Page 12 of Betrayed Knocked-Up Mate (Rosecreek Special Ops Wolves #8)

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.

His expensive suit is immaculate despite the violence, his smile sharp as a blade as his eyes find mine. Time seems to stutter, memories overlapping reality—my father's study splashed with red, my mother's fingers still curled around her phone, Kane's voice explaining exactly why they had to die.

"Marcus," he says now, as if greeting an old friend. "It's been too long."

A shot rings out—precise, professional. Asher's gun goes flying, a line of red appearing across his knuckles.

Kane's people emerge from cover, weapons trained on us with lethal focus.

"Get them out of here," Camila breathes, so soft only I could hear it. Her hand finds mine behind the barricade, a split-second squeeze that says everything we don't have time for. "I'll draw them off with you."

Before I can protest, she's already moving. A flash of teeth, a burst of speed, and she's darting around the corner of the clinic.

My body follows before my mind can process, instinct overwhelming caution. Behind us, I hear Kane's amused laugh, the sound of his people giving chase.

We run. Anything to get them away from James and Asher and Elena, I tell myself.

Anything to stay with Camila, to keep her safe.

The alley between buildings becomes a blur of shadow and light, our footsteps echoing off brick walls still wet with morning dew. Camila moves like water, like she's spent years learning to escape through narrow spaces.

A bullet sparks off the wall beside us, then another.

Kane's almost playful voice carries on the wind: "Come now, Marcus. Is this really how you want to do this?"

"Split up," I growl, but Camila's already shaking her head.

"They'll pick us off separately. We need—"

The wall ahead of us explodes in a shower of brick and mortar. We pivot as one, taking the only path left—a narrow passage between the old warehouse and the pack center's auxiliary building. The space grows tighter, the walls pressing in, and I can smell Kane's people spreading out to cut off our escape routes.

"Trying to protect someone else you love?" Kane calls, his voice bouncing off the walls until I can't tell where it's coming from. "We both know how well that worked out last time."

My vision bleeds red at the edges. Beside me, Camila's breath catches—the first sign of fear I've seen from her. Not fear of the danger, but fear of the truth in Kane's words.

The alley ends abruptly in a dead end.

Doom settles over me, a stark, cold weight. We spin to face our pursuers, backs against the wall. Camila's shoulder presses against mine, her breathing steady despite everything. Kane emerges from the shadows, flanked by his people, looking for all the world like he's exactly where he planned to be.

"Well," he says, his smile widening as his gaze falls on Camila. "What do we have here? A packmate?" His head tilts, considering. "No, not quite. A friend? She looks so much like your mother, you know. Same fire in her eyes.”

His lips curl with that glimmer of manic, furious pleasure.

“I wonder if she'll scream the same way when—"

The roar tears from my throat before he can finish. But Camila moves first, shoving me aside as Elena—who must have followed us—stumbles into view behind Kane's people. Blood matts her hair from her earlier injury, and she's barely standing.

Unable to even raise her arm, she fires a single bullet into the concrete.

Everything happens at once.

Kane's people spin toward the new threat. Elena begins to crumple, her desperate gambit having drawn their attention. Camila launches herself forward, trying to reach her. The gun goes off—I don't see who fires it—and Camila collides with Elena, taking them both down as brick dust explodes where Elena's head had been.

Then Camila's head cracks against the pavement, and she goes terrifyingly still.

Something in me shatters.

The world turns red and sharp and simple. My shift ripples through me without conscious thought, bones cracking and reforming as my wolf takes over. Kane's smile never wavers—if anything, it grows wider as I launch myself at him, shifting in the air, the crack of my bones moving sharply as drums in my ears, the rush of my blood a tumult of endless fury.

"There you are," he says, meeting my charge with inhuman speed. "There's the monster I've been waiting for."

The world narrows to tooth and claw and fury. I’m so deep in my instincts that I no longer feel like a person—all I need is his blood. Kane moves like mercury around me, like smoke, dodging my first strike and countering with devastating precision. The point of a knife in his palm rakes across my ribs, but I barely feel it. All I can see is Camila's still form on the pavement. All I can smell is her blood mixing with Elena's.

"You never understood," Kane says, dancing away from my next attack. He hasn’t shifted yet, avoiding me with sheer, infuriating grace and foresight. "Your parents didn't either. All that potential and power, and you waste it playing nice with humans." He lashes out a fist, and his next strike catches me across the face, hot blood spilling into my eyes—I crash hard onto the concrete. "But now? Now you're showing your true nature. Just like your father did, at the end."

The words hit harder than his claws. Through the red haze of rage, memories surface like drowning things—my father's final moments, how he shifted and fought when they came for my mother. He died protecting her, and he died becoming exactly what Kane wanted him to be.

I drag myself from the ground, vision whiting out at the edges.

"She'll never look at you the same way now, if she lives," Kane continues, his voice almost gentle as we circle each other. Blood drips from both our claws, staining the pavement black in the shadow of the buildings. "Not now that you let her get hurt. Perhaps it’s a good thing, Marcus. Perhaps things don’t have to happen the way they did back then.”

Behind him, I catch glimpses of the others—Elena dragging herself and an unconscious Camila toward cover, Kane's people keeping their distance, letting their Alpha finish what he started five years ago. The alley feels smaller, darker, like the walls themselves are closing in.

Then Camila stirs, just slightly, and everything in me focuses to a single point of clarity.

I half-shift back and launch myself at Kane again, but this time it's different. This time, the rage goes cold and sharp and precise. I launch it with perfect aim. He meets my attack with the same fluid grace, but something in my scent must change because his smile falters for the first time, and when I surge forward and sink my fist into his gut, he looks, for a single moment, afraid.

"You were right back then," I growl, my voice distorted by fangs but clear enough. "I am a monster."

My claws find purchase in his shoulder, drawing a line of red that matches the ones he gave my parents, splattering blood across both of us.

His eyes widen as I drive him back, recognizing too late that the rage has become something he’s never known me to possess. So much for his immaculate predictions, his mind games, his habit of laughing in the face of my desperate fear over and over.

We crash together like storm fronts, like colliding planets. His claws tear into my side, but I barely feel it. My teeth find his throat, but he twists away, leaving flesh and blood and fury in my mouth.

Through it all, I imagine I can hear Camila's heartbeat—steady, strong, alive. Feel Elena's determination as she pulls them both to safety. It’s almost a prayer.

"It’ll bring me great pleasure to tear the bitch apart," he snarls, blood staining his perfect suit.

The world goes white with rage and, red with blood and black with purpose.

We tear into each other like forces of nature, like nightmares made flesh. His claws find my throat, but my teeth sink into his shoulder, tearing through muscle and tendon. The taste of his blood is bitter, toxic.

Through the haze of violence, I register movement at the mouth of the alley—Elena dragging Camila to safety, leaving trails of red on grey concrete. The sight makes something in me shift, makes the fury crystallize into something colder, more focused.

Kane's next strike goes wide. I see uncertainty flicker in his eyes.

My counter-attack catches him off-guard as I tear a chunk out of his side, right below his ribs. He tries to retreat, to regain the advantage, but I press forward. My claws find his chest, his side, his face. Blood sprays across brick walls, still wet with morning dew. Each blow carries the weight of five years of running, of secrets, of choices made in darkness.

"Your parents," he gasps, still trying to twist the knife even as he falters, "they begged at the end. Will she—"

The word cuts off hard as I bring him to the ground. Just like Camila’s, I hear his skull as it hits the concrete.

For a moment, the world holds its breath. Then, Kane's body goes limp. His blood looks almost black in the alley's shadows.

Distantly, I hear shouts approaching—Aris's voice, Bigby's, others I should recognize but can't quite place. The sound of running feet, of weapons being drawn.

Kane's remaining people melted away into the shadows, dragging their Alpha with them.

I should stop them. I should kill him.

My legs give out.

The concrete rises to meet me, cold and unforgiving. Through dimming vision, I see Camila stirring, see Elena reaching for her. The relief is stronger than the pain, stronger than the darkness creeping at the edges of my consciousness.

The last thing I register is the ringing of familiar voices surrounding me. Camila’s isn’t one of them. Then—

Nothing.