26. Juno

26

JUNO

Ben had already been waiting off-camera and stepped into frame. Even though she had helped him do it, it was still so jarring to see his hair almost completely shorn off. Juno shuffled along the couch to make space for him and he sat down, fidgeting with the buttons of his blue shirt until they lay flat.

“Ben, thank you for joining us,” Ava welcomed him.

“It’s the least I could do for my sister,” Ben said, his strong sense of conviction clear.

“Do Juno’s childhood experiences align with your own?”

Ben was far more frank about his teenage years than Juno was, telling Ava about how soon he had to get a part-time job. How most of his paychecks went to his mum. Juno’s heart ached hearing him talk about worrying about there not being enough food, rent being late. Taking on more responsibilities like making calls to the electric company pretending to be Baba because their father didn’t speak English confidently.

“I felt like it fell to me as the eldest son to help my parents,” he admitted dejectedly. Juno hooked their index fingers together, a safe little haven hidden from the cameras by the closeness of their bodies.

Ava gave him a sympathetic head tilt. “Do you feel your father treated your sister differently?”

“Yes. I chalked it up to her young age and the fact that she was a girl.” Ben cast a side-long glance at Juno. “But we’ve made a recent discovery that put everything in a new light.”

“What was the discovery?”

Just because it was the truth, doesn’t mean it couldn’t also be a show.

After all, if Andrew played a part for the media, why couldn’t she enjoy her own theatrics?

Juno and Ben gave each other a small nod just like they had planned and turned back to Ava together. “We’re only half siblings,” Ben revealed.

“Half siblings,” Ava reiterated, taking in this new information. “With different…?”

“Fathers,” Juno emphasised meaningfully.

Ava looked between them, searching for resemblances and differences. She pulled up the family photo and glanced at Ben. The similarity between their father and him was unmistakable, especially when he was wearing the same colour shirt and his newly cropped hair resembled Baba’s slightly receding hairline.

“He handed you over to Pack Zhao because you weren’t his,” Ava deduced quietly under her breath.

Ben had sacrificed his precious voluminous locks for this moment. It was like he was mourning an actual person when Juno stood poised over him with the clippers the day before.

“Wait. Wait. I said wait!”

“Oh my god, Ben. I’m not making you do this, this was your idea,” Juno said impatiently, punctuating her words with a jab of the clippers and making him flinch.

“I know.” He took a dramatically large breath. “I want to do this for you. Just…let me be a big baby about it.”

“Oooook,” Juno said, backing away slowly. “I’m gonna grab Everett.”

“No! Juno, it has to be you.”

Men.

Ava wrapped up with Ben shortly after and they took a break.

“How do you think this will be received?” Juno asked Ava out of the corner of her eye as the make-up artist blotted her forehead.

Ava looked thoughtful. Juno liked that she didn’t just gush effusively. “I think you’re going to make waves we’re long overdue for,” Ava replied after a beat.

It wasn’t her intention going into this but she couldn’t help the pride flowering in her chest. “Good,” she said decisively.

The couch was very crowded when they began again. The rest of the pack had joined her as she sat squashed between Isaac and Everett. Those who couldn’t fit on the couch perched on barstools behind them so the camera could fit them in frame.

“My, there certainly are a lot of you,” Ava said light-heartedly. “How have the last few weeks been for you as a pack?”

Juno found herself shrinking into the seat as her pack spoke of the injustice she had been put through. It was deeply, deeply embarrassing how clearly they loved her. She was relieved when Ava turned the line of questioning to the accusations of them using their ‘money and influence’ to get an omega.

Everyone’s hackles rose and her bonds filled with indignation and outrage. Except for one.

“That’s why you were drawn to me when we first met, wasn’t it?” Ollie chimed in. “All my money and influence.”

He really was such a gift. “Yes, it definitely wasn’t the fact that we’re scent matched or this face,” Juno said, squishing his cheeks hard enough his lips resembled a fish.

Ava laughed and the tension dissipated immediately.

“So Ava, to answer your question — no. Absolutely not. We only made our first donation to the National Omega Commission this year — after Juno had joined our pack. None of us are despicable enough to think another human can be bought.” Isaac delivered his thinly veiled threat to Andrew with enough contempt to make even Juno’s non-existent balls shrivel.

“I think it would be hard for anyone to see you all and say that Juno does not belong. There’s a lot of love in this room right now,” Ava said kindly.

Isaac sat up straighter beside her. “There is still one thing that’s incomplete that I’m hoping to rectify today.”

“Oh? What would that be?”

Juno was curious too. She glanced around at anyone else but found only she was confused. Maybe she’d missed something during their debriefing?

“I always wanted to take my omega’s name once we found them. I still feel that way. Juno and I already agreed that Liu was not appropriate for…obvious reasons,” Isaac said as he reached out to take her hand.

“We never did land on a name though,” she said, her voice as wispy and fragile as she felt.

Isaac leaned in, his lips tipped in a furtive smile. “What do you think of Pack Reyna?”

“Reyna?”

“It’s a Filipino name that means ‘queen’,” Ollie supplied, his cheeks going pink as he reached over to clasp her other hand. “Just like Juno does.”

Isaac had found a way for them to take her name with none of the emotional baggage.

“I-I don’t…thank you,” was all Juno managed to stammer out. She looked down in her lap and blinked really hard until the tears dissolved away.

“This is truly special. Congratulations Pack Reyna,” Ava congratulated them. “One last thing — do you have anything to say to Pack Zhao?”

Juno was quiet for a moment. Even though this whole exercise had been to address what they had done, the question was jarring. The gravity of what she was about to say next was palpable.

“It’s clear they harbour a lot of anger and resentment towards me. I’m sure it can’t be easy being outsmarted by your purchased omega pet. I mean, we’re all just silly, hormone-driven, knot-obsessed idiots, aren’t we?”

Juno let out a humourless laugh before her expression grew hard.

“But this rhetoric Andrew is pushing is making the world a more frightening and unsafe place for omegas. That is unforgivable.”

Ava hugged her tight when it was all over. “You’re a rockstar,” she whispered just for Juno. “This is going to come up a treat.”

Juno pulled Everett aside as soon as she could. She knew Isaac wouldn’t have changed their pack name without everyone agreeing but she still wanted to check in with her big, silent alpha. “Are you sure you’re ok with losing Gunnarsson?”

He looked incredulous that she would even ask. “I think my dad would have asked why I didn’t do it sooner.” Everett ran his tongue along his lower lip and she knew she was about to be in for it. “I like the idea of you as our queen. And us as your loyal servants, ready to kneel at your feet and service you however you—”

“Ok, I get it!” Juno squeaked, dancing out of his grasp while eyeing the crew still in the room. Thankfully they were all occupied breaking down the equipment.

Isaac joined them, his palm finding the small of her back. “Was that ok? I hope you didn’t feel ambushed.”

He really was such a good prime. “I love it,” Juno reassured him. “Thank you.”

Juno forced herself to turn off the tablet after spending far too long scrolling. The interview had been overwhelmingly well received but of course the vitriolic comments were what stayed with her.

“They would’ve hated you regardless of what you’d done.”

She let Miles take the device from her and lay it aside before pulling her into the curve of his body. He began stroking her hair back off her face, something he’d learned could render her catatonic almost as well as a good alpha purr did. Juno let herself sink into the calming, repetitive motions, trying not to think about everything that had occurred since.

They had been invited to another NOC event and there had been even more interview requests. All of which she had turned down. Even Leon Hastings got in touch with a personal message. Omega advocacy groups were contacting her wanting her to be a spokesperson.

All of it scared her more than any faceless internet comment.

Juno rolled to face him, seeing concern in his beautiful hazel eyes. It seemed like a lifetime ago that he was her first and only link into the pack.

“All the positive attention,” she began slowly. “It’s lovely but…I don’t want any of it. I just want to finish my studies, get a job, live my life. Is that bad?”

Miles cupped her face and brought his lips down to hers. “No, of course not,” he reassured her. “Your life is for you. No one else.”

“Am I letting people down if I do that though?”

He drew slow circles on her cheek with the backs of his fingers. “Do you think you owe strangers more than what you owe yourself?”

She frowned when he put it like that. “Well no, I just…don’t want you guys to think less of me if I don’t do anything with this platform I’ve been given.”

It was hard. Omegas didn’t get opportunities like that. She felt like she was letting down her entire designation.

“None of us are built for the public eye, nor do we want it,” Miles said, a serious expression crossing his face. “I think you’ve given the world plenty of yourself already. All we want is for you to be happy. Never feel guilty for making choices that lead to that.” Juno dipped her head as tears welled up but he lifted her chin, wanting every vulnerable part of her. “It’s all I’ll ever need from you.”

“I love you,” she whispered as a tear slid down her cheek.

Miles brushed it away and kissed the path it had left. “I love you too.”

It was a different kind of lovemaking that night with Miles. Every aspect of them stripped back until it was nothing but their connection. Fingers slid into her shorts and circled her clit until she was slippery, soaked and gripping his wrist with both hands. Eventually letting the damp scrap of fabric slip off her ankles so she could open herself up for him, wanting more of his touch.

Miles left her aching entrance unattended — soon, he whispered — choosing to focus on drawing slick little circles as the tightness coiled and coiled in her belly. His glowing eyes never left her face as he watched her come. Only then did he cover her body with his and slide his hot, throbbing length deep inside her.

The pull of him out of her was so excruciatingly slow before he slammed back hard, like he couldn’t stand to leave the clasp of her body. Groaning as her pussy gripped him, coating him in wetness and heat. Miles pressed as much of their bare skin together as possible, wrapping her legs around his hips, his arms entwining around her and lips never letting her catch her breath.

“I want to live here forever,” he confessed, words slurred with desire.

Juno could’ve made a joke but she didn’t. She could feel how much he loved her and wanted to be in this moment with her in their bond.

“Don’t make me come,” she said, fingers twining through his silky hair. “Let’s make this last.”

It was an impossible task. Every stroke left them more ragged and exposed than the last.

“God, Miles.”

“I feel it too, beautiful.”

His hips continued their steady pace and she only got wetter. Their scents had long ago combined. Just one more glass, one more sip, one more taste, fully knowing it would never be enough.

“Stay with me.” It sounded like a prayer. She couldn’t leave even if she tried. They were entangled, completely ensnared in each other. His pleasure feeding her pleasure and hers into his. Juno reached between them and found her swollen nub.

“Please gorgeous,” Miles begged. “I need you to come with me.”

“So close.”

“I know, god, I know.”

Juno was certain there were permutations of them in multiple universes across time and space. Different bodies, different lives, different designations but the same Miles and Juno finding each other and loving each other. Because surely what they felt in that moment was big, so momentously big, the tiny Earth they were on couldn’t contain it.

They came almost together, Juno first and Miles following afterward as she clenched tight around him. She held him close for a long time afterward, not wanting the heat of him to leave her body.

Andrew’s Hail Mary came a few days after the interview aired.

He made a call to Isaac’s office. Because despite Juno being responsible for striking the previous blow, she wasn’t worthy of being contacted. No, this was business to be discussed alpha to alpha. Man to man.

Ashes to ashes and dust to dust.

“He wants to meet,” Isaac told her grimly.

“Of course he does,” Juno sighed.

“We’re going to finish this, Juno.”

She hoped with every weary fibre of her being that was true.