9. CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 9
“I’m sorry.” Basel sat next to Leandro on the fallen log he’d found. When a blanket was wrapped around both, Leandro barely felt it, as the cold outside was nothing compared to what he felt inside. “I know that couldn’t have been easy, especially since you haven’t been through what we have.”
“Does it matter?” Leandro wasn’t certain why Basel thought it would have been any easier if he’d gone through the same hell the other Omega had. “Would you have been able to do what I did?”
“Yes. Not only that, but I have.” Basel’s words meant little since he knew the Omega had killed, but from afar.
“I’m not talking about with a gun where you don’t even have to get close to the guy.” Leandro wasn’t certain anyone would understand what he felt he’d had to do. The question was, had it been necessary?
“Neither did I.” Basel’s words surprised him enough that Leandro turned his head to look at the other Omega, who had become a fairly good friend since they’d started this trip.
“What?” he asked, dumbfounded.
Basel huffed a bit as if he was preparing himself to tell Leandro something he hadn’t wanted to talk about. Putting a hand on the other Omega’s arm, Leandro said, “If you don’t want to talk about it, you don’t have to. It really is none of my business.”
But Basel shook his head and blew out a calming breath. “No. I think you need to hear this, and maybe I need to talk about it as well.”
They sat there for another minute before Basel’s voice, pitched low as if not wanting to chance anyone else hearing him, started speaking. “When you all rescued me, that had been my third time being captured by Alphas, who thought I was nothing more than property.”
He chuckled darkly. “Hell, most of them didn’t even think that highly of me.”
Then he shook his head as if clearing it. “My fathers had gotten sick when I was sixteen. A year later, they were both dead. My Alpha brother, who was a year younger than me, sold me so he would have enough to eat for the year while he found somewhere he could live since he wasn’t strong enough to live off the land.
“The thing was, I wasn’t even mad at him,” Basel admitted. “Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t happy either, but he had always been too lazy to learn the lessons my fathers tried to teach him about hunting, farming, and anything else required to live out west.”
Leandro noticed Basel’s hands were clenched into fists, but didn’t mention it.
“The thing was, I had. If we’d worked together, we might have made it, but my brother wanted what other alphas he’d met had. A place to call home, respect, and admiration. It was something he’d never gotten since the Alphas, whom he’d tried to sell me to, recognized just how weak he was and killed him instead of paying him.”
Talk about karma.
“Before they had gotten me back to their camp, I had killed the three of the Alphas transporting me. They were quick and clean kills,” Basel admitted. “Don’t get me wrong, I had used a knife I’d grabbed when one of the Alphas had raped me. He didn’t get the chance before I’d stabbed him in the carotid, and he bled out.”
Admittedly, that was close, but it wasn’t the same as torturing someone for information.
“The other two were dead before they even knew what had happened.” Basel wasn’t exactly smiling, but he seemed pleased with himself. “The second time I was taken I was living on my own in a small cabin in the middle of nowhere. An Alpha must have seen me hunting and followed me back to my cabin.”
Shit. Leandro could only imagine how terrifying it would have been to realize he’d gotten away once and was about to be taken for the second time.
“He only brought one other Alpha with him, which was probably a good thing since they caught me completely by surprise.” Basel shivered, as if the thought of what could have happened was terrifying. “I barely got out the back before they could catch me. I made my way around back to the front and surprised them, which made it easy to kill the first one.”
“What about the second Alpha?” Leandro asked.
“I captured him and hogtied him just like…” He looked back in the direction where Leandro had tortured the Alpha who had chased them. “I needed to know if there were others after me. Someone else they had told about my location, and as far as I was concerned, there was only one way to accomplish that.”
“Oh.” Leandro wasn’t exactly happy about what Basel had gone through, but he had to admit, it was nice to know someone knew what it was like.
“Guys, we have a plan,” Weston called out from where he, Oxley, and Griggs had been discussing the best way to help Kelce. “You ready to hear it?”
As far as Leandro was concerned, he was more than ready to get his mind off what he’d done. If he was lucky, he would not have to think about any of it for a time. “We’re ready,” he answered for both him and Basel.
Of course, that was before he heard their insane plan.
“Are you kidding me?” he asked. “We don’t even know where Kelce is. How is any of this supposed to work?”
“The bird whistles,” Oxley told him. “We have about twenty that tell different information. One of them is to let Kelce know to come in our direction.”
It still seemed like an enormous risk. “What happens if he’s too far away to hear you? For all we know, he’s much further west than we are. How are we going to know where to set up?”
Weston moved his head from side to side a bit as he contemplated the question. “I admit we have no accurate way of knowing. But, especially since we’d been aggressively coming up with various plans for just about every scenario. When we came out here, we discussed various plans since the odds of coming across Alphas looking to attack us were inevitable.”
Leandro crossed his arms and glared at the highhandedness of the Alpha. That they had done all of this behind Leandro’s back was the exact reason he’d known he couldn’t trust Weston. Not really.
Sure, he might have wanted to and even attempted to believe he might be able to, but that was all it was—just a fantasy—nothing more, nothing less.
Wisely, the other three men not only took several steps back but then turned on their heels and walked away to give them privacy. The guilt on Weston’s face told him the Alpha damn well knew what he’d done wrong.
“Look,” Weston said with a hand outstretched, as if he were trying to calm a skittish animal. “I get it. We…I should have told you. But…” He let out a sigh and took several steps toward Leandro until he could reach out and take Leandro’s hands.
“Look, I’m sorry, okay?” But Weston’s words weren’t helping in the slightest.
“No. Not okay.” Leandro yanked his hands out of Weston’s and took several steps back. “Once again, you felt I’m the weak Omega who can’t handle anything.”
“No,” Weston practically shouted, although kept it from being too loud since they did not know who else might be around. “I’ve never once considered you weak. Hell, you’re one of the strongest people I know.”
“Bullshit.” Leandro wasn’t about to be placated, not when Weston’s actions showed that wasn’t even remotely true.
“It isn’t bullshit,” Weston bit out. “Do I think you’re strong? Fuck yes. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to protect you.” When Leandro opened his mouth to protest, Weston placed his index finger over his lips. “Wait. It has nothing to do with you being an Omega. It has to do with you being mine. I love you, and I would do anything in this world to keep you safe.”
Was his heart melting into a pile of goo?