Page 17 of Betrayed Knocked-Up Mate (Rosecreek Special Ops Wolves #8)

We don’t talk about it, our night together. I didn’t expect us to, but it still hurts a little.

Time becomes liquid after that first night in the motel, flowing and shifting like water through cupped hands—I just can’t seem to hold onto it. Days blur into one another, marked only by the changing light and the endless rhythm of our wheels on asphalt. The landscape shifts around us like photographs cycling through a slideshow: Minnesota's lingering spring frost giving way to Iowa's endless fields, then Missouri's rolling hills, each state line another boundary between me and home.

We fall into patterns, Marcus and I. Rituals that feel almost normal if I don't look too closely. Morning coffee from gas stations that all start to look the same, their fluorescent lights casting identical shadows under his eyes. Silent meals in roadside diners where the waitresses always assume we're a couple on a romantic getaway working through some trouble in paradise, their smiles bright with assumptions that make my chest ache. Nights in motels that blend together in a parade of scratchy sheets and water stains on popcorn ceilings.

We don’t sleep together again, and the intimacy between us grows thornier with each passing day. Sometimes, I catch him watching me when he thinks I'm sleeping, his expression raw with something that looks like regret.

Sometimes, I wake to find myself curved against him like a question mark, my body remembering what my mind tries to forget. We don't talk about the motel, about how easily we fell back into each other's orbit. About how even now, weeks later, I can still taste his fingers on my tongue.

Instead, we talk about safe things. Routes and weather patterns. Security protocols that grow more elaborate with each passing mile. The endless stream of updates from his pack—James healing slowly, Elena monitoring Kane's movements, Asher coordinating with other sanctuaries. Never about the truth that hangs between us like smoke, like shadows, like all the words we still can't say.

Spring deepens around us as we move south, then west. Trees bud and bloom, their petals catching in our wake like confetti, like promises, like tears. I mark time in the small changes: how the birdsong shifts with each new state, how the air grows heavier with approaching summer, how Marcus's shoulders carry more tension with each passing day.

Two weeks stretch like taffy, like elastic about to snap. Fourteen days of running that feel both endless and ephemeral. I try to count them in concrete details, in things I can hold onto:

Seven different vehicles, each more anonymous than the last. Marcus trades them out at safe houses that dot the country like stars in a constellation I can't quite read. Each new car smells slightly different—pine air freshener or leather cleaner or that particular musty scent of disuse—but they all start to feel the same after a while. Mobile cages wrapped in steel and safety glass.

Twelve motels, their names bleeding together in my memory. The Blue Bird Inn with its peeling wallpaper and creaky floors. The Prairie Rose Motel, where the shower never quite got hot enough. The Sunset Lodge, where Marcus killed the lights and made me stay silent for three hours while Kane's people swept through the town, my heart pounding so hard I was sure they'd hear it.

Twenty-three diners, each serving the same rubbery eggs and bitter coffee. I start collecting their menus like postcards, tucking them away in my bag—proof that we were here, that we existed in these spaces, that time is actually passing despite how surreal everything feels.

Nine close calls that make Marcus's hands shake on the steering wheel. Glimpses of strangers in rearview mirrors, always just far enough behind that we can't be sure if they're really following or if paranoia has finally consumed us both. Each moment of paranoia and uncertainty sends us down longer detours, deeper into the web of back roads and forgotten highways that Marcus seems to know by heart.

We double back on ourselves so many times that I’m not sure we’re even going anywhere anymore. We take the same roads over and over and over.

Four nights where I wake gasping from dreams of Rosecreek burning, of Rafael bleeding, of everything I left behind turning to ash while I run like a coward. Those nights, Marcus holds me without speaking, his arms solid and warm around me, his heartbeat steady under my ear. We never talk about it in the morning.

Countless moments where I almost ask him for the truth. When the silence in the car grows too heavy, when his scent spikes with guilt or fear, when his phone buzzes with another update that makes his jaw clench. But the questions die in my throat every time, killed by the memory of California, of how easily he walked away before. Of how he still won't tell me why.

I’m tired of fighting. Tired of wondering, of asking, of praying for the day it makes sense. I don’t have it in me anymore.

The pack bonds stretch thinner with each mile, like rubber bands pulled to breaking. Sometimes, I catch echoes—Rafael's worry, Thalia's determination, the collective strength of a community preparing for war. They all still text regularly, Rafael every day.

But the distance makes everything feel muted, underwater, dreamlike. Even my wolf feels different, restless in a way that goes beyond the usual cabin fever. Like it knows, we're running from something bigger than Kane, bigger than Marcus's secrets, bigger than this strange liminal space we've carved out between past and present. It becomes hard to check my phone. It reminds me of what I no longer have.

We pass signs indicating highways into California, and Marcus's hands tighten on the wheel, his knuckles going white. Neither of us mentions how close we are to where everything began, to the college town where he first told me he loved me, to the apartment where he later took it all back.

The wounds feel fresher here, like the geography itself is a trigger for memories we've both tried to bury.

Days run into each other, paint in the rain, bleeding into one great confusion until I can't tell where one ends and another begins. Marcus's burner phone rings at regular intervals—updates from his pack, coordinates for the next safe house, reports of Kane's movements that make him drive faster, push harder, run further. Sometimes I catch fragments of conversations that make my blood run cold:

"Another sanctuary hit... more lost their shifts... weapon getting stronger..."

"They're moving west... pattern suggests... careful of the borders..."

"James still isn't healing right... Elena thinks... infection…"

Each call leaves him more tense, more haunted, more determined to keep moving. But he still won't tell me why, and now that I’ve given up on asking, we simply don’t talk about it at all.

Two weeks since that night in the motel. Two weeks of running feels like forever, and there is no time at all. Two weeks of falling back into each other's orbit while maintaining careful distance, like binary stars locked in eternal dance—always circling, never quite touching, bound by forces we can't escape but won't acknowledge.

The landscape continues to change around us, but some things remain constant: the rhythm of wheels on asphalt, the weight of unspoken words between us, the way Marcus watches the mirrors like he expects Kane to materialize at any moment. The way my heart still races when he touches me, even accidentally. The way neither of us can seem to break this pattern we've fallen into, this careful dance of intimacy and distance, of secrets and silence and things we can't seem to say.

Spring is stretching itself out into early summer, but I feel frozen in that moment two weeks ago, pressed between Marcus and a motel room wall, everything I've spent five years running from catching up at last. Time flows around us like water, like memory, like all the things we keep trying to outrun.

But some things, I'm learning, refuse to stay in the past. Some things follow you across state lines, across years, across all the careful boundaries you try to build. Some things are written in blood and bone and pack bonds that never quite break, no matter how far you run.

All things catch up eventually. If I’ve learned anything in my life, I’ve learned that. I can feel it coming like storm clouds on the horizon, like the pressure drop before lightning strikes. All this running, all this careful distance, all these patterns we've built—they're just delaying the inevitable.

***

My storm arrives on an unremarkable day, in a town I don’t remember the name of, two thirds of the way to California. We’re not far south of Idaho.

Dawn creeps under the nth motel room's heavy curtains like an unwanted guest, painting everything in shades of gray and uncertainty. I'm already awake, hunched over the toilet for the third time this morning, trying to convince myself it's just stress. Just anger. Just the universe's way of punishing me for letting Marcus back into my bed, into my heart, into places I swore he'd never touch again.

Nausea comes in waves, each one stronger than the last. My hands shake as I grip the porcelain, its chill seeping into my palms like a truth I can't avoid. Behind me, through the bathroom's paper-thin walls, I hear Marcus's steady breathing—still deep in sleep, unaware that my world is tilting on its axis.

No, I think desperately, even as my mind starts counting days, weeks, moments . No, no, no.

But my wolf knows. Has known, maybe, since that first night in the motel two weeks ago. Since Marcus pressed me against the wall and five years of denial crumbled like sand castles in the tide.

My hand drifts unconsciously to my stomach, and the gesture feels like surrender.

But I need to be sure.

The convenience store across from the motel looks abandoned in the early morning light, its windows reflecting a sky that can't decide if it wants to rain. The bell above the door chimes too loudly as I enter, making me flinch. The teenage clerk barely glances up from his phone as I wander the aisles, trying to look casual while my heart threatens to burst from my chest.

Three different tests, because I need to be certain. The plastic bags crinkle accusingly as the clerk rings them up, his bored expression suggesting he's seen this dance before—terrified women buying pregnancy tests at dawn, their hands shaking as they count out cash. I wonder how many of them were shifters. How many were running from something. How many felt like their worlds were ending and beginning in the same breath.

Back in the motel bathroom, I line the tests up on the counter like evidence at a crime scene. Each one feels like a confession, like a secret I'm not ready to keep. The instructions blur through tears I refuse to acknowledge:

Wait three minutes.

Pink line positive.

Results accurate up to 99%.

Time stretches endlessly as I wait, each second an eternity. Through the wall, I hear Marcus shift in his sleep, a soft sound that makes my chest ache.

What would he do if he knew? Run again, like last time? Push me away "for my own good" like he always does?

Or would this be different? Would this finally be enough to make him tell me the truth about why he left, about what Kane really wants, about all the secrets he keeps wrapped around himself like armor?

My phone buzzes—a text from Rafael that nearly breaks me:

Still alive out there, Cam? Starting to forget what your voice sounds like.

I stare at the message until the screen darkens, words crowding in my throat. How do I tell my brother that his stupid, reckless sister let herself fall back into bed with the man who broke her heart? That I'm carrying a child whose father might walk away again without explanation? That I'm terrified and alone and desperately pretending I'm strong enough to handle this?

The timer on my phone chirps softly. Three minutes up. Time to face the truth.

Positive. All three tests, lined up like witnesses to my own foolishness. The pink lines seem to glow in the harsh bathroom light, accusatory and final.

My legs give out, and I slide down the wall, tile cold against my spine as reality crashes over me in waves.

A baby.

Marcus's baby.

A tiny spark of life created in that moment of weakness, of need, of five years of denial finally breaking. My hands press against my still-flat stomach, trying to feel something, anything, that might make this feel real. My wolf whines with a mixture of joy and terror that makes me dizzy.

Another text lights up my phone—Asher, this time, checking our coordinates for the next safe house. My fingers hover over the keys as I draft and delete a dozen messages:

Has he been with anyone since me?

Did he ever talk about California?

Why did he really leave?

But each question feels like admitting defeat, like giving power to fears I'm not ready to face. The cursor blinks accusingly as I delete the draft one final time, letting my phone clatter to the floor beside me.

Through the wall, I hear Marcus beginning to stir. Soon, he'll wake, will notice my absence, and come looking with that mixture of concern and control that makes me want to kiss him and kill him in equal measure. Soon, I'll have to put on a mask of normalcy, pretend my entire world hasn't just shifted on its foundation.

Soon, but not yet.

For now, I press my forehead to my knees and try to remember how to breathe. Try to find strength in the silence, the space between heartbeats, the tiny spark of life that changes everything and nothing all at once.

Morning light creeps under the bathroom door, begging a question I'm not ready to answer. Somewhere outside, the world keeps turning. Somewhere to the west, Kane hunts us through the dawn. Somewhere behind us, my brother waits for answers I can't give him.

And here on this cold tile floor, I've never felt more alone.