Where The Ice Gives Way Chapter 64

**Charlotte**

Arun hangs in the chains with his head bowed and his breath dragging hard through his chest. His shoulders are shaking under the strain of holding himself together for these few stolen seconds. My own lungs feel tight as I stare at him and feel that same thread tugging low inside me. The one that is buried under all the wildness and rot and wrongness and still refuses to die. Mara comes to stand just behind me. I can feel how carefully she is handling her own voice when she says, very softly, “Charlotte.” I turn my head a little, not enough to take my eyes off Arun fully, but enough to see Mara’s calm face. “Let her howl.” She whispers.

For a second, I look at her, and I shake my head before I even realise I am doing it. “I can’t shift in front of everyone,” I whisper back. Mara’s mouth softens. “You don’t have to shift,” she says. “Just let Shanti push forward.” Her gaze flicks to Arun, then back to me. “Let her howl through you.” I’ve never done that before. I have never let Shanti come that close to the surface without giving her everything. Not in front of people. Every part of me is suddenly aware of my own skin, my own hands, my own breath. I don’t want to do this wrong. I won’t stand here and try and fail while everyone watches. But Arun’s chains creak softly as his body trembles against them, and when I look back at him, I see his head still bowed, and his mouth still parted around the edges of pain. I know there is no room left for pride, fear, or self-consciousness. There can only be this.

I close my eyes and let the shed disappear, the cold, the smell of blood and silver and old timber all fall away. I let myself sink inward, down into the place where Shanti waits. Her fur shines white beneath a sky that does not belong to this world, and her eyes hold mine with a stillness so complete it quiets everything in me the second I meet it. *He calls,* she says. I take one breath, then another and I open the space between us, just enough that Shanti moves forward. I allow myself to feel the cold of light against the inside of my skin, as it rises through me. It rolls through my chest, along my throat, into my jaw, my teeth, the base of my skull. My fingers curl, my spine straightens, and my senses sharpen. I can hear every shift of fabric in the room, every tiny drag of Arun’s ragged breathing, every pulse of blood through the bodies gathered around me.

My eyes open, and I feel Blake go still beside me. I do not know what they see when they look at me. I only know what it feels like from the inside. My body remains my own, but Shanti stands just beneath it now. Her breath moves with mine. “That’s it, sweetheart,” Mara says gently, and Arun lifts his head. Slowly, his eyes meet mine and widen. The wolf in them recoils. I see it happen, that violent instinctive response to something older than the ruin inside him. His upper lip twitches, and his body strains against the chains. Then Shanti steps to the very edge of me, and I draw in one deep breath and let her howl.

The sound tears out of me, rising through the shed. It does not sound like my human voice, but it also does not sound fully wolf either… It carries both, and the shed vibrates with it. Arun jerks hard against the chains. His head flies back as his mouth opens on a broken cry. His whole body shakes as the howl moves through him, through the wolf, through whatever dark rot has wrapped around his soul. The hard set of bone eases, the furious twist in his mouth breaks open. His eyes clear by degrees, the pale wildness pulling back enough to reveal the man behind it in flashes that come faster and stronger with every second Shanti’s call pours through the room. Arun drops forward as much as possible, and chains snap taut, as a sob tears out of him. Tears spill down his face, carving tracks through dirt and dried blood. His claws scrape uselessly at the concrete as he bows forward, shoulders shaking, head hanging. The howl fades from my throat slowly, the final note trailing out over the silence.

I stand there trembling with Shanti still pressed close beneath my skin, my chest rising and falling too fast, my throat burning with the force of what just came out of me… Arun drags in a shaking breath, and when he lifts his face again, the man in him is there. Still carrying the rough edges of the wolf like a wound not fully sealed, but there. His eyes meet mine, and they are wet and horrified and grateful all at once. “Thank you,” he chokes out. The words break around the force of his breathing. “Thank you.” He bows his head again, chains rattling softly with the movement, and tears keep falling from him unchecked. “I’m sorry,” he says. My heart hurts for him. Arun swallows hard and looks up at me again. “I’m sorry,” he says again, voice shredded now. His mouth twists violently, and he squeezes his eyes shut for half a second before forcing them open again. “Thank you.” Mara’s hand comes to rest lightly between my shoulder blades. I don’t think she realises how much I need that touch right now as I stare at Arun and the impossibility of what Shanti and I just did…

He kneels bowed beneath the chains, face wet, chest shaking, human grief pouring out of him in the place where rage was only moments ago. The sight of it roots me where I stand… Because this is real. How is this real? I did that… Shanti did that. “We need to get him cleaned up,” Mara says softly behind me, and the words seem to break whatever spell held the room still. Blake steps in beside me, one hand coming to my waist. I sway toward him and let myself. What the hell just happened? Arun’s eyes lift again, this time not just to me but to all of us, and I see the shame hit him as he takes in the room, the chains, the men, the blood on his own skin, the proof of what he has been. His face folds around it. “I didn’t want to hurt anyone,” he whispers. Mara’s fingers press against my back as I threaten to hyperventilate. “Take her back to the house.” She tells Blake and Charlie. I hear it, but I don’t register it as my feet start moving automatically… What the hell am I?