Page 61 of Stream Heat (Omega Stream #1)

He weighed something, internally, before he nodded. “Then you should know, just like Ash’s, my bond isn’t like the others. Not better, not worse. Different.”

“How?” I wanted the truth, no sugar-coating.

He looked me dead in the eye. “The others marked you in moments of crisis or intensity. Instinct. Need. Mine will be deliberate. Conscious. An actual, mutual choice.”

That landed in my gut and didn’t budge. “That fits. It feels… right.”

“There’s one other thing,” he said. “A bond like this, it isn’t chemical. Not just biology. It’s more mental, more spiritual. You’ll know, when it happens, because every part of you will be wide awake. No haze to hide behind.”

He wasn’t warning me, not really. But he was making sure I understood that this was going to require every ounce of honesty I owned. No escape hatches.

I didn’t flinch. “When?”

“Now, if you were ready.” Malik’s voice hadn’t just been calm, it’d been a certainty that pushed everything else inside me down.

The restless, jittering nerves finally settled because he’d already decided that I was ready or I was about to be, and that was how it was going to go.

“This room was designed for presence. For mindfulness. For being fully aware in each moment.”

I glanced around, noting that the meditation space was new to me. The soft morning light, the crisp, clean lines, the lack of anything to distract the eye, they shouted focus, clarity. Nothing to hide behind, no excuse.

“I’m ready,” I said. And the thing was, I actually meant it. The words just fell out, heavy but right.

Malik nodded once. He stepped in close, grabbed my hands, his were warm, steady, and in that instant it was as if he’d tethered me to right then.

“First, we breathe together.” His thumbs rubbed slow circles into my palms, grounding and hypnotic.

“Synchronizing our rhythms. Becoming fully present with each other.”

I inhaled with him using the same pattern as before, four counts in, held for two, six counts out.

Over and over, my lungs filled and emptied in cadence with his.

With every breath, I lost a little of the scatter and static and began to notice more, the brush of his skin on mine, the energy winding between us, subtle but unmistakable.

“Good,” he murmured, his eyes locked on me, dark and brilliant and impossible to look away from. “Now, tell me why you want this bond. Not what you think it means. Why you, Kara Quinn, want to be connected to me, specifically.”

That landed with force. No chance to hide, no shield to put up.

The question cut past everything. It was about me, not a designation, not the pack structure, not a crisis.

Just me. Weeks earlier, I would have flinched and run.

But now, with four bonds burning steady in my veins and Malik’s quiet assurance wrapped around me, the answer came before I could stop it.

“Because you see me. Not what I did, not what I’d lived through, not what I might turn into later.

Me, right now.” I swallowed, and it felt like swallowing a stone.

“You see the real me, and you find value there. Not because you wanted something, or needed something, you just… see me. No expectations. No weight. Just acceptance.”

His expression shifted, losing some of its control, reverence, maybe, in the way his mouth softened and his eyes went infinite. “And that’s what you need? What you want?”

“Yeah.” It was barely a sound. But it landed, all right. “More than I knew. More than I ever thought, until right now.”

He let go of my hands and framed my face instead.

His palms were broad and gentle, the kind of touch one didn’t want to shake off.

“Then that’s what my bond will give you.

Not just in heat, or meltdown, or when the world’s blowing up around us.

But in between, the ordinary, nothing-special days.

The present that usually gets drowned out by regret and anxiety. ”

His scent filled the space, sandalwood and linen.

I caught new notes that hadn’t been there before.

It didn’t have the hot-metal edge of Ash, the wildfire of Theo, the contained intensity of Jace, or the wood-and-earth foundation of Reid.

This was different. Deliberate calm. The quiet force of being seen.

“How do we do this?” My voice was a secret, barely there.

“With complete awareness.” His thumbs skated along my cheeks, the touch feather-light and infinite. “I am going to kiss you, Kara, not as a means to an end, but for itself. I want you to feel everything, the pressure, the heat, the connection. Nothing else matters. Just. This.”

I nodded. I got it. Not passion, not desperation, not surrender. Presence.

When his lips touched mine, it was nothing like anything that had come before.

Not because it was hotter, or softer, or more experienced.

But because I was nowhere else. I wasn’t thinking about what came after, or what had come before, or where it was heading.

All I knew was the texture of his mouth, the intent, this moment.

He kissed me like there had been no before or after. Each press and slide, every tiny shift, was the whole point. I matched him, breath for breath, a repeat of earlier, but deeper.

When we parted, I was changed. No other word for it. More awake in my own skin, more aware of the sparks running between us. The bonds inside me vibrated, already knotted with anticipation and a promise on the cusp of being sealed.

“Now,” Malik said, his palms moving down to hover at my shoulders in a careful hold, “we kept going. Every touch, every sensation, should be felt fully. Nothing skipped. No rush.”

What came after wasn’t like anything I’d had with the other Alphas.

Not better, not worse. Just… nothing the same.

Reid had brought possession, the shield of belonging.

Theo had been a firestorm, chaos in human skin.

Jace had quieted every part of me, and Ash had rebuilt me with his precision.

Malik? Malik was the slow pulse of the present.

Even the way he undressed me was an act of possession.

Not a strip, not a scramble, but the unhurried tug and slip of fabric, each layer revealing new skin to the air and to him.

His fingers skimmed the path he uncovered, trailing lazy arcs and spirals down my back, drawing my awareness to every place he touched.

“Stay with me.” His voice was close, low, his breath ghosting my ear as his scent wrapped around me, warm spice and deep wood, steadying, claiming. “Don’t climb into your head. Don’t skip ahead. Just feel this. Just me.”

I tried. But my mind wanted to leap forward, to anticipate. Malik felt it each time I drifted, I could tell in the subtle narrowing of his eyes, and brought me back with the press of his palm, the faint scrape of his nails down my side, or simply the quiet command of his scent tightening around me.

Piece by piece, he bared me, never losing that deliberate pace. By the time we were both naked, cross-legged on the cushions facing each other, my body was a live wire. Not desperate, not yet, but hyper-aware. Every nerve tuned to him.

“This,” he said, his hands resting warm on my thighs, eyes locked on mine, “is what I can give you. Not just here. In all things. Awareness. The ability to live every second without losing it to the noise.”

“I want that,” I told him, and it came out raw. “I spend so much time fighting old battles or preparing for the next disaster, I miss… everything else.”

His expression eased, not into a smile, but into something open. “I know. Most people do. It’s not a flaw.”

Something in me loosened. Not because the ache of need was gone, not because of the bond humming at the edge of my awareness, but because he’d given me permission to be messy, imperfect, unarmored.

“I want your bond,” I said, the words clear as glass. “Not to stabilize me. Not because I need it to survive. Because I choose it. I choose you. I’m not running anymore.”

His pupils blew wide, scent spiking richer, still controlled, but edged now with unmistakable Alpha intent. “Then I’ll claim you,” he said, voice steady. “Not because I have to. Because we both want it. A conscious choice.”

He drew me into his lap, every movement unhurried. Skin on skin. His scent deepened around me, warm and grounding, until my instincts sighed into it.

When he finally pushed inside, it was slow, careful, until he was fully seated. He stilled there, forehead against mine, letting our bodies adjust, letting the heat between us settle.

“Feel this,” he murmured. “This connection. Nothing else exists.”

It was the hardest thing I’d ever done, to not move, to not chase friction. To focus only on the solid heat of him inside me, the stillness, the hum of rightness threading between us. My body wanted more, but Malik refused the urgency, keeping us in the moment.

“There’s no goal,” he said, voice soft but anchored. “Nothing to achieve. Just this.”

Minute by minute, I let go of the need to rush. I tracked every micro-shift: the flex of his thighs under me, the slide of his hands up my sides, the warm exhale across my cheek. It built slowly, not like a blaze, but like heat soaking into every layer until I was saturated.

When he began to move, it was in deliberate thrusts, almost slow-motion, making me feel every second. My breath caught, my body shivered, but I held to the pace he set.

“Stay with me,” he reminded me, when pleasure began to crest. “Let it come to you. Don’t chase it.”

I stayed. My fingernails scored his shoulders, his name on my lips breaking into a whimper.

“I know,” he said, never losing his rhythm. “You’re almost there. Let it take you.”

And I did. The release began low and wide, spreading through me in waves until every nerve was lit, the pleasure not sharp or greedy, but whole.

“Yes,” Malik groaned, his own control starting to fray. “That’s it. Don’t miss it.”

His teeth closed over the inside of my elbow, precise, claiming, where the blood ran close to the surface. The bite sent a warm rush through me, triggering another pulse of release that tightened every muscle around him.

The bonds inside me lit up, all the threads snapping into harmony at once. It was so immediate, so right, I wanted to cry out, and maybe I did. The circle was closed, the final piece slotting into place.

When he pulled back, the blood ran lazy and slow, and the world felt cleaner. I was shaking, but not from exhaustion, from connection. I was here. Really, really here.

“Malik,” I whispered.

He knew before I finished. “Yeah. I feel it, too.”

The bond was different from the others but not in a way that fought, it fit. Malik cupped my face, wiped tears I hadn’t even noticed.

“That’s what I give you, Kara. Not just in sex, but always, for the right to live your own life. To have every moment, even the ones that don’t seem important.”

It was the simplest thing I had ever been offered, but the hardest to accept. I swallowed hard, nodded once.

“Thank you,” I said. It was barely enough. I hoped he knew what I meant.

Instead of brushing it off, he pressed his forehead to mine, whispering words so soft only I could hear them. “No. Thank you for seeing me, too, for choosing me for who I really am and not just as a link in a chain.”

And then I felt it, the steady, insistent swell at the base of him. My breath caught. “Malik–”

“Stay with me,” he said again, one hand at my back, the other stroking my hip. “Let it happen.”

The knot pressed deeper, stretching me slowly until it slipped past the last tight resistance and locked inside. The fullness was profound, anchoring us together in a way that made my Omega instincts melt into him entirely.

“Now,” he murmured, his voice like a low drumbeat in my chest. “You’re not going anywhere. You can just… be here.”

The knot pulsed, and he rolled his hips in small, deliberate circles that dragged heat through my core in slow waves. His scent wrapped tighter around me, coating my skin from the inside out.

“Come again for me,” he coaxed, his thumb brushing my clit with gentle, steady pressure. “Let the knot feel you.”

The second orgasm was slower, deeper, a long, shivering release that left me trembling in his arms. My inner walls clutched hard around the knot, and that was all it took to finally push him over.

His breath hitched, hips pressing flush as his rhythm shattered. The knot swelled even fuller, pulsing hard as he groaned against my throat, spilling deep inside me. The sound was low, raw, and threaded with satisfaction.

He stayed buried, chest heaving, the thick heat of his release locked in place by the knot’s seal. His hand stroked my back in slow passes, scent curling protective and warm around both of us.

“That’s what I give you,” he murmured once his breathing steadied. “Not just this moment. All of them.”

And with his knot anchoring me, his scent saturating my skin, and the bond humming steady between us, I knew he meant every word.

Sunlight crawled across the mat, turning us gold and shadow. The bonds in my chest were different now, each one alive in its own way.

I wanted to laugh. I wanted to cry. I wanted to freeze time.

Because the pack wasn’t just assembled, it was complete. I had chosen this, all of it, not because I had needed any of them to survive, but because I wanted to be bigger. More. The sum and the parts, all at once.

The circle was whole.

So was I.