Page 23 of Betrayed Knocked-Up Mate (Rosecreek Special Ops Wolves #8)

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?"

Marcus's voice cuts through the silence like a blade. He doesn't look at me, keeps his eyes fixed on the winding road ahead, but I catch the tremor in his hands, the way his scent spikes with something complex and terrifying.

"Does it matter?" My own voice sounds strange to my ears, rough with tears I refuse to shed.

"Of course, it matters." Something raw breaks through his careful control. "Camila, you're carrying my—" He cuts himself off, swallowing hard. "How long have you known?"

"Two weeks." The words taste like ash. “It was… two weeks before that. I’m… it’s been a month. There or thereabouts.”

The truck swerves slightly as his hands tighten on the wheel. "Two weeks. You've known for two weeks and didn't—"

"Didn't what, Marcus?" Fury rises in my chest, hot and sharp. "Didn't tell you? Like you've told me anything? Like you've given me any reason to trust you with this?"

"This is different—"

"Is it?" The laugh that tears from my throat holds no humor. "You walked away from me once without explanation. Rejected our mate bond like it meant nothing. Why should I believe you won't do the same to this child?"

"I would never—"

"You already did, so I can’t believe you when you say that to me, Marcus!" The words explode from me with five years of suppressed rage. "You left me alone with a half-formed mate bond, a broken heart, and no explanation. Just walked away like everything we had meant nothing. And now you're doing it again—keeping secrets, making decisions about my life without consulting me, dragging me across the country 'for my own good' without telling me why! Can you blame me for being afraid?"

"I was trying to protect you!" He slams his hand against the steering wheel, making me flinch. "Everything I did—leaving you, pushing you away, all of it—was to keep you safe! Do you know what it was like? Do you know what it did to me, Camila?"

"Safe from what?" I demand, fury making my voice shake. "Safe from loving you? Safe from having a real life? Safe from—"

"Safe from Kane!" The words tear from his throat like they're being ripped out. "Safe from watching him murder everyone I love, just like he murdered my parents!"

The truth hangs between us.

“Marcus.” My voice comes out barely above a whisper. “I knew he… I mean, I suspected. I have for a while. But he…” The memory comes back hard, surging out of some suppressed part of my shaken mind. “He said something about mates, just now.”

Marcus's hands tremble on the wheel as we take another curve too fast, the truck's tires skating close to the edge. "He killed them because they believed in cooperation between humans and shifters. Because they were building bridges instead of walls. Made me watch as he—" His voice breaks. "Then he promised he'd do the same to anyone I ever loved. Said he'd find my mate, when I found them, and make me watch them die too. Just like he made my father watch my mother—"

“Marcus—”

“And then you asked me—I loved you—” he rambles, unable to stop. “You asked me, and they’d—they were dead, Camila, and you thought we were mates, and I… I knew he’d hunt you down; I couldn’t do that to you. You have to believe me—”

I reach one hand out toward his on the console. I’m not sure what I intend to do.

My fingers brush his arm.

The crack of gunfire outside cuts through the night like thunder.

Everything happens at once. The back tire explodes. The truck spins out of control, then the horrific screech of metal on metal as we hit the guardrail. My hands move without conscious thought to protect my stomach as we careen toward the edge, and I curl my whole body forward over itself like a wilting flower.

Through the windshield, I catch a glimpse of dark vehicles emerging from the shadows further down the road, their headlights cutting through the darkness like predator eyes.

Time fragments like broken glass: Marcus reaching for me, desperation painted across his face in the strobing headlights. The car flips. The sickening lurch as the truck tips toward the ravine.

The taste of blood in my mouth from where I've bitten my tongue.

As he screams my name, Marcus's voice carries notes I've never heard before—terror, love, and fury all at their maximum.

The world tilts sideways as the truck goes over again. My last thought before darkness claims me is that I never heard the rest of his explanation. Never got to tell him that despite everything, despite the secrets and the lies and the years of running, I never stopped loving him either.

Then everything goes black, and even that truth slips away into silence.