..CHAPTER SEVEN..

Jongin’s fight and flight reflexes were desperately trying to jump in; but weirdly enough even though his mind was all about ‘flight’ yet his hormonally challenged body rooted itself before getting ready for fight. A foreign low rumble teared out of Jongin’s suddenly tense body. As in compelled; he found his body crouching low ready to jump at the enemy.

“Stop it Chanyeol, you are scaring his baby wolf spirit,” An amused and unknown voice drawled from behind, snapping Jongin out of his haze filled mind. Slightly scared but intrigued, he turned around to find the source of the voice only to come face to face with a slim figure possessing rather beautiful features, standing in the mid of snarling werewolves. “Easy baby wolf, we mean you no harm.”

“W-Who are you?” Jongin asked with a dry throat, eyes skipping over the growling wolves around him, who started to turn into their human forms one by one. “All of you? And what do you want from me?”

Jongin’s gaze flittered over the now-humans, taking in their height difference and their entire handsome features with a gapping mouth. There were six of them, a few scowling at him and a few smirking… baffling Jongin to maximum. The tallest, a few inches taller than Jongin’s own impressive height, had his eyes slanted dangerously at him, making the scared Jongin to gulp painfully. They all stood in a circular form, eyeing Jongin in a judging manner.

“We were looking for someone and your scent kind of misleads us,” A deep voice answered and Jongin found his attention coming to halt on the tall guy. He was fairly handsome and eluding an aura of power, Jongin was quick to notice.

“But I can still smell him on this boy, Chanyeol,” Another grave voice sounded from Jongin’s left. The man was broad in figure, handsome with similar jet black hairs like Jongin’s. “Clearly he is his mate.”

“Touché,” The pretty boy from earlier muttered pleasantly, friendly draping an arm around the tense Jongin. “Relax baby wolf, nobody is gonna hurt you. You are our Sehunie’s little mate, right?”

“Damn right, Baekhyun,” A husky and rather familiar voice growled out of blue and suddenly Jongin found his arm being yanked roughly before he was pushed to hide behind Sehun’s broad shoulders. “Nobody touches him thus no one can hurt him… even accidently, do I make myself clear?”

“Wow Sehun,” A slightly short but intelligent looking male cried, feigning hurt. “Just because you found a mate doesn’t mean you can be disrespectful to your elder brothers.”

“And best friend!” The pretty one, known as Baekhyun, screamed in an indignant manner, eyes comically wide.

“Of course I can,” Sehun retorted in a bored tone before swirling around to lightly caress Jongin’s face. “You okay?” Jongin blinked blankly before giving a jerky nod at the inquiry and ignoring the shouts of protest from the sudden intruders, however Sehun kept his attention solely on his mate. “I told you not to go out on your own. See, trouble everywhere! Now come on, let’s head back to our safe haven.”

Sehun tugged at Jongin’s arm but the younger boy was not having any of that, with his eyes fixed at the suddenly forlorn faces behind Sehun’s back.

“Who are they, Sehun?” Jongin inquired in a mere whisper, searching Sehun’s blank face without much success. “Do you know them?”

“Nope,” Sehun denied in a heartbeat, blinking his beautiful eyes rather lazily. “I have no idea who they are.”

It was dangerously still and silent for a moment, the newcomers faces splashed with appall.

“We are his brothers,” Abruptly, the tallest one put a hand on Sehun’s shoulder while keeping his eyes fixed on Jongin’s astonishment filled face. “Oh Kyungsoo, Oh Jongdae and I- Oh Chanyeol- are unfortunately elder siblings of this ungrateful and strong headed man.”

“Brothers?” Jongin noticed his voice echoed in the stillness around them, confusion evident on his face as he forced Sehun to turn and face him. “They are you brothers?”

“Jongin,” Sehun heaved a deep sigh, rolling his eyes upward like in a silent prayer.

But before he could say anything further the unwelcomed company of their shouted a loud and baffled, “Jongin?” “KIM Jongin?” “Our Jongin?”

“No, I am Song Jongin,” Jongin clarified with an innocent tilt of his head only to received several gapping faces staring at him, surprise transparent on their faces. “W-Why?”

“No!” Baekhyun grounded forcefully, advancing a couple of steps toward the younger boy. “You are a Kim, we would know because I, Minseok and Junmyeon are the Kim siblings, while you Kim Jongin are the fruit of our father’s little affair with a hunter’s kin.”

“W-what…?” Jongin gapped, shock and surprise frozen on his handsome features. “N-no… n-no…”

“Oh Sehun!” The tallest among them, Chanyeol, growled in a menacing way, making Sehun to heave another sigh before glaring at Jongin, like the young boy was the one at fault. “You didn’t tell him anything?!”

“Oh, this is so no happening,” Sehun roughly palmed his face, defeat written on his face.

O-o-o-o-O

“B-Brothers?” Jongin stuttered, wide brown eyes flittering over three smiling faces of Kim Minseok, Kim Junmyeon and Kim Baekhyun. “My b-brothers? But that’s…”

Obviously it was a joke. Sehun must be pranking him; Jongin tried convincing his own self. Taemin and Jimin were his only brothers, right? He can’t possibly suddenly get three more elder brothers out of nowhere… that’s just absurd.

“Yes they are your brothers,” Sehun said in a gentle manner, lightly rubbing Jongin’s back as they sat in one corner of the cave while their unwelcomed guests were splashed all over the cave’s floor, not minding the dirt. “While Chanyeol, Jongdae and Kyungsoo are my brothers… mated with your brothers.”

“It was an agreement between the Kim Clan and Oh Clan,” Baekhyun chirped in happily. “When the hunter’s clan invaded our home in Forest Heem, we- that is to say the Kim Clan- migrated toward the Mountain of Death. Father- who was the Alpha of Kim Clan- came across the Alpha of Oh Clan and requested him to merge both clans, since majority of our clan died at the hands of hunters. However, joining the power of two clans required some sacrifices and promises… therefore Father gave up his Alpha title along with a promise to join the Oh Clan by marrying each of us with Alpha Oh’s sons… of course, after we come of age, that is.”

“But of course there was a tiny problem,” Minseok jumped in to carry on with other’s words. “We were only three and Alpha Oh had four sons…”

“Which technically was not a big deal,” Junmyeon explained further. “But somehow father felt the need to do things properly and since our mother died while giving birth to Baekhyun. After the death of our mother, father had gotten himself a lover that none of us knew about. It was a couple of years later; our clan had already settled in the establishment of Oh Clan, when father came wandering back to forest Heem in search for his lover, better known as Wihium.”

“Oh my,” Jongin exhaled as his brain started to connects dots.

“Precisely,” Baekhyun grinned widely. “Apparently he found her and she was already married. Lord only knows what went between them, Father said he only wanted to tell her proper goodbye but not long after it he received the news of his lover becoming pregnant with a child. Her letter clearly stated that the child was Father’s.”

Jongin slapped a hand over his mouth, while a distant memory resurfaces his mind… his mother’s words ‘I made a grave mistake…’ echoed around his head. All his life his mother had treated him differently, he was always at the receiving end of most punishments and even the last happening, where he was being forced to marry a man thrice his age… everything started to make sense to Jongin, now.

“Werewolves are magical beings,” It was Kyungsoo’s deep voice that broke the silence around the dark cavern, his round eyes making the younger boy uncomfortable. “But the process of reproduction comes to them naturally, thus no one had any doubt that the child- albeit being conceived inside a human body- would be a werewolf. And by the black magic that bounded the Kim Clan with Oh Clan… you were supposed to be a part of our family… bounded to be Sehun’s mate.”

“However, a werewolf’s transaction period starts at completion of adolescence,” Jongdae explained further. “Meaning at the age of eighteen. Your father conveyed this fact to your mother… they kept in touch for a few years before your mother stopped any sort of communication between them.”

“But I am not eighteen yet,” Jongin said, turning to look questioningly at his mate. “You said it was because of our mate bond.”

“Yeah, it is due to our mate bond,” Sehun assured. “Technically we were supposed to be mated after you came of age but… well, you know, due to certain happening…”

“You knew all of this?” Jongin inquired while frowning deeply, trying hard not to let accusation seep in his tone. “Why didn’t you tell me the whole truth from the start, Sehun? About our brothers, about our fathers and especially about us, huh?”

“Because…” Sehun bit his bottom lip in slight guilt. “I thought if I told you about your brothers, you might insist on going back to the Clan and I didn’t want that… I told you I have too much pride.”

“Oh,” Jongin’s thick lips went all round like an ‘o’ before he nodded in somewhat understanding.

“What are you even talking about?” Finally Chanyeol, who had kept his silence for so long, shouted in anger. “The only reason you left the Clan was because you kept saying you didn’t wanted to mate someone you have never seen in your life… yet here you are, with that same boy sitting in your lap. So, what is the problem now? Why won’t you return to the Clan now? What’s the point of living in the wild, anyways?”

“Sehun,” Jongin screeched in a reproachful manner, sadness evident in his features.

“You are my mate, Jongin and I love you,” Sehun mumbled directly in the younger boy’s ear, yet every werewolf, due to their sensitive hear picked upon the sweet confession, making Jongdae and Baekhyun to pretend to shudder while Kyungsoo stared at his younger sibling with transparent astonishment. “I promised you a best carved life in city, right? Just trust in me.”

“But Sehun, back at Clan-” Baekhyun started, frowning at the tall pale man.

“No Baekhyun, don’t,” Out of blue Chanyeol ordered his mate, his long hand wrapped around Baekhyun’s forearm as the latter turn to arch a brow at him. However, Chanyeol just shook his head in a decided manner. “I think everything has become crystal clear for us,” Chanyeol mumbled, sparing a glower to Sehun while he clearly addressed the werewolves that had volunteered to travel with him, when Chanyeol had announce he would be going in search for his youngest brother. “Sehun doesn’t care about any of us, thus we should leave.”

“Don’t be overdramatic,” Sehun commented in annoyance.

“We are being overdramatic?” Junmyeon scoffed loudly. “Take a look at yourself first… the only reason why you don’t want to return is, you accepting your defeat since you en