Page 26 of Heat Clickbait
"Hurts," I whimpered, curling into myself as the heat rolled through me like lava, making my skin feel like it was burning from the inside out. "Everything hurts without the bite. Like something's missing. Like I'm incomplete. Like there's supposed to be five more pieces of me and I only have one."
"We know," Ghost said, and when I looked at him through tears I didn't remember shedding, there were matching tears in his dark eyes. "We feel it too. Like there's a Callie-shaped hole in our souls. But feeling incomplete isn't enough reason to make permanent choices. Not when you might regret them."
"Isn't it?" I challenged, though the words came out slurred, my tongue too heavy and thoughts too scattered to form proper arguments. "People make permanent choices for worse reasons every day. Vegas weddings and tattoos of ex-boyfriends' names and..."
"We're not other people," Nova said firmly, his hands still gentle on my face despite the steel in his voice. "We're your pack. And we're going to do this right, even if it kills us. Even if watching you hurt kills us."
Looking at them all, really looking, I could see the visible strain in every muscle, the way their hands shook with the effort of not giving in to instinct. The love written across their faces was almost unbearable to witness, raw and desperate and absolutely devoted. Something in my chest cracked at the sight, not the omega's need for claiming, but something deeper.Something that recognized what it cost them to refuse me, to prioritize my future self over my present desperation.
"Still hate you," I mumbled, but this time it sounded more like 'I love you' than accusation, the words soft and broken and honest.
"We know," Milo said softly, reaching for a weighted blanket and pulling it over my trembling form with movements gentle enough for spun glass. "Hate us all you want. We'll still be here when the heat breaks. Still be here when you're ready to choose us properly. We're not going anywhere, Callie. Promise."
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Callie
The heat was finally receding, leaving me wrung out like a dishcloth that had been used to mop up an entire ocean. My limbs felt disconnected from my body, heavy and useless, while my mind floated somewhere between exhaustion and that peculiar clarity that comes after a fever breaks.
The nest still smelled like sex and sweat and satisfaction, but underneath it all was something else.
Safety.
For the first time in years, I'd gone through heat feeling completely, utterly safe.
"Water?" Nova's voice came from somewhere to my left, still rough from three days of growling and groaning and making sounds I'd pulled from him that his streaming audience would never believe their composed British businessman capable of.
I managed to turn my head, which felt like a monumental achievement. He sat propped against the nest wall, his usually perfect hair sticking up at angles that defied physics, his designer stubble now approaching actual beard territory. He looked wrecked. They all did. And somehow that made my chest tight with something that wasn't heat-related at all.
"Please," I croaked, then cleared my throat. "God, I sound like I've been gargling gravel."
"You sound perfect," Milo said from behind me, and I felt the nest shift as he moved closer, his warmth pressing against my back. "Though you might want to avoid any ASMR content for a few days."
Ghost actually snorted at that, the sound so unexpected that Crash fell off the edge of the nest depression with a yelp. The sudden movement made everyone tense, Alpha instincts still hair-trigger sensitive, but then Blitz started laughing, and the tension dissolved into something lighter.
Nova pressed a water bottle to my lips, supporting my head with his other hand. The simple care of it, the way his fingers automatically checked my temperature against my temple, made my throat tight for different reasons.
"I should probably mention," I said after draining half the bottle, "that was nothing like my usual heats. It was different."
They all went still, and I could practically feel their collective concern spike through the air like electricity before a storm.
"I mean—" I rushed to clarify, seeing Nova's jaw clench. "Not bad different. Just... different. Usually, I'm alone, obviously. In my apartment. With my vibrator and a towel and lots of regret. It's... clinical. Mechanical. Something to endure and get through as quickly as possible."
"How long?" Ghost asked quietly.
"Three days, give or take. Same as this. But the intensity..." I trailed off, trying to find words for the difference. "It's like comparing a match to a forest fire. Both are technically fire, but?—"
"But one reshapes the entire landscape," Nova finished, and yes, that was exactly it.
I struggled to sit up, muscles protesting every movement. Immediately, five sets of hands reached to help, then all pulledback at once, nobody wanting to crowd me. The consideration made me want to cry, which was ridiculous. I'd cried enough over the past three days to fill a small lake.
"Before my first heat on suppressants," I heard myself saying, the words tumbling out like water through a broken dam, "I tried to handle one heat without them. After freshman year of college."
The nest went quiet except for the subtle hum of Ghost's environmental systems, still automatically adjusting to my needs even as the heat faded.
"There was this Alpha in my media studies program. Rex Hamilton. The same one that’s calling this fake." The name tasted bitter on my tongue, like medicine left too long in the mouth. "He was... everything you'd expect. Confident. Charming. Had that whole tortured artist thing that made undergrad Omegas swoon. Including me, apparently."
Crash growled, low and protective, and I found myself leaning into the sound rather than away from it.
