Page 54 of Betrayed Knocked-Up Mate

The fight becomes a blur of tooth and claw and fury. I'm dimly aware of Camila struggling to her feet, of Kane's people maintaining their distance as we tear into each other. Blood—mine or his, I can't tell—sprays across broken furniture and shattered glass.

Then Camila's voice cuts through the chaos, sharp with command: "Marcus,down!"

I drop without thinking, and the shot that was meant for me goes wide as Kane spins out of the way. Glass explodes overhead as more bullets tear through the cabin's windows. Through the chaos, I catch Camila's scent spiking with determination rather than fear.

"The back door," she shouts over the gunfire. "There's a blind spot in their coverage—"

I'm already moving, shifted, and operating on pure instinct. When one of Kane's men bursts through the front door, I don't hesitate—my claws find his throat before he can raise his weapon. The scent of blood fills the air, copper-sharp and familiar.

Camila moves like smoke through the firefight from the hearth. She reaches the kitchen first, ducking under a spray of bullets that shreds the cabinets above her head. Wood splinters rain down like deadly confetti. My wolf mourns at the sight of her in danger, at the knowledge of what she carries, but there's no time for protection now. Only survival.

"Cover me," I order, and she does, laying down suppressing fire while I kick out the back door's deadbolt. The sound of it giving way is lost under another burst of gunfire.

We burst into the night together, moving in perfect synchronization born of desperation and shared blood. The SUV sits twenty yards away, partially hidden by shadows and scrub pine. Between us and freedom: open ground scattered with Kane's people, their weapons gleaming in the moonlight.

No time to think. Only react.

I catch movement to our left—two of Kane's men emerging from behind a boulder. My claws find the first one's chest while Camila takes out the second with a precise shot. The bark of the pistol in her hand that, I don’t recall how she got hold of echoes off mountain stone.

"Marcus!" Her shout comes just in time—I drop and roll as bullets tear through the space where I stood. Come up running, staying low, using the terrain for cover.

Ten yards to the SUV. Kane's cruel laughter carries on the wind, mixing with the percussion of gunfire and the thunder of my heart.

I reach the driver's side first, keys already in hand. Camila slides into the passenger seat as bullets spider-web the windshield but don't penetrate—thank God for bulletproof glass. The engine roars to life under my hands.

Through the cracked windshield, Kane appears in the headlights, smiling as sharply as broken glass. For a moment, our eyes meet across the distance. His lips move, forming words I can't hear but understand anyway:

Next time.

My hands tighten on the wheel as fury and fear war in my chest.

"Hold on," I growl, and then we're flying.

Chapter 23 - Camila

The mountain roads carve through California darkness like ancient battle scars, each switchback carrying us further from the wreckage of the cabin but closer to other ruins—older ones, deeper ones, the kind that lives in blood and bone and broken promises. Gravel crunches beneath the truck's tires, a grating, constant buzz. The occasional passing headlight catches Marcus's profile, turning him to marble and shadow, highlighting new wounds I didn't have time to regard in our desperate flight.

My head throbs where it struck the hearth, blood long since dried tacky against my neck and matting my hair. The cut on my shoulder burns with each breath, glass still embedded deep where the window exploded beside me.

Beneath the pain, beneath the fear, beneath everything—my wolf remains hyper-focused on the tiny spark of life growing inside me. The child I never planned for, created in a moment of weakness and need, now the center of a war I barely understand, each curve bringing us further from the wreckage of the cabin but not from the debris of truth.

Blood from my scalp wound has dried tacky against my neck. My hands won't stop shaking. The silence in the car feels like another form of violence, heavier than the gunfire we just escaped, sharp as the glass still embedded in my shoulder.

Marcus drives like the demons of hell are on our tail—and maybe they are, all of Kane's twisted ideology and hatred condensed into the dark vehicles I occasionally glimpse in the rearview mirror, appearing and disappearing like nightmares between the turns. His knuckles are white on the steering wheel, tendons standing out like ropes beneath skin that's already starting to bruise. The muscle in his jaw works constantly, teeth grinding loud enough for my enhanced hearing to pick up even over the engine's roar. I catch him glancing at me when he thinks I'm not looking, his expression raw with something that looks like terror.

The setting sun bleeds down over the peaks, an appropriately bloody sight. Light catches on the fresh cuts across his face, the tear in his shirt where Kane's claws found purchase, the way his hands shake slightly every time we take a curve too fast. His scent fills the confined space of the truck—his cool, authoritative settledness is now threaded through with fear and fury.

The silence between us feels like another form of violence somehow, heavier than the gunfire we just escaped, sharper than the glass still embedded in my shoulder.

What is there to say when the secret I've carried beneath my heart has been torn from me with such cruel precision? When the man I never stopped loving learned about our child from the lips of a monster?

The surge of maternal instinct during the fight had blindsided me—the way my body moved without conscious thought to shield my midsection, leaving my face and throat exposed. Even now, I find myself angling away from the dashboard, calculating impact zones, mapping every possible threat to the tiny life I never planned for but already can't imagine losing.

Kane's words echo in my head:"Tell me, my dear, how long were you planning to keep that secret?"

The mockery in his voice, the way his eyes lit up when he realized Marcus didn't know, the terrible pleasure he took in wielding this truth like a weapon—it makes bile rise in my throat. This wasn't how it was supposed to happen. Not like this, not with blood on our hands and, danger on our heels, and five years of secrets threatening to drown us both.

"How long?"

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