6. Juno

6

JUNO

Juno didn’t tell anyone about the alpha from the Lume. Not her therapist, not Hazel or the other omegas she lived at the Omega Village with.

The Omega Village was a massive gated community managed by the National Omega Commission. Most omegas applied and paid to live there, drawn to the ways they could safely encounter alphas. Be it through heat services, pack scent matchmaking or the glitzy courtship galas that launched so many Cinderella stories.

But a small percentage like herself were there by the generosity of donors. Additional funding poured in from wealthy patron alphas and packs. Many of them had bonded former residents, and the regular donations were a way of thanking NOC for keeping their omega safe. Her participation and success in the trials ensured she’d always have a home there.

Her first year there was survival mode, reeling from the move interstate and throwing herself entirely into the trial. NOC had a Village in her home state but being 700 km away felt safer.

The second year was about healing. Therapy and lots of it. Moments of breakthrough and euphoria followed by periods of isolation as she closed herself off from the world. Afraid to live and preferring to be numb. Hazel would drag her out for a coffee as often as she could, undeterred by all the times she said no. The lovely older beta couple who owned the Omega Village’s main cafe offered her a job — in the back, away from people. The extra money was great but the semblance of normality and routine it gave her was a godsend. By December, she had learned to operate the gigantic, noisy coffee machine and pumped out coffees four mornings a week.

The third year was about finding her feet again. She wanted to push her art further, and applied for a Graphic Design course at the Southern Cross College of the Arts. NOC had pulled strings to get her special consideration and she completed her first year remotely.

This year, Juno was ready to attend classes in person.

Maybe.

Well, she didn’t really have a choice so she would have to be. She’d apologised profusely to her bosses once she got her schedule, saying she would have to cut way back on her shifts and maybe even quit. All she got in return was a big hug, a promise that she would always have a job there and a box of muffins on the verge of becoming rocks.

Her first class was Art Direction for Branded Communication. It was her first chance to pick up an elective and she chose one that had potential for earning income in the future. No starving in a ditch for this aspiring artist!

She stepped into the mid-size lecture hall, trying not to let her anxiety get the best of her. Where was the best place to sit? How many of these students already knew each other? Was there some sort of social food chain that she would disrupt if she set a foot wrong?

Guess first day of school nerves was a cliché for a reason.

“Morning. Take a syllabus and grab a seat. We’ll begin shortly.”

The voice was deep and smooth, with a lazy London accent. Its owner was unbelievably tall, slender bordering on lanky. Slightly scruffy and roughed up, from his thick full moustache and unkempt beard to the slightly frayed neckline of his khaki long-sleeve. He was the picture of an erratic creative and nothing like a university lecturer. His Earl Grey scent spoke of languid afternoons spent between books, then sheets; lost in abstract thoughts with no sense of time or place. Rich, syrupy honey centred him; sweet as a goodbye kiss on the tip of the nose. A secret note only she would understand slipped in the pocket to be found later. Their eyes met at the same time as he happened to push his dark hair back off his forehead.

It was goddamn sinful.

What the fuck was going on? She’d gone three years without a single alpha being noteworthy of a second look. Now she’d encountered a second one in two days that made her perfume right through her scent-neutralising spray like a freshly awakened omega.

Juno knew the moment he scented her because his head snapped up, nostrils flaring. His jaw hardened as his fist clenched tightly, crinkling the paper he was holding.

“Sit down,” he ordered her sharply, before blinking as he realised how he’d sounded. “Please,” he added with forced politeness.

Juno raced to the back of the lecture hall, completely mortified. She sat down hurriedly, a few seats down from a giggling group of girls.

“That man is a snack.”

“He’s so much taller in real life, don’t you think?”

“I can’t believe he’s here teaching, he just won the Cannes Lions Outdoor Grand Prix last year — you know, for that Coke ad? Last thing anyone expected him to do was leave his London agency.”

“Who cares, he’s here now? Think I can convince him to give me a D?”

Their muffled screeches were a welcome distraction while her perfume calmed down. Though a very unwelcome thread of possessiveness ran through her at their gossip. The hell? You literally just met the guy 5 seconds ago.

“Welcome to Art Direction for Branded Communication. I’m Ari Mehra but please, call me Ari. I’m not a Professor—”

“—but you are a daddy,” tittered one of the girls under her breath.

“—just an Ad man turned…teacher. I was an Executive Creative Director in London, but I started out as an art director. Hence…” He gave an irreverent wave of his hand at the title slide on the screen above his head. As an omega, Juno was always more attuned to emotions than most — probably an evolutionary trait borne from being the centre of a pack. She could detect an undercurrent of bitterness in his voice, tinged with resignation, as if he were making the best of a bad situation.

“As art directors, we have an entire visual language at our disposal to communicate our message. Photography, illustration, film, animation, graphic design — our list of tools is endless. I hope to give you a foundational understanding of choosing the right medium for your message and executing it as effectively as possible.”

“Oh my god, Priya, what have you gotten me into?”

“Yeah, what the hell. I swear, if this tanks my GPA…”

Juno couldn’t disagree with them more. She loved the sound of the class.

She just had to quash the sudden crush on her lecturer she had managed to cultivate from a single whiff of his scent.

* * *

There was really nowhere to hide in the tutorial. She’d managed to grab a slot in the one immediately following the lecture and only got lost twice on the way there. Juno joined about fifteen other students in the small classroom, including one of the chatty girls from earlier, keeping her eyes down as she selected a seat.

She was so focused on not drawing Ari’s attention she didn’t realise she had sat down next to an alpha until it was too late. He looked like he’d stepped directly off a surfboard into the class and he smelled of patchouli. It did nothing for her.

He gave her a once-over, lingering on her tattooed neck and smirked like he relished a challenge.

“Hey Princess Peach.”

“Yeah, that’s not my name,” Juno bit back.

Completely undeterred, he mimed a cat scratching its claws before lounging back in his chair. He threw his arm over the back of it so his fingertips dangled close to her shoulder. She glanced over at Ari, who was watching them looking murderous.

She slid away from the other alpha, squashing her body into the far side of her seat as much as possible. Ari watched her movements and it only seemed to anger him further.

Fuck, she didn’t even do anything and she was pissing him off.

Thankfully the rest of the class settled in and he was forced to start. They went around in a circle introducing themselves with an icebreaker exercise — what’s an ad you’ve seen recently that you liked and why? Ari had shown himself to be a benevolent teacher, letting them know at the end of the lecture that they would be asked this so they had time to think it over.

Now that she was in close quarters with less people around, Juno could tell the ringleader of the girl group was a beta, with a light jasmine fragrance. She introduced herself as Priya, she was studying Marketing and said in a voice loaded with innuendo that her favourite ad was “this amazing interactive billboard for Coke in London.”

Without missing a single beat, Ari simply asked for a more recent ad she would have seen locally. That, coupled with Priya’s stammering reply, shouldn’t have pleased her as much as it did.

Patchouli alpha was a Media student unsurprisingly named Bodhi. He named a Pixelgram ad he’d seen and said it must have worked because he could still remember how hot the chick was in it.

“It’s the tattoos that got me,” he said with a wink in her direction. Juno rolled her eyes. I miss remote learning.

“If your answer is an indication of how seriously you are taking this class, feel free to leave now. I believe you can still drop my class without penalty.” Ari rose up to his full height from where he had been leaning on the desk. “In fact, if I get another answer along the lines of that one, I’m going to have to insist on it. So what’s it going to be, Bodhi?” He laced his name with utmost contempt.

“Staying,” he grumbled under his breath. He thankfully did not try to make another pass at her, slumping back in his chair.

Then Ari’s attention was on her, and she tried (and failed) not to think about what those miles of tawny olive skin would feel like pressed against her. The bitterness of his tea scent sweetened as the sugar in hers called to him. Out of the corner of her eye she noticed Priya staring at Ari and then back at her.

“My name’s Juno. I’m studying Graphic Design,” she said quickly, hoping no one else noticed anything amiss. “Um, that new crazy hyped season of that fantasy show that’s coming out, Shifter Moon? They repurposed an entire facade of a train station to mimic one of the major locations in the show and it changes depending on whether it’s day or night. You know…cause of the moon…like in the show.” She wasn’t used to so much attention on her and faltered. “I-I thought it was done well,” she finished lamely.

“Do you think it was an effective activation, considering it was only in one location?”

She thought about it for a moment before answering. “I think the point of it is to get people excited enough to talk about it — both in person and online. It feels much less like an ad if you’re seeing photos from a friend of yours interacting with it. It’d probably lead to you discussing theories of the upcoming season or just how excited you are for it. So yes, I think that means it’s effective.”

His approving nod was much too fleeting.

They focused on outdoor advertising for the rest of the class. “Art direction in its most basic form — image, copy and logo” as Ari described it. They took ten minutes on their own to address a simple brief before pairing up to critique. Bodhi leaned in but didn’t get a word out before he was interrupted by Ari’s bark.

“Bodhi, pair up with Tom over here. Juno, you’re with Priya.”

Priya watched her the entire time as she made her way over and sat down. She felt like a mouse in the sight of a swaying cobra.

“It must be nice to be able to attend classes for fun instead of actually preparing for a career.”

Juno stared at her incredulously. “Excuse me?”

“I mean, that’s what you omegas do right? Find ways to pass time while hunting down a pack so you can be a little kept pet?” Priya’s wide eyes and false smile was unnerving. Her scent-neutralising spray must have expired if Priya could scent her.

“You know nothing about me,” Juno replied coldly. “Now do you want to go first with the critique or should—”

“Don’t think you automatically get him ’cause you’re an omega.”

“What?” Juno snapped back, quickly losing her patience.

“Don’t act stupid.” Priya tilted her head in Ari’s direction.

Juno refused to back down, meeting that poisonous gaze directly. “He’s our lecturer.” She tapped her notebook. “Are we doing this?”

Priya sighed exasperatedly as she snatched the notebook from her, and Juno knew without a doubt that this was far from over.