, untouchable.
What would I be without that armor?
I paused at the edge of the driveway, looking up at the house where five Alphas were going about their morning routines, unaware of the crisis unfolding inside me. Five Alphas whose scents had become familiar reference points in my destabilized world. Five Alphas who, according to Dr. Levine, might be the key to my recovery.
Five Alphas I was terrified of needing.
The front door opened before I reached it, revealing Reid in workout clothes, clearly just returned from a run. His scent washed over me, cedar and thunderstorms, something that was now so familiar I could identify it from across a room, and it instantly calmed the anxiety that had been building since leaving the clinic.
"There you are," he said, his eyes scanning my face with that unnerving intensity. "Jace said you had a doctor's appointment. Everything okay?"
I opened my mouth to lie, to deflect, to maintain the walls I'd built so carefully. But something in his expression, genuine concern without pity, made the words stick in my throat.
"No," I admitted finally, the truth spilling out before I could stop it. "Everything is not okay."
His expression shifted, Alpha protectiveness flaring before he carefully modulated it. "Come inside. We should talk."
As I followed him into the house, the data stick heavy in my pocket and Dr. Levine's words echoing in my mind, I realized I was at a crossroads. I could continue fighting what I was, potentially at the cost of my health. Or I could accept the reality of my situation and find a way forward, possibly with the help of the very Alphas I'd been so determined to keep at arm's length.
Neither option was what I would have chosen. But as Dr. Levine had said, sometimes survival isn't about getting what you want. Sometimes it's just about adaptation.
And perhaps it was time I learned how to adapt. Or tried to at least.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Kara
Reid led me into the kitchen, not rushing me, but definitely watching like he expected I might bolt for the nearest escape. In fairness, I probably looked like a flight risk, all wide-eyed and clutching my prescriptions like they were my last lifelines.
He pointed at a stool by the island. "Sit." No negotiation in his tone. Then, "I'll make coffee."
I didn’t argue. I just sat, which ought to have been our very first clue that I was circling the drain. Anyone who knows me knows Kara Quinn never obeys orders without a fight, and this time, I just caved.
Reid moved around the kitchen with the same efficiency he brought to every part of his life, and I stared at my own hands, trying to fit words around the medical death sentence I'd just been handed. The silence between us wasn’t awkward. It was just dense. Heavy enough to make breathing feel like hauling gravel.
He set a mug in front of me, the coffee so strong the aroma cut right through my mental sludge. "Now talk to me. What happened at the doctor’s?"
The warmth seeped through the ceramic as I held the mug. Anchoring. "I saw a specialist. About the suppressants, mostly."
A muscle in his jaw flicked, barely visible. "Not your regular doctor?"
"Different kind." I focused on my coffee, not on him. "This one handles…military-grade stuff."
He got it instantly, and I hated him a little for it, that precise, perceptive brain of his. Realization, then pure alarm. "You were trying to get more."
He didn’t phrase it like a question, but I nodded, burning with shame anyway.
"Quinn–"
"Don’t." I cut him off before he could go full after-action debrief. "I know it was reckless. Illegal. Whatever lecture you want to give, I've already given it to myself. I just wanted to feel like myself again. Just for the tournament."
His voice softened, just enough to kick the legs out from under me. "I wasn’t going to lecture you," he said. "I was going to ask what the doctor told you that has you looking like this."
That gentleness? It destroyed me. It would’ve been easier if he’d just chewed me out. Judgment is safe. This concern, raw and real, made me want to fall apart.
