Page 30 of Betrayed Knocked-Up Mate

Chaos erupts in an instant all around me, transforming the beautiful meeting room into a symphony of violence. Kane's people spring into action with practiced coordination, weapons appearing in their hands like magic. Bigby tackles Rafael clear of the first shot while Thalia spins into a fighting crouch, a pistol in each hand, catching the light. The pack center dissolves into destruction—wood splintering, glass shattering, the terrible percussion of combat.

I'm at the door that leads out to the stairs before I can think, before I can process the fear clawing at my throat. Because Marcus is out there, and whatever's happening at the clinic—

A body slams into me from the side, sending me sprawling across polished floors now slick with blood. One of Kane's people looms over me, teeth bared in a snarl that transforms his handsome face into something monstrous, half-shifted, an almost feral glint in his eyes. I roll with the impact, using techniques learned in a dozen dangerous places, but my mind is elsewhere. My heart is across the street, where another gunshot has just split the air.

Through the pack center's broken windows, I catch glimpses of movement near the clinic. More of Kane's people emerging from hiding like shadows given form. The crack of gunfire.

Someone screams, a high, desperate wail.

I fight harder, desperation lending me strength I didn't know I had. The world narrows to a series of brutal snapshots: blood on my knuckles, the crack of bone meeting bone, the savage dance of survival. Around me, the pack center has become a warzone—Aris and Kane locked in Alpha combat that makes the air itself shake, Rafael and Bigby working in tandem against multiple opponents, Thalia's knives flashing in the morning light like deadly stars.

But none of it matters.

Because Marcus is out there, and I'm running toward the sound of gunfire, toward whatever violence awaits across the street. Running like I should have run five years ago, when he pushed me away. Running like my heart knows something my head hasn't figured out yet.

Running like everything depends on it. Because maybe, this time, it does.

Chapter 12 - Marcus

Trying to make a break for it out of the basement after the first shot was the worst decision I’ve made as an Alpha since the very first one, the moment I decided I’d take the position. And now, I suspect it may kill us.

We crouch behind a makeshift barricade, a desk, and a gurney, just outside of the clinic’s back doors. A bullet hits the brick inches from my head, sending fragments spinning like angry wasps. Through the acrid haze of gunsmoke, I catch James's expression changing where he crouches on the other side of the building, half slumped against the wall—that microsecond of recognition before he throws himself sideways, taking the shot meant for Elena's unconscious form. His body jerks with the impact, a spray of red painting the clinic's white wall.

"James!"Asher's voice carries over the chaos, tight with controlled panic.

"I'm fine," James grits out, though the spreading crimson stain on his shirt says otherwise. His hands never leave Elena's pulse point, medical training overriding even his own pain. "Just a graze. Watch your three o'clock!"

I spin in time to catch movement in my peripheral vision—one of Kane's people using the firefight as cover to circle behind us. The makeshift barricade of overturned medical equipment won't hold much longer. Already, the metal exam table we're using as cover is riddled with bullet holes, the morning air sharp with cordite and copper and fear.

"We need to move," Asher says, ejecting an empty magazine with practiced efficiency. "They're trying to pin us down, and Elena needs—"

Another explosion of gunfire cuts him off. This time, the bullets tear chunks from the brick above us, showering us with dust and debris. Through the pack bonds, I feel James's pain spike, feel Elena's consciousness flickering like a candle in wind. We're running out of time.

Then I catch a scent that stops my heart.

Camila bursts around the outer wall of the clinic like vengeance given form, all predator grace and barely contained fury. Her eyes meet mine across the chaos, gold bleeding into brown, and everything else falls away for a moment.

No. No, no, no, no.

But she’s here. It’s too late. All I did, for all these years, all the heartache and fury, the fear, the nightmares of her face as I rejected her—none of it matters, because Camila is about to die.

She slides into cover beside me, her body pressing close in the confined space. The heat of her threatens to paralyse me. She’s so close.

"What are you—" I start, but she cuts me off with a snarl.

"Shut up and shoot,” she hisses.

More gunfire forces us lower behind the barricade. Camila's breathing comes quick but controlled, her heart racing against my arm where we're pressed together. She smells like cordite and adrenaline and that wild thing that's always made my wolf strain toward her.

"Six hostiles," she says, all business despite our proximity. "Two trying to flank from the west, three providing covering fire, one—"

"Moving to higher ground," I finish, tracking the shadow crossing the clinic's roof. "We see them."

For a moment, it works. We move like we've been fighting together for years—her calling out positions while I return fire, Asher using our coverage to get to James and Elena. Despite everything, despite five years of distance and secrets, our bodies remember this dance we never got to perfect.

Then, a new scent cuts through the gunsmoke, and ice floods my veins.

Just as I run out of bullets and am forced to scramble for another magazine, Kane emerges from the chaos like a nightmare-given flesh.

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