Page 43 of Betrayed Knocked-Up Mate

Before I ruined her.

The rain continues its endless descent, drawing patterns on the window like tears. Somewhere out there, Kane hunts us through the darkness. Somewhere behind us, my pack struggles to heal from his poison. And here in this bed, holding everything I've ever wanted and everything I can't keep, I wonder if any of it was worth it.

Camila shifts in her sleep, pressing closer, and my arms tighten automatically around her. My wolf whines with contentment and terror alike. Even now, I hear Kane's voice on the phone five years ago, describing exactly what he'd do to any mate of mine.

The truth burns in my throat, desperate to be spoken. About Kane's crusade, his grudges, his maniacal cruelty. About how my parents died trying to build bridges between our worlds. About how their death was just the beginning of his campaign to "purify" shifter bloodlines, to eliminate anyone who threatens his vision of supernatural supremacy.

But I can't tell her. Not yet. Not until I know she's safe. Not until I know it might matter.

So I hold her in the darkness, breathing in her scent, committing every detail to memory. And I pray to whatever gods might be listening that my choices will protect her this time.

The ceiling holds no answers, but still, I stare, counting heartbeats like the rosary beads of a faith I don’t possess until dawn bleeds across the sky. Each beat a reminder of everything I stand to lose. Each breath is a promise I'm not sure I can keep.

Chapter 17 - Camila

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..."

---