Where The Ice Gives Way Chapter 163

**Emily**

The Alpha and Luna’s house is beautiful. It’s full of warmth. There are photos all over the walls, and trophies and medals proudly displayed on shelves. It feels lived in with blankets thrown over the back of the couch. I spot a half-finished puzzle on the coffee table.

I’m led to the dining room, where I sit between Mara and Charlotte. I place my hands in my lap and try to keep my breathing quiet, but my shoulders want to curl forward. This is the Alpha’s table. The Alpha and Luna’s actual table. In my old pack, people like me did not sit here.

My mother worked in the pack house kitchen. She cooked for tables like this. She scrubbed floors beneath tables like this. I used to wait near the back door sometimes, holding her empty lunch tin, listening to the laughter inside rooms I was never supposed to enter. Now Mara places a dish of potatoes beside my plate and smiles like I somehow belong here.

“Take what you like, sweetheart.”

My throat tightens around words that do not come. Thankfully, Charlotte reaches for the spoon before I can panic over it and scoops a small amount onto my plate, then looks at me. “Is that okay?” I nod quickly, and she adds green beans too, then a slice of meat, then glances at the bread basket. “Bread?”

I nod again, my hands twitching in my lap. “Please.” 

Then she fills my glass with water before I have to ask.

I look at her hands as she does all of it. They’re simple movements, but she does them with such quiet ease. I get the feeling that she knows that asking for things feels impossible when you have spent so long needing nothing… because nothing was safer than being refused. She gives me a small smile and reaches for her own drink, and her calmness settles over me in little waves. The room still feels like a lot, but beside her, I can keep breathing.

Across the table, Theo sits very still. He is trying not to stare. I know because I am trying the same thing, and every few minutes our eyes accidentally lock before I look down again. His vanilla scent still wraps around me, no matter how much I look down at my plate. Sasha stirs inside me. *He feels right.* She says, though the words are sleepy and worn down.

My fork stops halfway to my mouth as I zone out, but Charlotte’s knee nudges mine under the table, and I look at her. She simply gives me a small, steady smile and reaches for the water jug, filling her own glass slowly as if nothing strange has happened. Around us, the conversation moves on without me.

“…email came through after dinner prep,” Gareth says from the head of the table.

Blake’s voice follows, lower and tighter, but I don’t listen. I can’t. I look down at my plate and tear the bread roll in half. Twenty-six what? I should listen. I know I should. It’s the polite thing to do… But the room is already too much. Theo’s scent is too much. Sasha’s voice is too much. The food in front of me is too much. My body keeps waiting for someone to realise they made a mistake and tell me to leave.

So I focus on the bread. The bread is safe.

Mara reaches behind me then and touches the back of my chair. “You’re doing well,” she murmurs, and I swallow hard. Across the table, Theo’s eyes flick up, all his attention fixated on me for a second before he quickly lowers his head again. My cheeks warm as I turn to talk to Mara, but I catch a snippet of Gareth saying that Charlotte might be going away somewhere. I flick my head to Charlotte as panic starts to creep in, and her fingers curl lightly around mine. I realise my own hand has closed into a fist on my lap.

“It’s just talk right now,” she whispers to me. “Nothing decided.”

I nod, though my heartbeat has already started to climb.

My skin prickles at the thought of her leaving me alone here, but Charlotte squeezes my hand, forcing me to look at her again.

“If we go,” she says softly, “you can come with us, of course. It might be good to get out and see everything with clear eyes.”

“And a good pack with you,” Blake adds from her other side. His voice is calm and warm, but his eyes stay on Gareth, like half of him is still in whatever conversation I have not fully followed.

Gareth turns his head toward me then, and his expression warms in a way that makes me sit straighter.

“Actually,” he says, “that reminds me. Emily, if or when you are ready, we would be more than happy to accept you into Wellington Pack.”

The room goes quiet, and my heart stops doing anything useful. All I can hear is blood rushing in my ears. They want me in their pack? Me? The rogue who was tossed out of hers for not being good enough? He’s offering me a place at his table and a thread back into something larger than myself, and the answer bursts out of me. “Yes.” I want that. I want that so badly. I want to belong.

My own voice startles me, and I drop my eyes fast, fingers tightening around Charlotte’s beneath the table. Then, more quietly, I remember my manners and whisper, “Please.”

Gareth chuckles, and the sound carries no mockery with it.

“We can do it after dinner if you’re keen,” he says. “It might make the transition easier if you can feel a pack bond again.”

My eyes sting. A pack bond. A place to come back to. Sasha shifts inside me, lifting her head toward the offer with a tired little sound. *Home?*

The word is so small and so full  I nearly break around it. I look at Charlotte first because she is the safest thing in the room. She smiles at me, eyes bright. Then I look at Theo before I can stop myself. His eyes are fixed on me, wide and shining in a way he does not try to hide fast enough. He gives me the smallest nod, and the softest smile, and I wolf all but whimpers inside of me. My breath shakes in my chest as I turn back to Gareth.

“Yes,” I say again, more confident this time.

“Good. We were hoping you’d stay with us.” Mara says gently, and as everyone continues around me, I wipe away a stray tear. They want me. I’m going to have a pack again. One that wants me.