Page 15 of Betrayed Knocked-Up Mate (Rosecreek Special Ops Wolves #8)

The morning light is sharp. Sharp enough for me to want to capture it in my lens, painting everything in shades of accusation as the speedometer inches past ninety and we tear down yet another empty stretch of Minnesota highway. The world outside blurs into streaks of spring green and morning gold. It’s beautiful. It’s beautiful, and my camera is back in Rosecreek.

My hands rest in tight fists on my thighs, nails biting into my palms hard enough to draw blood. The sharp sting helps ground me, keeps me from doing something stupid like trying to grab the wheel or jump from the moving vehicle—not that either would work. Marcus's grip on the steering wheel hasn't loosened since we left Rosecreek, his knuckles white with tension as he pushes us faster, further, away from everything and everyone I love.

Away from my home . From everything I've spent the last three months carefully building, piece by piece, like assembling an image from scattered fragments. The home I hardly got to have before it was gone again.

At this point, it feels like I might never belong anywhere.

The pack bonds still hum at the edges of my consciousness, stretching thinner with each mile, reminding me of everything I'm leaving behind. Maia's quiet strength, Thalia's fierce loyalty, the way Rafael looks at me over morning coffee like he can't quite believe I finally came back. The solid, immovable presence of the team members. All my friends, my new almost family. All of it slipping away in the rearview mirror while Marcus drives us toward some unknown future I never asked for.

The thought sends a fresh wave of fury through me, hot enough to make my wolf strain against my skin. I've spent five years running from place to place, never letting myself put down roots or believe I could belong anywhere again.

Then Rosecreek happened—Rafael and his quiet understanding, the fierce friendships I was just starting to form, the gradual interweaving of pack bonds I'd forgotten how to feel. For the first time since California, since Marcus, I'd begun to feel... whole.

And now here I am, being dragged away from it all by the very man who taught me to run in the first place.

"You need to eat something," Marcus says, breaking the tense silence between us for the past three hours. His voice used to make my heart race. Now, it just makes me want to bite him. "Byron texted. He said there are protein bars in the—"

"Don't." The word comes out higher than I would have liked it to, a desperate kind of sound. "Don't pretend to care about my well-being after what you just did to me.”

He exhales slowly; that controlled release of breath means he's trying to keep his temper. "Camila—"

"No." I turn to stare out the window, watching trees flash past in a green blur. "You lost the right to say my name like that five years ago. You lost every other right just now."

In the glass of the reinforced window, I catch his reflection flinching at my words. Good. Let him hurt. Let him feel a fraction of what he's put me through—first with his rejection, now with this high-handed kidnapping disguised as protection.

Marcus doesn’t try to convince me to eat again. He doesn’t say anything at all. I relish in the hurt of his silence.

The morning stretches into the afternoon, marked only by the sun's slow arc across the sky and the steady decrease of the fuel gauge. Eventually, we stop for gas, the routine almost choreographed in its precision, reminding me that Marcus was on the run for weeks before he came to Rosecreek: he pulls into a remote station, checking sight lines before letting me out of the car, his body constantly between me and potential threats.

I consider making a break for it—my wolf wants me to take off into the woods on the other side of the long, empty highway, but logic wins out. He'd catch me before I got fifty feet, and then what? Another scene like the clinic, another display of his ability to physically overpower me?

No, I think as we re-enter the car and take off again, back down the endless highway out of the state. Better to wait, to watch, to gather information like I learned to do in all those war zones and disaster areas. To find the perfect moment when his guard drops, when I can—

"We need to swap vehicles," Marcus says suddenly, pulling off onto a barely visible dirt road. "This one's too easily tracked. The team sent coordinates for a pick-up.”

He pulls us off onto another turning. Trees close in around us, branches scraping against the truck's sides like claws. After a few minutes of rough terrain that has me gritting my teeth against the jolting, we emerge into a small clearing. A weathered cabin hunkers at its center, and parked beside it is another vehicle—a dark SUV with heavily tinted windows.

"Safe house," Marcus explains as he kills the engine. "Rosecreek’s team is well-connected. We— I owe them a lot."

"Fascinating," I say flatly, though part of me catalogs this information for later use. "Your paranoia knows no bounds, you know.”

His jaw tightens. "It's not paranoia if they're really hunting you."

"No, what's paranoia is kidnapping someone 'for their own good' without even letting them say goodbye to their brother." The words taste like acid, like all the bitter things I've wanted to say since he manhandled me into the truck. "What's paranoia is making choices for other people without explaining why, without giving them any say in their own lives. You’ve made a habit of it.”

"You don't understand—"

"Then help me understand!" The shout tears from my throat before I can stop it, echoing off trees and metal and five years of silence. I turn to face him, hands tugging fruitlessly at my seatbelt. "For once in your life, Marcus, just tell me the truth. What happened five years ago? What does Kane have to do with any of this? Why did you—" My voice cracks traitorously, and I can’t continue.

I just can’t.

For a moment, just a moment, something raw and vulnerable flashes across his face. His scent shifts with an emotion I refuse to analyze, his hands tightening on the steering wheel until I hear the leather creak.

"I took you because I had to. Get your things," he says finally, already moving to exit the truck. "We need to be on the road again in ten minutes."

The dismissal hits like a physical blow. Of course. Of course, he won't explain or give me even this small piece of truth. Why change the pattern now?

Did he know that wasn’t going to be the question I asked? Did he just not care?

We transfer supplies to the SUV in tense silence, our movements efficient despite the anger crackling between us. The new vehicle is better equipped—medical supplies in hidden compartments, weapons secured under seats, emergency rations packed carefully away. Everything a pair of virtual fugitives might need.

Everything except the answers I want.

"How long?" I ask from my place beside the car as Marcus checks the SUV's systems. "How long are you planning to keep me prisoner?"

He goes still, his back to me. "You're not a prisoner."

"Really?" Bitter laughter bubbles up in my chest. "So I can leave? Go back to my brother, my pack, my life?"

"You know I can't let you do that." His voice roughens with something that might be regret. "Not while Kane—"

"While Kane what?" I step closer, wolf surging forward with challenge, arms folded. "I don’t know Kane, Marcus. I don’t know him, I don’t care what he wants, I don’t care about your history and your paranoia and your past, all of it, I just don’t care. And unless you tell me how and why I’m involved, I won’t start to. What gives you the right to—"

He spins to face me so quickly that I almost lurch back. Almost. But five years of photographing war zones have taught me not to flinch, not to yield ground even when everything in me screams to retreat.

"He kills mates," Marcus grits out, his eyes bleeding gold at the edges. "He kills the mates of his enemies. He did it to… to my mother, after my father made an enemy of him. Killed her and then killed him for good measure. He uses them to make examples, to break packs apart from the inside. To destroy everything that makes us strong."

He looks at me as if he expects I’ll understand now. Now, I’ll know why he’s doing this.

But I don’t. Of course I don’t.

"I'm not your mate," I say finally, the words tasting like ash. "Marcus, I don’t know what you think you’re saying… but, none of that matters, because I’m not your mate.”

You made it clear five years ago. We’ll never be mates.

Something that might be agony flashes across his face.

"Camila—"

"No." I cut him off before he can say whatever carefully crafted half-truth he's prepared. "You don't get to use that as an excuse. Not now. Not after everything. You don’t get to rub it in my face—do you know how much that hurts?”

For a heartbeat, we stare at each other in the growing dusk. The space between us feels charged with electricity, memory, and all the things we can't seem to say. His scent wraps around me like a familiar blanket---pine needles and winter air and something darker now, something haunted that makes my wolf whine with recognition.

"We need to go," he says finally, turning away. "Kane's people will be expanding their search radius. We can't stay in one place too long."

I follow him to the SUV, because what choice do I have? Let him throw me over his shoulder again? Watch him bare his throat in unconscious apology even as he forces me into the passenger seat? No. Better to move under my own power, to maintain what little agency I have left.

The engine rumbles to life as darkness creeps through the trees. Marcus navigates back to the main road with the same focused intensity he brings to everything—watching mirrors, checking blind spots, constantly alert for threats. In the dashboard's blue glow, his profile looks carved from marble, all sharp edges and contained power.

I hate that I still notice these things. Hate that even through my fury, my wolf recognizes him, yearns for him, wants to press close and demand answers with teeth and claws and whatever it takes to break through his walls.

But mostly, I hate that after five years of running, of building myself into someone stronger, someone who doesn't need anyone else's protection... here I am again. Running because Marcus Hillmarton decided it was best for me, carrying secrets he won't share, leaving behind everything I've fought so hard to build.

He still rules me. I suppose I should start to make peace with that awful truth.

The highway stretches endlessly ahead, empty and dark. Somewhere behind us, Rosecreek prepares for war. Somewhere ahead, Kane's people hunt us through the night. And here in this SUV, trapped between past and present, Marcus and I carry on our own battle—one fought with silence and secrets and things we can't seem to say.

I turn to watch the trees blur past my window, letting the motion lull me into a state of dangerous calm. My wolf paces restlessly, torn between fury at being caged and that old, aching need that never quite went away. The same need that made me run across oceans, chase increasingly dangerous shots, throw myself into any situation that might make me forget the way Marcus used to look at me.

The way he's looking at me now in the rearview mirror, when he thinks I can't see---like I'm something precious and terrible, something he has to protect even if it kills us both.

Even if it’s already killed me.