Where The Ice Gives Way Chapter 77

**Blake**

Cursed. The word is ugly, and every wolf in the house feels the weight of it. Charlie’s anger rips through him so fast it almost comes off his skin. Before it can go any further, Dad lifts a hand, and the whole room bends around it. He then takes one measured step forward, putting himself squarely back in control of his own house. “Who told you about the white wolf?”

“That’s not really any of your business.”

“You walked into my home, called my people wolves like it was something dirty, and called one of them cursed. It became my business the second you crossed my threshold.” The older man’s mouth twists in anger, but he doesn’t back down. “I’m not here for a history lesson, Alpha. I’m here to collect my kids so we can get on the road again.” Something in me goes hot, and Lex bristles so hard it feels like my skin has tightened around him. *No.* He growls low in my chest. Charlie does the same. We step in front of Charlotte together without needing to look at each other, shoulder to shoulder, a wall made of anger and instinct and one very clear answer. “You’re not taking them anywhere,” I say. Their father’s eyes flash with barely kept rage. He looks past me like I’m something between an obstacle and an insult. My Dad raises a hand again before the room can tip into that. “Your daughter and my son are mates,” he says, voice low and absolute. “It will do you no good to try and separate them. They will always find a way back to each other.” Charlotte’s father goes rigid from that. Whatever he was expecting, it was clearly not that. He looks at me then, and disgust and fear twist together in his face so tightly. “And what will you do,” he asks my Dad, “when hundreds of rogues come to hunt her every single day? What then?” Mum steps up beside Dad and places one hand lightly on his arm. Her voice is calm when she answers, but there’s steel under every single word. “We will protect both of the children. That is what a good pack does.” Charlotte’s father lets out a laugh with no humour in it at all. “You can’t protect them. No one can keep them safe.” He points past Charlie and me, straight at Charlotte. “That is a walking target.”

The growl that tears out of Dad is quiet, but it vibrates through the room like something much bigger standing just under his skin. “She,” he says, each word clipped and dangerous, “is not a thing.” He throws his hands up and looks at Charlie instead, trying a different angle. “Come on, kid. You believe me, right?” His voice roughens. “We have to run. We have to keep moving.” Charlie doesn’t even hesitate; he stays planted at my side, shoulders set, chin lifted just enough to make it clear he is done being spoken down to. “We’re tired of running.” His father’s face hardens. “Charlotte’s going to change the world. She’s going to save the rogues and bring back their humanity.”

“She can’t save them,” he snaps. “She’s cursed. She will always be cursed.” His hand cuts through the air, wild with something close to desperation. “Everyone around her is cursed.”

And that’s when I stop listening to him. Over my shoulder, I look back at Charlotte. She’s silent and pale and breathing too hard. Tears are sliding down her face without a sound. The sight of it hits me like a blow, and everything else in the room falls away. I turn, and her eyes lift to mine, wide and wet and trying so hard to hold together that it hurts to look at. I don’t say anything. I take her hand. Her fingers are cold when they slide into mine. The voices behind us blur into low, rough noise the second we step into the hall. I hear Gareth say something, hear John’s harder tone underneath it, hear Charlie still in there, standing his ground, but none of it matters as much as the girl beside me trying not to fall apart one breath at a time. I take her to the little window seat at the end of the hall. The second we stop, she turns into me, and I wrap my arms around her, pulling her head to my chest. My arms close around her shoulders and back, holding her there while her breathing stutters hard and then breaks into something quieter and shakier against my shirt. I press my mouth briefly to the top of her head. “Lotty.” She grips the back of my shirt in both hands, and her voice, when it comes, is so soft I nearly miss it. “Do you think I’m cursed?” The question tears through me clean, and I lean back just enough to look at her. Her face is blotched pink from crying, lashes wet, mouth trembling even though she’s fighting it. I don’t think I have ever wanted to hurt someone the way I want to hurt the man who put that look on her face. I cup one side of her face in my hand. “No.” She searches my face like she needs to see if I mean it. “Charlotte,” I say, quieter now, forcing every bit of steadiness I have into her name. “You are not cursed.” I brush the tears from under one eye with my thumb and pull her back against me before she can try to hold herself together alone again.

Behind us, voices rise faintly in the room we left. In front of me, my mate shakes in my arms, her whole world imploding, and still somehow stays standing. Holding her there, feeling the fragile weight of her and the strength under it, I know I will not allow her father to take her from me. I will protect her, all of her, her body, her heart and her soul.