Page 23 of Betrayed Knocked-Up Mate

"How bad is it?" she asks quietly.

"Camila," I start, but she cuts me off.

"Don't. Don't try to exclude me from this. I'm already involved. I'm already helping your pack. I deserve to know what we're up against; you know I do.”

We. The word feels like it might crush me with all its monumental weight and scope.

This is exactly what I never wanted—Camila standing in a war room, looking at evidence of Kane's violence, inserting herself into dangers she doesn't fully understand.

But Rafael's words echo in my mind even now, the certainty of them.

"At least two sanctuaries have fallen in the past two weeks," Elena says before I can object. "Kane's forces are moving systematically south, testing defenses, perfecting their weapon. And their pattern..." She traces a line on the map. "Their pattern brings them straight toward Rosecreek. Even if they’re not targeting Rosecreek specifically, they’re tailing us, and Rosecreek is in the line of fire.”

Camila absorbs this with disturbing calm. "How long?"

"At their current pace? A week. Maybe two."

"Then we have time to prepare. To strengthen our defenses, to—"

"No," I say sharply. "You need to stay out of this. The further you are from our tactical planning, the safer you'll be when—"

"When what?" Camila rounds on me, eyes flashing gold. "When Kane arrives? When he attacks this pack like he attacked yours? When more people lose their shifts, lose parts of themselves, because you're too busy trying to protect everyone to let them help protect themselves? I might not have been here long, but Rosecreek is my home, myfamily’shome. I’d do anything to keep it safe."

I stare into her eyes, flashing with fury, flashing with complication and fear and a thousand things I can no longer identify. The space between us feels so wide that I could fall into it.

"Marcus." Asher's voice is gentle but firm. "We need every advantage we can get. Every fighter, every skill, every pair of eyes watching our backs. We can't afford to turn away help, even if..." He glances between me and Camila. "Even if accepting it goes against our instincts."

Through the windows, I can see Half Moon Lake reflecting the setting sun, its surface turned to fire. Somewhere out there, Kane is moving closer, bringing his weapon, his ideology, his precise and terrible violence.

And here in this room stands Camila, fierce, capable, and so different from the girl I left behind. Ready to fight battles I never wanted her to know existed.

"Fine," I say finally, the word tasting like surrender. "But we do this carefully. Professionally. No unnecessary risks."

"Agreed," she says, but a glint in her eye makes my wolf uneasy. "When the Rosecreek team gets here, I want to stay, too. I want you tell me what’s going on, same as them. Every detail, every pattern, every scrap of intelligence. If Kane's coming for this pack, I want to know exactly what we're facing."

It doesn’t take long for Aris, Bigby, and the rest to arrive, looking harried and dark-eyed, greyer than ever. If anyone in the world can empathize, it’s me. But God knows I don’t have the energy.

As Elena begins laying out the data, I catch Asher watching me with knowing eyes. Because he understands what this means and what letting Camila into our tactical planning could cost. What italreadycosts. How it’s making me feel as if I’m losing my grip, losing my mind, coming apart.

History repeats itself,whispers a voice in the back of my mind that sounds like Kane.History always repeats itself, just you watch.

Chapter 9 - Camila

Three AM casts strange shadows across my workstation in the pack center's makeshift studio. The blue light of my editing screen turns everything ghostly, unreal—like I'm working in some liminal space between reality and memory. My eyes burn from hours of staring at photos, trying to build the perfect deceptions to keep the Marshall City pack safe.

"You're still here?"

Maia's voice startles me from my focus. She stands in the doorway with two steaming mugs, her expression a mixture of concern and understanding. Since coming to Rosecreek after escaping her own violent pack situation, she's become something of a night owl—too many memories that come alive in the dark.

I like Maia a lot, I think. She has the same strange, shadowed, half-present glaze to her eyes sometimes that Thalia does, a look that belies a long and terrible history, but she’s quietly, brilliantly sharp, boasting the kind of fierceness I lost long ago and can now only perform on good days. God knows how some people go through Hell on Earth and come out still resembling themselves. I know I couldn’t survive half of what she has.

"Couldn't sleep," I say, accepting the coffee she offers. "These timelines for Elena's Seattle photos need to be perfect. Kane's people will be looking for inconsistencies. I want to drag them back out west, make them think we doubled back.”

"Mm." She settles into a chair beside me, studying the screen. "You know, watching you work with them—the Marshall City pack—it reminds me of when I first came here. How hard it was to trust anyone after... everything."

I glance at her, catching the shadows that cross her face. Maia rarely talks about her past, about the pack that nearly destroyed her before Thalia helped her escape. "How did you learn? To… to believe in people again?"

"I haven’t yet." She sips her coffee, choosing her words with deliberation. "It’s going to take a long time. Maisie says I have to be patient with myself, but then again, it sounds false somehow.”

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