3. Juno

3

JUNO

Juno had never been in the surveillance room at the house. She’d always wondered how many cameras they had, how much they captured and what footage the alphas actually kept. The annoyance of a locked door she wasn’t allowed to access buzzed in her periphery like a mosquito every time she passed it.

Today was the day she finally crossed the threshold and she would have given anything to have never done so.

But there she was. Enveloped in Eric’s sour scent from his arm draped over her shoulders. His fingers toyed with the ends of her hair while she sat ramrod straight next to him, staring at the nightmare unfolding in real time.

“…and we’re always listening.”

Juno could only watch as her only ally was banished from her life. For trying to save her.

Oh Julian. Her sorrow and heartbreak welled up unbidden as her eyes shone with unshed tears.

“He’s an idiot,” Eric said, unsympathetically. “You know that right?”

“Who, Andrew?” Juno sniped. Her head snapped down as his twirling fingers suddenly grasped and pulled.

“You want to repeat that, you little bitch?” Eric moved so fast in front of her, obscuring her view of the screen as he fisted her hair even tighter.

Yes, she screamed internally. “No,” she whispered, letting her eyes drop submissively the way she knew he liked. Stared at each individual curl of the plush carpet until her defiance wilted, replaced by a contrived subservience. She could sense his cruel satisfaction as he released her.

The door opened behind them and Vincent ambled into the room. “Aww, show’s over,” he pouted theatrically. “I know!” he exclaimed as he clapped his hands, a deranged ringmaster lining up his next act. “Let’s put on a movie.”

The black and white security footage disappeared and another video replaced it. It was the nest, viewed through the lens of a shaky, phone camera. Juno’s heart stopped as she recognised the naked, sweaty back on screen. Hers.

“Oh look, it’s you.” Vincent was positively chewing up the scenery. He pointed at the cock jutting out from the point of view of the person filming, disappearing inside her. “That’s me fucking you.” He pressed play and her moans filled the room. “And that’s you absolutely loving it.”

They had filmed her during her heat, the absolute fucking scumbags. She’d vaguely remembered bright lights pointed at her but she didn’t connect the dots until now. Juno bit down hard on the inside of her cheek until she tasted blood, refusing to give them the satisfaction of her devastated rage.

Vincent watched himself on screen a few more moments, a manic grin on his face, before pausing it again. “Did you enjoy that? I have more if you want.”

“No, I’m good,” Juno replied coolly. Vincent’s eyes narrowed at her tepid response, so disparate from her churning emotions. Before he could try again to get a rise out of her, the door opened and Andrew joined them. He glanced at the screen before staring down at Juno.

“In case you thought three alpha bonds wasn’t binding enough to make you pack, think of these videos as shall we say, insurance? If you are anything but our sweet, doting omega, we’ll make these videos public. Did you know ‘omega heat’ is the most searched term on porn sites? I mean, we’ll be furious at the invasion of privacy of course and demand it be taken down but you know what they say about the Internet — it’s forever.”

Andrew ran his fingertips over her neck, tracing the raised scar tissue of their bondmarks.

“So you see, omega. You’ll never be free of us.”

* * *

Things were not the same after that. But not in the way Juno expected. Despite how viciously they staked their claim on her, the alphas were unbalanced. They had always worked as a unit. Now that they insisted on always having one alpha guard her, the balance upon which their operations sat upon teetered. A new undercurrent of uneasiness infected all three of their bonds.

They would die before admitting a beta was what they had needed in their pack. And they got rid of him! Juno could gorge herself on the schadenfreude happily for the rest of her life.

“Do my head and neck next. And give me an update.”

“Yes, alpha,” Juno said placidly as she slid her hands up from where she had been massaging Andrew’s shoulders. She began to run both thumbs up and down his neck, eliciting a pleased grunt from him. It was late, the night about to tick over to a new day, and Juno was tired. Ever since Julian had been banished from her life, she had played the dutiful omega. She dared one time to suggest they leave her alone — at home with all cameras on, of course. Despite framing it as concerned sympathy — it must be so cumbersome factoring her in around all their ‘business’ dealings — they had snarled and dragged her to the nest until she was a pungent cocktail of their scents.

She wasn’t going to be doing that again.

Closing her eyes, she focused on her bonds to Eric and Vincent. “They’re both pretty excited. Eric feels…eager, I think. But Vincent is jittery. Practically giddy.” She mused as she began to press her fingertips into his scalp. She imagined they had tiny little snakes on them. Venomous ones. “I guess they’re having a good night.”

“What is going on?” Andrew muttered. “They’re meant to just be checking in on Spring Street. Routine.”

Their excitement simmered in the bond, sending phantom jolts of adrenaline through her system. A nervous sweat began to break out over her body as a result. She wished she could use her bond dampening techniques but she needed to be ready to report for Andrew.

Vincent and Eric without their prime was an unhinged combination.

Juno was about to move back down to Andrew’s neck again when the bitter tang of betrayal filled her mouth. It was coming from Eric and Vincent, acrid and sharp through the bond.

“Something’s happening,” she gasped. Andrew leapt up, scrambling to pull his phone from his pocket as he barked at her. “Tell me!”

A sudden sharp pain tore through her neck. Rage. Disbelief. Shock. She was being bombarded on two fronts with multiple emotions, so strong and disorienting she wanted to vomit. Andrew was still yelling at her, his alpha bark demanding obedience. But his voice sounded distorted. Bubbled and thick like it had travelled through water. The command lost its power by the time it reached her.

There was a ringing in her ears as white spots began to form in her vision. Couldn’t breathe; wheezing and gasping. Her fingers scrambled to her throat, trying to hold her flesh back together. She stared down in confusion when she only felt the soft collar of her T-shirt.

Eric’s despair was so severe it felt like her ribcage was being cracked open. Andrew was there as well, his panic a high-pitched whine rattling through her. But Vincent was scared. Cold. Fading. It didn’t matter that she held no love for him — he was still her bonded alpha and she was experiencing everything as he was violently torn from her.

A live vivisection.

There was immense pressure on her temples; drumming, drumming, drumming away a horrendous heartbeat. Three perfect circular droplets of blood stained the floor beneath her. She touched her nose and it came away red.

“I think Vincent’s dead.”

Juno took the full brunt of Andrew’s disbelief and fury on her chin, knocked clean from her chair. She lay on the floor, her body limp and devoid of all strength. Blank, glassy eyes stared at the ceiling as her lips moved without sound.

* * *

Her alphas were distraught.

It was…annoying. A better omega would be driven to comfort and soothe them but Juno just wanted a bit of peace and quiet. At least long enough to figure out why she was on the floor. And why her jaw was killing her.

Andrew’s face came into view above her, curses and spittle flying from his lips. Gross.

Oh that’s right. He’d hit her. After she’d told him Vincent was dead.

Her eyes widened. Vincent Zhao, the psychotic alpha she had been tethered to was gone. No more groping hands just to see her jump, no more senseless rages taken out on her body. One sadistic fucker down, two to go.

Holy shit.

“You’re happy?” Andrew was shaking her by the shoulders.

A thousand calculations and what-ifs ticked through Juno’s head in a single second. She chose the path of self-preservation.

With a relieved cry, she flung her arms around Andrew’s neck and pulled him down. She pressed her body up against his, as if desperate to feel every inch of him.

“You’re alright, oh god, you’re alive, it’s ok it’s ok it’s ok.” Juno blubbered incoherently into his hair. She felt his anger swing to confusion. Wiping away tears — ’cause talking hurt her jaw dammit — she clasped her hands on both sides of his face and stared with what she hoped was the picture of anguish.

“Losing Vincent in the bond…was the most painful thing I’ve ever felt,” she sniffed pathetically. “Don’t leave me. Don’t ever make me feel that again. Please, Andrew!”

Juno almost felt guilty at the grief that crossed Andrew’s face. Almost but didn’t. “He’s really gone?” Andrew whispered.

She nodded, her bottom lip trembling. “Eric’s hurting. Go find him. Bring him back to me. To us.”

Andrew kissed promises and reassurances onto her lips. She wiped it away as soon as he left the room.

* * *

There was no discussing death at Vincent’s funeral. Not how he died, where he died and definitely not why he died. Spiced incense smoke swirled around her, mingling with the scents of her two remaining alphas.

Andrew was angry. He was always angry now. That oppressive kind of angry where you replay scenarios of what you could have, would have, should have done differently.

If Andrew had kept a tighter leash on Vincent in the last couple of months, Vincent would never have been able to rope Eric into dealing pills to their gambling clientele. He wouldn’t have gotten greedy from the insane money he was making when he cared less and less about who he sold to. He would never have been lured into meeting a new supplier, who could provide Fentanyl-laced heroin. And he wouldn’t have been his aggressively cocky self that night, saying the wrong thing to the wrong person and earning himself a knife thrust to the throat. Eric wouldn’t have roared as he pressed his fingers to the gushing wound in a futile effort to stem the flow, before retaliating against his brother’s murderer covered in his blood. And Vincent’s funeral would not have needed a police presence to ensure an ankle-monitored Eric would return to house arrest without incident.

There were a lot of things that could have happened differently. But Andrew, Eric and Juno did not talk about it.

Juno did her best to soothe them through the bonds. It was imperative they didn’t dwell on the true catalyst of all this — her. If she hadn’t used Julian to attempt escape, the status quo would have been preserved.

Vincent would not have needed a closed casket.

“Can you both stay with me in my nest tonight?”

Lull them. Lie to them.

“Of course, omega.”

“Tonight, and every night from now on. No more separate rooms.”

They crowded her closer, gripping her tighter. She made herself soften into their touch instead of stiffening in displeasure. Trying to keep herself distracted, she looked around at the sombre faces. She was relieved that her family (could she really still call them that?) were not amongst them.

Their visit a few days ago was about as much as she could’ve tolerated.

Juno had been exhausted after a long week of visitors paying respects at the house. She patted concealer on her jaw each morning. Faces blurred as she moved on auto-pilot, offering tea and accepting condolences with rote replies. As Pack Zhao’s sheltered omega pet, only three of those faces were familiar to her — her father, her mother and her brother, Ben.

“Hey. Are you doing ok?” Ben asked, eyes full of concern. “I’ve tried to come see you so many times but they always just—”

He was pushed aside and her mother grasped her arm, her nails pinching. “Are you making sure your alphas are looked after?” her mother hissed in Mandarin. “Don’t give them a reason to regret our deal.”

“Do whatever your alphas say, alright?” Her father implored.

Juno offered them tea and moved them into the house. They were strangers now, just like everyone else around her. It was sad how her parents’ behaviour was completely unsurprising, though Ben’s false empathy did sting a little. Maybe he was working a new angle to garner even more of their parents’ fawning attention.

Yes, it was a good thing none of them were here today. She continued to rub small circles with her thumb on Andrew and Eric’s hands in what she hoped was a comforting manner, wishing the day was over.

* * *

“I think it’s time to take your birth control out.”

Andrew stroked the slightly raised bump on her arm. It had been implanted right after the first heat after they had all claimed her. Too busy wanting to get to knotting and biting to do it beforehand, Juno couldn’t even describe the sheer relief she’d felt when tests afterward were negative. She was grateful every day for that blessed little rod.

“Yes,” Eric agreed. “It’s just what our pack needs right now after everything. It’s a good thing I made bail.”

Andrew and Eric exchanged a look implying they had taken steps to ensure that would be the case. But all Juno could focus on was the first part. Fuck no. A child? With them? She would never be free of them. Panic seized her.

Andrew’s eyes narrowed, sensing her distress.

“I’m scared of giving birth,” she blurted out. “And carrying more than one.” She lowered her gaze, looking away timidly. “O-Omegas impregnated by alphas during heats almost always result in multiples. I mean, it definitely runs in your family.”

Deceive them. Delude them.

“You were made for this,” Eric leered, his hand sliding over her stomach.

“Made to be bred,” Andrew continued. “Made to carry our future alpha sons.”

The sharp sound of his hand striking her bare thigh splintered the air. “Present for your alpha,” he barked.

Driven by the inescapable command, she did so.

Afterward, Juno lay in bed unable to sleep, the rhythmic snores of her alphas breaking the silence. Her fingers subconsciously traced her implant. She thought of the broken bond, of living Vincent’s final moments horrifically alongside him.

Juno’s mind turned as a plan began to form.