Page 16 of Stream Heat (Omega Stream #1)
“Medication,” I answered, trying not to let my eyes linger on water dripping from his chest. “Some of us don’t sleep till noon.”
“Four AM, actually.” He poured his coffee into a mug that said ALPHA AF in block letters. I kind of wanted to throw it at his head and also keep it for myself. “Insomnia. Noisy brain.”
He looked at me with a weight that brought back the memory of yesterday’s stream, the charge in the air when he said “inevitable.” My scent began to trickle through the room and I had to force myself to think about moldy bread in order to get myself back on track and not start perfuming all over the place.
“The board’s shaping up.” He nodded at it. “Joint block with Theo?”
“Yep,” Theo confirmed, still chewing. “Horror game. Minimal effort, maximum content.”
“Smart.” Reid’s gaze pinned me. “Let me know if you want to schedule one with me. I’ve got a few tactical ideas.”
The implication of going solo with that intensity on camera again made my heart stutter. I tried, and failed, to sound casual. “I’ll let you know.”
“No rush.” He was easy about it, but the undertone, the storm in his scent, the restlessness, made my inner Omega do something embarrassing. “We’ve got time.”
Six months, to be exact. Six months of content, six months of pretending we were just business partners, six months of fighting off biological responses like it was my full-time job.
I stood abruptly, nearly dumping my coffee. “I should, uh, get prepped for my stream.”
“Need a hand with setup?” Reid offered again. “Ash mentioned your acoustics–”
“I’ve got it,” I said too quickly. I needed out of there, away from his scent and the heat rising under my skin. “Thanks though.”
I holed up in my room and leaned against the closed door, heart jackhammering. Ridiculous. I was an Omega coming off industrial-grade suppressants, fine, but this was getting pathetic. I told myself to pull it together.
Deep breaths. Focus. Just focus.
My laptop sat open on my desk, inbox overflowing.
Sponsors, mostly, the desperate kind, the cautious kind, the “let’s see if Pack Wrecked can housebreak her” kind.
Viewer mail was split between support, disappointment, and unfiltered venom.
I scanned for anything useful, jotting notes for my content plan.
The narrative was spinning faster than I could keep up. Apparently “enemies to packmates” was trending, or at least people were curious enough to watch. The energy from yesterday’s stream with Reid was everywhere.
A knock came at the door.
“Quinn?” Ash’s voice, slow and deep, was instantly recognizable. “Got a sec?”
He stood there holding a pile of sound panels and a toolbox. The scent was charcoal and vanilla, warm, making me want to breathe deeper. Instead, I opened the door wider. “What’s up?”
“The acoustics in here are shit,” he said, no offense, just fact. “Mind if I fix it?”
I stepped back, and he was already analyzing the room, calculating, and I could see the gears turning. “Your voice is bouncing off the far wall. Adds echo. Viewers might not notice, but the algorithm picks it up.”
I blinked. “You can tell by just looking?”
He grunted, not exactly a laugh but not unfriendly. “Sound is physics. Physics is easy.”
He got to work, moving between marks with a kind of efficiency I envied. For a guy built like a tank, he barely disturbed the air. He explained as he went, marking the wall, placing each panel with obsessive precision.
“So you’re the tech support,” I said, mostly to fill the silence.
“Someone has to be,” he said, not looking up. “Otherwise they’d still be using stock cooling. Theo blew out three GPUs before I fixed his system.”
“Doesn’t surprise me.” The thought of Theo melting hardware made me smile.
Ash caught that, glanced at me with cool, unreadable eyes. “You’re adapting.”
I tensed, not wanting the conversation to go there. “I’m managing. That’s all.”
He shrugged. “Call it what you want.” He wiped his hands and checked his spacing. “From here it looks like you’re getting used to us.”
Change topic or die, I told myself. “The joint stream thing, was that your call?”
“Malik’s.” He secured the last panel. “He understands audience psychology. People want to see things evolve. If it’s forced, they bail.”
“Nothing about this setup is natural,” I pointed out.
He swung the toolbox up, half-smiling. “Isn’t it?” He looked at me dead-on. “Five alphas, one Omega, locked in a house, sharing resources. It doesn’t get more basic.”
My breath stuttered. “It’s still just business.”
“If you say so.” He handed me my headset. “Try now.”
I did, hitting record. The sound was noticeably better, cleaner, like I’d leveled up without realizing.
“Not bad,” I admitted, taken by surprise. "Thanks, Ash."
He paused at the door, studying me with those intense grey eyes. "You know, for someone so determined to maintain distance, you sure say our names a lot."
I opened my mouth to snap back, but the door was already closing. He was gone, scent trailing.
Left alone, I cataloged the weird, creeping ways these alphas were already under my skin.
Malik’s breakfasts and low, soothing advice.
Jace’s wordless support, coffee arriving right when I needed it.
Theo’s nuclear energy, turning any mood around in seconds.
Ash’s tech wizardry, quietly calling out what everyone tried to hide.
Reid’s command presence, making me feel locked down and… fuck, safe.
It was dangerous, all of it. Letting myself adjust. I reminded myself none of this was real. It was optics, curated, performative, designed to rescue my numbers and their brand in one sweep.
I ran the mantra as I scheduled my stream, edited my social post, and scanned Theo’s game suggestion. Adaptation, adaptation, adaptation.
But the day kept happening, and I kept tracking them through the house. Jace’s ASMR block went quiet. Theo’s chaos stream roared to life. The comforting drone of Ash’s tools through the floor as he built whatever. Malik chatting with someone in Discord.
The worst part? I didn’t hate it.
Theo “accidentally” ordered my favorite Thai place for lunch, no one else could’ve known except someone who’d been stalking my old socials. He left it outside my door with a sticky note.
Brain fuel for the Queen.
I laughed out loud, real and unguarded.
Jace brought me a perfect coffee at 3 PM sharp, like he’d studied my slump patterns. I was grateful, not suspicious.
Ash texted me a link to an article about optimizing stream setups for people with sensory processing issues, exactly what I'd been struggling with since the withdrawal began, I saved it immediately instead of dismissing it.
Malik came by with tea after my stream, classic Malik, with gentle, specific questions about symptoms. I answered honestly. No point hiding what they could all sense anyway.
When Reid knocked on my door that night, tactical stream energy still clinging to him, he offered the hoodie I’d mentioned liking and said, “Thought you might be cold. This room gets it worse than the rest.” There was nothing weird about it.
He just handed it over and walked away. I didn’t argue.
I buried myself in the soft fabric and let the scent chase off the chill I hadn’t realized I had.
It was just adaptation, I told myself as the house wound down, noises softening, routines slotting in. Just my body getting used to a new set of variables. Just my brain recalibrating after too many years numbed out on industrial-grade suppression.
It had nothing to do with how I noticed their voices even when I was supposed to be focused.
Nothing to do with how somewhere deep inside, my hindbrain filed all these scents and sounds under “home.” Nothing to do with the feral, mindless comfort I got from knowing who was in the house, where they were, what they were doing.
Business. That was all it was. Survival.
I ran the words over and over again through my mind. Adaptation, adaptation, adaptation. Finally, as I curled up with my laptop prepping for tomorrow’s stream, hoodie still wrapped around me, exhaustion finally catching up, I almost believed it. Almost.
But as sleep dragged me under, even with the mantras and the careful compartmentalizing, there was a traitor thought in my head, soft and sly:
Pack.