Page 37 of Heat Clickbait
Through it all, like vultures circling carrion, were the requests for interviews, sponsorship offers promising to capitalize on the controversy, and documentary crews swearing they wanted to tell our "real story" while undoubtedly planning to edit us into whatever narrative would get the most views.
"Michelle's been fielding calls since 6 AM," Nova said, rubbing his temples with the careful precision of someone fighting off a migraine. "Every morning show wants exclusive coverage of our first public appearance post-heat. Good Morning America offered a seven-figure sum for a live interview. The Tonight Show wants us for a 'fun, lighthearted segment' about modern pack dynamics. And don't get me started on the documentary proposals."
"Post-heat." I tested the words, clinical and distant for something that had been anything but. "Is that what we're calling it?"
"The medical term seemed less inflammatory than 'post-biological-imperative-orgy,'" Nova said dryly, which startled a laugh out of me that I felt all the way to my toes.
"Personally, I liked 'love fest,'" Crash offered with a grin that was pure chaos, which earned him a look from Nova that could have frozen hell and made the flowers in Milo's windowsill garden wilt.
"Or 'hormone hurricane,'" Milo added quietly, then flushed when everyone looked at him. "What? That's what my abuela would call it. She's very practical about these things."
The normalcy of their bickering, even in the middle of crisis, loosened something that had been coiled tight in my chest since I'd first heard the murmur of voices.
These weren't strangers anymore.
After three days in the nest, after skin and scent and desperate need, after they'd refused to mark me when I'd begged because they'd wanted me to choose with a clear head, after all that we'd crossed into something else. Not quite pack, not quite not-pack.
Liminal.
We existed in the space between what we were and what we might become.
My stomach growled, loud enough that Milo immediately began plating whatever he'd been destroying on the stove with renewed purpose. French toast, I realized, though he'd clearly made enough for an army, or one very stressed Alpha who couldn't stop cooking when his world felt out of control.
"Stress cooking?" I asked gently, accepting the plate he slid in front of me.
He flushed but nodded, his hands already moving to plate servings for the others whether they'd asked or not. "Started with crepes at five. Then waffles. Then I thought pancakes might be better, but the batter wasn't right, so I switched to French toast. May have made three types of syrup from scratch. And candied some orange peels. Oh, and there's fresh bread rising if anyone wants toast later."
The French toast was perfect, because even stressed out of his mind, Milo couldn't make bad food. But I could taste the anxiety in it, the way he'd overthought every ingredient, real vanilla instead of extract, bread cut precisely three-quarters ofan inch thick, cinnamon measured to the exact teaspoon instead of his usual intuitive cooking style.
"We need a plan," I said between bites, looking at each of them in turn. "Hiding isn't sustainable. Neither is going out there unprepared and letting them control the narrative."
"What do you want to do?" Nova asked, and the question carried weight that settled in the space between us. Not what should we do, not what would be best for our brands or our subscriber counts, but what did I want. What did I need.
I thought about my mother's interview, about the narrative she'd tried to spin of biology as destiny, choice as illusion, pack bonds as simple brain chemistry that could be dismissed or manipulated.
I thought about the past three days, how these five Alphas had given me everything I'd needed except the one thing that would have taken away my agency, permanent marks that couldn't be undone, bonds that would have been formed in heat-madness instead of clear choice.
I thought about waking up this morning feeling safer than I had in years despite the chaos outside our door.
"I want to tell the truth," I said, the words coming out steadier than I felt. "Not the sanitized version that makes everyone comfortable, not the inflammatory version that gets clicks. Just... the truth."
"Which truth?" Ghost asked quietly, his fingers pausing on his tablet. "There are multiple versions depending on who's telling the story."
He was right, and the acknowledgment of that complexity made my chest tight.
There was the truth where five Alphas had triggered a biological response I couldn't control. The truth where I'd begged for marks they wouldn't give because they'd respected my autonomy more than my heat-addled pleas. The truth wherewe'd spent three days learning each other's bodies but barely knew each other's names. The truth where despite everything, or maybe because of it, I wanted to see where this went. The truth where I'd never felt safer than I had in their arms, and the truth where that terrified me more than any amount of internet hate ever could.
"All of them," I decided, feeling something settle into place in my chest like a puzzle piece finding its home. "We go live. From here. No script, no talking points, no media training. Just us."
They all stared at me like I'd suggested we strip naked and run through the convention center. Which, honestly, might have been less shocking given the current media attention.
"Callie," Nova started carefully, his accent sharpening the way it did when he was trying to be diplomatic about something that made him want to throw things, "the legal implications alone?—"
"Fuck the legal implications." The words came out sharper than I'd intended, but I meant them with every fiber of my being. "We've been so worried about controlling the narrative that we've let everyone else write it for us. My mother, the media, the fans, the haters. When do we get to tell our own story?"
"Now, apparently," Crash said with a grin that was all chaos and delight, his fingers already tapping out excited rhythms on the counter.
"You sure about this?" Blitz asked, but he was already moving to set up cameras with the muscle memory of someone who'd been streaming for years, pulling equipment from the organized chaos of Milo's setup closet since he usually streamed in the kitchen.
