The Rogue King {18+} (Book 2)

47. We're Practically Family

This chapter still needs some editing but nonetheless, I hope you all enjoy!

✨🌘✨

- Torben

Almost twenty minutes after Asmara jumped into the freezing cold stream, leaving me here to wait in deafening silence, three heads emerged from the water, gasping for air.

Aicha leaned off the wall where she had been waiting and biting at her fingernails. We had shared little conversation and spent the past five minutes in silence, worried too much about why it was taking them so long to return with Wyatt.

Aicha approached my side at the edge of the stream, where I had been standing the whole time, and assessed the new face. She caught his eye, and he tilted his head to the side, wet curls falling over his right eye, and grinned.

Aicha smiled back and then looked at me. "That's Asmara's brother for sure."

"I know." My lips twitched only slightly. I made sure Reagan and Des were both accounted for without harm and waited patiently for all three of them to climb out of the water.

Breathing in the damp air of the cave, Wyatt shook the water from his hair and twisted the fabric of his shirt to drain any water.

Des, who was standing beside him, was showered with the water from Wyatt's hair. "Can you warn me next time you do that?"

"Sorry," Wyatt said, unapologetically and then looked at me. Humour disappeared, a brotherly protectiveness taking its place. "Your Torben." It wasn't a question. He sensed my alpha status, had put together any description of me that he had been told and made a very smart assumption.

"Yes." Reagan confirmed for me.

"And you're my mates' younger brother." He was sixteen or seventeen if I remembered rightly. He didn't look his age with muscle just like his father and a sharp jaw that had no problems growing a beard if he chose to.

"There's a lot I plan to say to you, but I'd prefer it if it wasn't in a dark, damp cave and I don't suppose you have any dry clothes, do you?"

Reagan smirked and Des was draining his own shirt of water while holding back a laugh.

I nodded and smiled, mischief dancing in my gaze.

"Yes, and I suggest you pick something formal. We can talk over a nice dinner because after all, we're practically family."

Wyatt seemed disturbed by that idea, but he didn't refuse my offer of dinner, so I took that as a good sign.

An hour later we were at my home, inside the dining room with plates of various meats and vegetables, hot and fresh from the oven and ready for anyone to grab. A fire was roaring from the fireplace, keeping the chilled air outside and made the dining room comfortable. We were being served tonight by Josephine who I had spotted in the kitchens on my way here.

For some reason my mate had taken a liking to her and now looked out for her. Her mother, a woman from Asmara's very own pack, was forcing her children to leave from what I had been told. I didn't know more than that, but I know it bothered Asmara.

Desmond and Reagan sat on the right of the table beside each other. Desmond was looking at the food, mouth-watering and sending me pleading glances to at least take a bite. One bite from the alpha and he could feast himself to an early grave. Reagan was hungry too. I was sure of it because the poor male hadn't eaten for hours, though unlike Desmond, he'd rather cut off his own tongue then beg me to eat so he could.