Page 25 of Heat Clickbait
"Please," I begged, dignity abandoned completely, tears streaming down my face as I clutched at Nova's shirt. "It hurts. Everything hurts without... without the bite. Can't you feel it?The pull? Like we're supposed to be connected and we're not and it's killing me?"
"We feel it," Crash admitted, his usual chaos energy transformed into something raw and vulnerable that made my heart clench. His purple and neon green hair stuck to his forehead with sweat, hands clenched at his sides so tightly I could see his knuckles gone white. "Every second. Like my bones are trying to crawl out of my skin to get to you. Like there's this constant itch under my skin that only you can scratch."
"Then why—" I started, but the words dissolved into another whimper as heat pulsed through me.
"Because we love you," Milo said simply, and the words hung in the air like a physical presence, heavy with meaning and promise. His hazel eyes were bright with unshed tears, his usual golden warmth dimmed by the strain of denial. "We love you enough to wait until you can choose us with a clear head. Until you can look us in the eyes without heat-drunk biology and say 'yes, forever' and mean it."
The word 'love' should have meant something. Should have penetrated the fog of need and desperation.
But my omega didn't understand love in this state.
She understood claiming, marking, belonging. And these Alphas were refusing all three, no matter how prettily they dressed it up.
"Don't love me," I mumbled, curling into myself as another wave built deep in my core, threatening to sweep away what little coherence I had left. "If loved... would mark. Would make yours. Love means giving what's needed."
Nova made a sound like I'd physically struck him, a wounded growl that rumbled through his chest and into mine. "Callie, love, that's the heat talking. That's not?—"
"Everything's heat!" The words exploded out of me with surprising force, my voice cracking on the admission. "Been heatfor days! When do I get to choose? Never clear, never not heat or post-heat or pre-heat or thinking about heat or running from heat or..." I trailed off, lost in my own circular logic, omega brain making connections that probably made no sense but felt devastatingly real in the moment.
The rejection felt like physical pain, sharp enough to cut through the biological fog for one terrible moment of clarity. But even as the hurt blazed through my chest like a brand, my body refused to let me pull away from Nova. The contradiction made me sob harder, needing distance while being magnetically sealed to his presence, wanting to flee while desperate to get closer.
"Look at me." Nova's voice carried that particular tone that made my hindbrain snap to attention despite my fury, despite the chaos raging through my system. "Callie, love, please look at me."
I lifted my head from where I'd buried it against his chest, and the raw emotion in his dark eyes made my breath catch. Pain and want and love all twisted together in an expression that was almost too intimate to witness. All through the nest, the other four had shifted closer, their combined scents wrapping around us like a physical embrace, like they were trying to hold me together through proximity alone.
"Three days ago, you didn't know our last names," Nova said, his thumbs stroking my cheekbones with heartbreaking gentleness, each touch sending shivers through my overheated system. "You built your entire career on not needing what you're begging for right now. Do you really want your first bonding bite to happen when you can't even remember what day it is?"
"Monday," I shot back, though the word came out uncertain, like I was guessing at a test question I should have known. "Or... Tuesday? Wednesday? It's... it's definitely a day that ends in 'y'."
"Sunday," Ghost corrected softly, and I wanted to scream at the gentleness in his voice, at the way he said it like he was talking to a lost child.
"The point is—" I started, but another wave of heat stole my words, making me arch against Nova with a whimper that had all five of them groaning in response. The sound of their combined distress made my omega keen with satisfaction even as the rest of me burned with need.
"The point is you're asking for forever while your body's drugged on hormones stronger than anything you can buy on the street," Blitz said, his usual cheerful energy strained to breaking, voice rough with barely controlled want. "We want to give you everything you're asking for, Callie. God, you have no idea how much. But not like this. Not when you'll wake up and hate us for taking advantage."
"Hate you now," I mumbled, though my fingers were tangling in Nova's shirt, pulling him closer even as I said it, my body betraying my words at every turn. "Hate all of you. Stupid noble Alphas with your stupid ethics."
"No, you don't," Milo said with that infuriating certainty, moving close enough that his honey-warm scent made my mouth water and my omega practically purr. "You're angry because we're not giving you what your omega wants. But we're giving you what Callie needs. Respect."
The word 'respect' when I was literally dripping for them, when every cell in my body screamed for their marks, when I could smell their arousal thick in the air, made me laugh. Or maybe cry. The sounds were indistinguishable now, just noise escaping a throat raw from begging and whimpering and making sounds I'd never made in my life.
"This is exactly what they warn Omegas about," I said, words tumbling out without filter, years of conditioning and fear bleeding through the heat haze. "Alphas who say they knowbetter, who make choices for us, who decide what we can and can't handle, who?—"
"Who refuse to permanently alter your body without clear consent?" Nova interrupted, and there was an edge to his voice now, his own control fraying at the seams. I could feel the tension in his muscles, could see the way his jaw clenched. "Yes, how terribly patriarchal of us to respect your autonomy."
Crash made a sound that might have been a laugh if it wasn't so strained, so desperate. "Boss's getting sassy. That's definitely new territory."
"Shut up," Nova and I said in unison, which made everyone freeze for a moment before Ghost's shoulders shook with what might have been silent laughter. It was the first truly relaxed movement I'd seen from any of them in hours.
The moment of levity helped, just a little. Enough for me to process what they were actually saying beneath my omega's desperate interpretation. They weren't rejecting me. They were protecting me. From myself, maybe, from choices made in biological chaos, but still protecting me. The realization made my chest tight with something that wasn't heat.
"When then?" I asked, my voice small and exhausted, worn thin from hours of fighting biology and losing. "When would you... when would it be okay? When do I get to choose?"
"When you can look us in the eyes without heat hormones clouding your judgment and say you want us forever," Nova said simply, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "When your choice isn't driven by biological imperative but by actual desire to be ours. When you know our middle names and our fears and what we're like when we're not trying to help you through heat."
"And when you can tell us our middle names," Crash added with forced lightness, which earned him a half-hearted swat from Blitz and an actual glare from Nova.
I wanted to argue more, wanted to point out that maybe biological imperative was exactly how these things were supposed to work, but another wave was building deep in my core, this one promising to be overwhelming. My body was done with words, done with complex emotional navigation. It wanted simple things: touch, claiming, relief from the endless ache that had taken up residence in my bones.
