“Kyungsoo, stop it!”

“You shut up you spineless bastard, you are not the one whose fiancé has betrayed you.”

Kyungsoo maybe a small package but he was dynamite. The one who knew that the most was Jongin and yet he had done something grave enough to earn the wrath of the tiny omega.

“Kyungsoo…”

“Shut up you mutt. Don’t say my name you worthless piece of trash.” Kyungsoo kicked the conveniently on the floor Jongin for good measure and then stalked to their medicine man. Yixing cowered and stepped behind Chen, his alpha.

“Break it. Break it right now.” Kyungsoo shouted.

“Kyungsoo… he won’t survive…”

“I don’t care, I don’t care, break it right now.”

A loud resounding slap startled everyone in the camp. Kris had just slapped his dearest little brother. Kyungsoo touched his left cheek tentatively and stared at his brother.

“If not for that man, father would have died. And as the alpha of this pack, I will not leave a debt unpaid. Go inside and cool your head. The rest of you from the trip, you owe me an explanation. Chen and Yixing, I am leaving the stranger in your care tonight.”

Kyungsoo stalked off and soon everyone followed to their respective homes except Jongin and Kris. Kris looked at Jongin still sitting on the floor stunned and sighed.

“You should have more control over him you know. You are the alpha in the relationship.”

Jongin started at him and his eyes turned hard. In a flash, he had pounced on Kris aiming for his throat but Kris was fast enough to deflect the blow.

“You just slapped my mate.”

“My brother is not your mate yet, besides, I being the alpha of the pack can discipline anyone in the pack.”

Jongin slumped in defeat. Kris smiled and pulled the tired alpha towards his own dwelling.

“Come, you must explain what happened.”

Tao, Kris’ mate served hot milk and sat down besides Kris, just as Chanyeol, Sehun and Xiumin entered.

“Good, I guess everyone who knows about this mysterious stranger are here. So what happened?”

“It was my fault.”

Xiumin volunteered with his head bowed down.

“Ah, none of that now, Sehun, why don’t you start from the beginning and explain what exactly happened.”

Sehun was the most detached alpha Kris had ever met. Though he was the youngest, he was level headed and calculating. Perhaps that would change when he matured, but for now, Kris was grateful for his presence.

“We were nearing the Shin river when we smelt wolf blood. Given that it was so close to the College, we knew something was wrong. We hurried to check what was going on but the College was on fire already. The only one alive was the stranger, Joonmyun. From his robes we could tell he was a healer. But he was badly hurt and his neck was ripped off. We could tell that he was dying. Given that we needed him to tell us the cure for the foreign disease that your father caught, we needed to save him first.”

Sehun took a deep breath. There was no need to explain further, but he went on.

“Xiumin and Chanyeol are already mated and there was no way either of them could form a bond strong enough to heal him. I obviously am not yet mature enough to bond. The only one left was Jongin. Xiumin figured that since he is unmated, it would be possible for him to bond and then break it off before properly mating with Kyungsoo. Jongin bonded with him and we waited for two more days for Joonmyun to heal enough to talk. He told us where to get the herb we needed to treat your father after getting strong enough to talk and once we found what we needed, we returned.”

Kris stared at Jongin. “The only mistake you all did was bring back Jongin unwashed. The minute you entered, we could smell Joonmyun all over you.”

"Then we would still be in the forest. The day Jongin washes up willingly is the day the world would end" Chanyeol smirked

“I didn’t do anything. to take a bath, I just held him close and let our minds meld for a while to form a bond.” Jongin pouted.

“He cuddled with him.” Sehun stated matter of factly.

Kris chuckled before he said “Kyungsoo will come around. Now all of you go wash up. My poor mate has endured your stench long enough.”

“We smell like roses to Tao because he has gained tolerance to your stench. “Chanyeol shot back and ran out.