Light at the end of the tunnel

*Kamila*

I follow Diana as she leads me down a dark hallway, and it makes me nervous. She reminds me of the tunnels the others found in the walls of King Gene's castle. She reminds me that they dragged me through a secret pas...age to get me out of the castle. I have vague memories of being wrapped in a sheet and dragged through the darkness. My feet are still bruised from it. I think it was Malena Milly who did that to me, but I'm not sure.

As I run after the maid, my abdomen starts to hurt and I have to stop. "Diana!" I shout. -Where we go? And can we go slower?

“This pas...age goes out into the forest on the far east side of the castle,” he explains to me. —I'm trying to get you away from Kane. I know he will do everything he can to stop your ET1s from attacking him. If that means using you as some kind of human shield, he will do it. We need to make sure he can't find you when he comes looking for you.

Everything you're saying makes a lot of sense. It's just that the more I walk, the more my stomach hurts. I can ignore the rubbing of my thighs, the pain in my lower back from carrying all these babies, and the agony in my head from the drugs they gave me to put me to sleep, but I can't handle these cramps in my abdomen. .

Ahead of us, I can see a crack of light that appears to be a door frame, so I continue forward. All I want, more than anything in this world, is to be safe in a soft bed with my four men around me.

Now that I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, that doesn't seem as impossible as it did a few minutes ago.

***

Ross

We're in the castle now, and our warriors are doing a great job finding and destroying ET1 Kane's men, but we're not after just any warrior.

No. ET1 Tristan, ET1 Mark and I are in search of the big man himself. We need to find the ET1 that lives here and destroy him.

And then, we need to find Kamila.

I know that the woman he is with, Diana, is trustworthy. She could hear it in her voice. It seems obvious to me that ET1 Mark doesn't believe he has Kamila's best interests at heart, but he tends to be negative and overreact to everything.

I can't think about that now while I smell ET1 Kane. At first, I could only smell traces of him, probably because this is his house and his scent is everywhere. But as we walk down a particular hallway, I smell it more than before.

We quicken our pace, and because the hallways are so narrow, I almost collide with Tristan. I can imagine that we both get stuck here and Mark has to push through the wedge we would create and dislodge us.

The smell leads us to a room, but as I stop in front of the closed door, I realize that it's not just the smell of ET1 Kane that I smell so strongly here.

It's also Kamila's.

Just a hint of his familiar scent makes my stomach tighten and my breathing become shallow. I miss her so much. I would love to hug her, kiss her, have her close to her. I need to see her with my own eyes and make sure she is safe.

Tristan kicks in the door, and when he does, we see ET1 Kane standing in the middle of a room in his human form with a sharp blade in his hand, but he's not alone.

He has a woman wrapped in a sheet in his arms, her head covered by the white cloth. She is crying, and she has the look in her eyes that tells me that she has lost the last marble of hers.

"Don't come any closer!" he shouts. —If they do, I will kill her. I will kill your precious breeder!

I exchange a quick look with Mark and Tristan as we all stop in our places. Is ET1 Kane trying to trick us into believing that the woman he is holding under the sheet is Kamila?

I can smell it here. He's definitely been in this room for a while and recently. Looking at the sheet wrapped around the woman, I notice that the bottom is dirty, and I think there's a good chance it's the sheet from Kamila's bed in ET1 King Gene's castle. It smells a lot like her, and I even smell traces of us on her, which is possible if her sheets haven't been changed since the last time we were in her room. I also smell Kelly, Shelby and Adam.

But this woman? Doesn't sound like Kamila at all. She's also not old enough to be Kamila right now, unless she's already had our babies, and I don't smell anything in this room that indicates the babies have been born. And Diana didn't mention it. No, this crying woman is not Kamila.

I feel sorry for her, though, and hope she doesn't get hurt, but right now, my biggest focus is on taking down Kane and then finding Kamila.

Using the mental connection, I say, 'That's not her. Let that woman go.'

"What?" Kane questions out loud. "What do you mean it's not her?" Of course she is. Don't you recognize the smell of his own wife? Maybe it's because she has the seed of so many men in her body. Maybe even mine.— He smiles mischievously at us, and I want to kill him. Who the hell does she think she is?

'I'm not going to waste another second on this shit,' Tristan tells Mark and me. 'Let's finish him off.'

'We can't hurt that woman, though,' says Mark. 'She's innocent.'

'We don't know that!' Tristan snaps back. 'She's obviously one of his people.'

I do not want to argue. I just want to finish off Kane. For all we know, there's a trap door or secret pas...age here, and he could disappear again.

We cannot allow that to happen. I hope the innocent lady doesn't get hurt either, but if she does...she does.

“You go left, Tristan,” I say. —I'll go to the right. Mark, try to get that woman away from him before she hurts her. If we move fast enough, I shouldn't have time to hurt her.

"But..." Mark begins.

Tristan interrupts him. -One two three!

I go to the right while Tristan goes to the left. Mark delays a bit because he's too busy thinking, but then he lunges right at Kane, trying to hit him before he can cut the woman down.

Kane was lying because he doesn't try to cut the woman. Instead, he pushes her toward Tristan, screams like a little girl, and takes several steps back, not even trying to escape her.

He can't get away from us, and as my teeth sink into his soft, warm flesh, he screams louder and I bite harder.

His blood is warm and salty, and I swallow it, so glad to finally be done with him and this conflict.