Where The Ice Gives Way Chapter 146

**Blake**

This morning, Charlotte sits on the living room floor with Mum. The bakery puzzle is spread across the coffee table, half-built and waiting. Mum has a blanket draped around Charlotte’s shoulders and a mug of hot chocolate near her knee. Charlotte’s braid hangs over one shoulder, loose from sleep, and every so often she reaches for a piece, studies it, then looks at the box before trying to fit it into place. Mum hums under her breath. The same little tune she used yesterday when she brushed Charlotte’s hair.

I stand in the doorway longer than I need to. Lex doesn’t like leaving her. Neither do I.

Mum looks up before I can pretend I’m not hovering. “Go, Blake.”

Charlotte glances over her shoulder at me. “Go where?”

“Just out back,” I tell her. “Dad needs me for a bit.”

I watch as her fingers tighten around a puzzle piece. “Is everything okay?”

I step into the room and crouch beside her, brushing my thumb lightly over the back of her hand. “Yeah, everything’s fine. I’ll be close if you need me, okay?”

Shanti must say something to her, because she relaxes a little. “I’ll be fine with Mara,” she says.

Mum gives me a look that says, “Exactly, see?”

I lean in and kiss Charlotte’s forehead before I leave the warmth of the house behind and step out into the backyard.

There’s so much noise from the engines, and metals banging and men calling out instructions. The whole acre beyond our yard has changed in a day and a half. What used to be open land and snow-dusted trees is now churned mud, tyre tracks, floodlights, temporary fencing, and wolves moving with purpose. Dad bought the land behind the house before the hospital even released Charlotte. By the time I got her home, crews were already working. Past the fence line, a trench is being reinforced with concrete and steel. I stand and watch for a moment as our pack works beside contractors from three neighbouring territories.

They’re building underground cells and holding rooms for the rouges. They’ll be secure, reinforced, and, most importantly, separated from my girl. They’ll be built deep into the earth, and monitored with care. A delivery truck sits near the far side with medical equipment strapped down in the back. That should be the delivery of restraint beds, monitoring equipment, warming blankets, sedatives and other things to help ease their transition. Everything we need and nothing I want Charlotte to see yet.

My boots sink into the mud as I cross the yard to where Dad stands near the temporary site office. He looks like he hasn’t slept. His jaw is rough with stubble, his coat half-zipped, his eyes red around the edges. He sees me coming and ends whatever call he’s on.

“How is she?”

“Doing okay,” I say. “Confused. Tired. But okay.”

His face softens for one second before he turns back to the site. “Good.”

Word spread fast after the incident at the lake. It would have been impossible to hide even if we tried. A rogue migration that size doesn’t move quietly. So many packs saw them crossing territory lines. By the time Dad started making calls, half the surrounding Alphas already knew something big had happened. He told them all about the white wolf that is to be my future luna, and how every rogue would hunt her until the end of her days.

Dad has been in countless meetings since the lake. His phone hasn’t stopped, and neither has he. Some packs were more cautious than others, but support came flooding in anyway. We’ve received warriors, trackers, builders, doctors, money and supplies. Almost every pack with the resources to spare has agreed to hunt the rogues moving toward our territory. The aim is not to kill on sight unless there’s no choice, but instead to intercept, contain and deliver here if they can be safely moved. It’s been a collective decision between many packs to keep Charlotte alive and give the lost a chance to come back.

Farther back from the underground cells, another frame is going up. A transition house. That’s what Mum called it when Dad explained the plan at two in the morning, while Charlie and I sat in the hospital and listened to it on the phone. It’ll be a place for restored wolves to live after Charlotte pulls them back. There will be therapy rooms, training areas, medical supervision, and rooms for the wolves and our pack representatives to stay in. It’ll be a way to return them slowly to society instead of dumping them at the edge of a territory with a blanket and some trauma. It’s smart, human, it’s massive, and it all depends on Charlotte. My mate, who is inside right now, is trying to remember whether she likes corner pieces.

A truck door slams, and I flinch before I can stop it. Dad narrows his eyes at me. “You’re no good to her if you burn yourself out,” he says.

I huff a humourless laugh. “Is this your gentle fatherly advice?”

“It’s my Alpha advice. Fatherly would involve your mother and tea.”

I smile, but it doesn’t last. “What if this is too much?” I ask, watching two workers lower steel reinforcement into the ground. “What if we tell her, and she feels responsible for all of it?”

Dad is quiet for a moment, then he steps closer, voice lowering. “She will feel responsible, because she will be. But we can make sure she knows this is not hers to carry alone.”

Through the window, I hear Charlotte laugh. The sound barely reaches us through the glass, but I feel it anyway, and Lex settles inside me.

“I don’t want her hurt again,” I say.

“She will be protected, that’s what all this is for. This is how we keep her safe. We control it.” Dad says.

I look out over the construction site as Dad’s phone buzzes again. He looks at it, then back to me. 

“Three more rogues intercepted west of town,” he says. 

I nod as I look back at the house. The rogues are still coming, and she’s still blissfully unaware of everything we will have to ask of her. 

“I’ll tell her,” I say quietly. “Not today, but I’ll tell her when she’s ready.”

Dad nods. “Good. Now go help unload that truck into the storage container. I need all hands on deck to get this place built as quickly as possible.”