13. Ari

13

ARI

NOC were quickly on board once they realised that having a general public who opposed bond dissolution would not serve their bottom line. Ari immediately offered his services for free, telling them to divert the funds to the project budget to pull off his outlandish idea.

For once he was grateful for the time difference between hemispheres. He could teach during the day and work late into the night. He’d lost count of how many favours he’d called in from people in his previous life, thankful the goodwill he’d earned had not expired in his time away. Numerous midnight video chats resulted in mornings waking up at his desk drooling with a half composed email on the screen.

He’d never loved pro bono work more.

Andrew continued to upload videos daily to an algorithm that aggravatingly loved him. Produced in a similar fashion, tagged in the exact same way. Spouting bollocks about bond dissolution not respecting alpha consent. Conveniently ignoring the fact that one-way bond dissolutions existed purely because omegas had their consent violated. Andrew even managed to throw in the classic toxic line of omegas being slaves to their hormones, therefore rendering them incapable of logical thought. His followers ate it up like sharks eviscerating chum.

Ari and the others all knew it was bullshit but Juno took it hard.

That just gave Ari more fight in his blood.

His phone buzzed and he answered immediately when he saw it was his old colleague Rosanna — now executive producer of a production company.

“You are one bloody lucky fucker, Ari,” Rosanna said flatly in her signature drawl, raspy from years of chain smoking.

“He said yes!” Ari crowed, pumping his fist.

Ari had sent a pitch deck to Leon Hastings. A former UFC fighter, now star of a mega spy franchise. Prime of an extremely rare two omega pack and widely considered an alpha’s alpha.

His pitch contained a script that could be shot on green screen at any time in any studio that suited him.

SUPER:How to find an omega to bond:

LEON

Learn to cook their favourite food. Find out what their favourite flowers are. Take an interest in their hobby. Spend quality time together.

AUDIO OVERLAPS AS LIST GROWS.

SUPER:How not to find an omega to bond:

LEON

Barking them into non consensual submission during their heat.

CLOSE UP ON LEON.

LEON

It’s not that [BLEEP]-ing hard.

ENDFRAME:Consent matters. Bond dissolution matters.

Ari had also included a personal note with a brief summary of Juno’s story (with her permission, of course).

“Don’t know how you did it but yes, Leon’s on board,” Rosanna said, sounding completely unenthused. “Specifically said to tell you that if anyone did to his omegas what was done to yours, they’d be at the bottom of the Thames. So this was the least he could do.”

Ari’s head swelled to three times its normal size at the thought of Juno as his omega.

“What. A. Guy,” Ari said, spinning on his chair, still in disbelief. “That is a top, top bloke, I tell you.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. You can blow smoke up his ass at the shoot on Friday. The director you wanted can fit us into his schedule and our post team will be on stand-by to get this out the door ASAP.”

“You’re my favourite producer, Rosanna. I’ve always said it and it’s still true.”

“Have you got tits, hun?”

“No?”

“Then you’re not my type.” Ari laughed at her brusque dismissal. “Can you get here in time?” she asked, seriously.

He wasn’t fucking missing this. It had to be perfect.

“I’ll make it.”

He was a welcome visitor to the Pack Rivera-Gunnarsson house now. Ari was there almost every night for dinner, updating Juno on how everything was going. Isaac still intimidated the fuck out of him though, and Ollie was quick to pick up on it.

“Don’t be scared of him,” Ollie assured him one night after dinner.

“Easy for you to say,” Ari scoffed, doing a quick head-check to make sure Isaac wasn’t within earshot.

“If anything, you should feel sorry for him,” Ollie said with a hopeless shake of his head. “He’s a Filipino who can’t sing.”

Crickets. “What?” Ari was not sure how that was at all relevant.

“It’s true,” Ollie nodded, completely misunderstanding why Ari was confused. “It’s a very serious condition with no cure. I think Mama cried when she realised she would never be able to duet with her firstborn son. I think that’s why he works so hard at being good at other stuff. ’Cause you put a mic in his hand and…” Ollie made the sign of the cross on himself.

“You know what that helps, thank you.”

“Anytime, brother.”

Tonight, Ari was bursting to tell them he’d landed his white whale.

“We got Leon,” he announced with a broad smile, settling himself into his chair and helping himself to the platters of food laid out family style in front of him. He was late but no one seemed to mind, simply glad that he had not missed dinner entirely. “I fly out tonight to shoot with him in London.”

The table erupted with noise at the news.

“Oh my god.”

“You are fucking joking.”

“Well done, Ari.” — that came from Isaac and tickled a lizard part of his brain.

“You should get a selfie where he’s pretending to choke you out,” Miles suggested, demonstrating with his tongue lolling.

“I will not be doing that,” Ari said firmly. “At least not straight away,” he added blandly after a beat.

The boisterous laughter and familiar claps on his back that followed felt very right somehow.

He really should be making his way home to finish packing. But it would’ve been rude not to help clean up. At least that’s what he told himself as he helped Everett load the dishwasher.

The big alpha didn’t say much and only offered a grunt of appreciation. Ari had heard all about Juno facing off against Everett’s scent match at the fundraising gala. The thought of Everett rejecting his scent match buzzed incessantly in his brain ever since.

“How did you do it?” Ari blurted out. “Pick your pack over your scent match?”

Everett stilled. He finished washing a platter too large for the dishwasher and placed it carefully on the rack to dry. Then turned to Ari, leaning his hip against the bench and crossing his tattooed arms.

“Juno told me about what happened with your old pack. Before she drove a wedge between you all, was Amelia a good person?”

Was she? Ari instinctively drew devil horns and a forked tail on her image whenever he thought of her. But before he had met Lucy, he had been happy for his pack brothers, hadn’t he? Supported them all through heats the way he’d heard Isaac and Everett had done for Juno. He recalled many a pub trivia night and football match attended where he had been happy. Amelia had been his friend, and if he had stayed, probably a sister to him.

“Yes,” Ari whispered.

Everett swiped his hand across his stubbled jaw, considering his next words carefully. “Omegas and alphas, we can get irrationally possessive. I think Amelia saw a threat to her pack and reacted accordingly. And her alphas followed her lead. But that doesn’t excuse their actions or make it right. You agreed Amelia was a good person, and obviously before everything happened, your pack brothers were too, right?”

Ari nodded dumbly, his mouth going dry.

“Then there were a million other less destructive ways to have resolved things,” Everett said firmly. “Your pack didn’t choose their scent match because you weren’t worthy of them. They did it because they weren’t worthy of you.”

His heartbeat was thundering in his ears, his throat, his chest.

“Breathe, man.”

Ari gasped and the white spots clouding his vision disintegrated.

“For what it’s worth, I don’t think Juno would ever do what Amelia did. Her first reaction to finding out Isaac had bonded Miles was to apologise to Isaac for hitting on him,” Everett recalled wryly. The other alpha gave him a puzzled look, like he wasn’t sure how else to deal with Ari’s near catatonic state. Eventually he settled on handing him dirty dishes until Ari had mindlessly filled up the dishwasher.

Ari was slipping his shoes back on at the front door when he scented Juno nearby. She had only gotten more decadent the closer she got to her heat. It was probably for the best that he was going to be away for it as his dick had unequivocally not received the memo that she wasn’t his.

“I guess this is it for a while, huh?” Juno said, hugging her arms around herself.

Ari finished tying his laces and straightened up. “Just for a few days. I’ll be back home once it’s over.”

That seemed to perk her up somewhat. “Home’s here, then?” she asked with a curious raise of her brow as she opened the door for him.

“Huh.” He paused. “I guess so.” He leaned against the doorframe and she mirrored him on the opposite side. “I can’t wait to show you everything when it’s done.”

Ari needed this to work so badly. He wouldn’t survive letting her down a second time.

“I’m sure it’ll be amazing.” Juno smiled up at him with so much trust.

The need to touch, taste, feel, kiss her seared through his bones. All this time holding back and for what? Because she was his student? Because he was adamant about letting his past dictate his future?

It all seemed so trivial now, trapped at the threshold of her home by her bright eyes.

Ari lifted a hand to her face and her chin rose subconsciously towards him. He was certain he would burst into flames if he touched her skin, so instead ran his fingertips gently through the silken ends of her blonde hair.

“I’m tired of pretending I don’t want you with my whole heart.”

There. His truth was out.

“Then don’t,” she whispered.

The first gentle press of her lips against his was like lightning in his veins. Ari immediately deepened it, slanting his mouth over hers. Convinced his heart had beat it’s last beat when a lush moan escaped her and her tongue tangled with his.

“You drove me mad every time you were in my class.” More truths spilled from him unbidden as her kisses, touch and sounds stripped his defences bare. “This clever, stunning creature who made my dick hard every time she opened her mouth.”

He groaned when Juno pushed him hard against the doorframe. “You think you had it bad?” she hissed. “Do you know how disrespectfully hot you are when you roll your sleeves up? You did it at the start of every fucking class and I had to try and concentrate while your arms were out the whole time taunting me.”

She loved his arms? She could bloody have them. She could have anything she wanted so long as he could drown in a sea of her kisses.

“I wanted to tell everyone to fuck off so I could have you on my desk.”

“I pictured you walking up the aisle to my seat once everyone had left and getting on your knees for me. I’d come all over your face and you’d be forced to go to your next class covered in my slick.”

Ari pulled back and they stared at each other breathlessly. “Fucking hell, love,” he managed to croak out before he pulled her body back against his, grinding his painfully hard, pitifully trapped cock against her.

Your flight.

“I have to go,” he gasped, breaking them apart again. Torture. Complete and utter torture.

“I know.” Her lips were swollen and cheeks flushed pink. Because of him. Because of him.

“I have to go shoot this campaign for you.”

“I know. It’s fucking rude how wet that makes me.”

Ari bit his clenched fist and released a distressed growl.

“Let your pack take care of you during your heat,” he instructed her softly. The back of his hand traced down her cheek, chin and collarbone. His voice dropped, low and molten, as his touch trailed lower. “And then when I’m back?” Juno gasped when he cupped her mound, his middle finger sliding between her pussy lips. “We’ll make good on all our promises, sweetheart.”

Ari could actually see the heat spike take over her body, a wave of need shuddering from the epicentre of her cunt. Her pupils blew out and her already sumptuous scent tipped over into a dizzyingly divine territory.

He was equally irritated and grateful when Ollie appeared, no doubt sensing the change in Juno in their bond. “Take her,” he snarled, while trying to pry the panting omega off him with as much care as possible. “I have a flight to catch.”

Ari wound Juno’s arms around Ollie’s neck. She immediately latched on, her hips undulating against Ollie as her cute nuzzles into his neck quickly turned into hickey-forming kisses. “You know, I’ve always liked you, Ari,” Ollie said solemnly as he picked Juno up, wrapping her legs around his waist.

“Shove it up your arse, Ollie. I’ll see you later.”

Then he left his omega in the arms of one of her two bonded alphas.

But he had to believe it was going to be three soon.