Where The Ice Gives Way Chapter 98

**Blake**

I don’t move when she howls. I don’t think any of us do. The sound fills the shed in one low, steady note, and something in me locks around it so completely that even breathing feels like too much. The rogue’s chest heaves, his body straining against everything holding him back, and for one stretched second, I am certain it won’t work. Then he snaps. 

Charlotte sits in front of him in her wolf form, still and grounded and impossibly calm, and there is something almost unreal in the sight of her there. She belongs in that exact position, in this moment, with all of us standing back and watching her do something none of us can. Shanti holds him with a sort of powerful, locking peace that I can feel even from where I stand. It moves through the shed in the same way the howl did, settling into the wood and metal and cold air around us. The rogue shudders beneath it. His head drops, then lifts again more slowly than before, and when his eyes meet hers this time, they are there in a way they weren’t a second ago. Human.

He still looks broken and raw… and in need of a bath, but the wild, blank look has broken enough that a man is looking back at her now. “...please…” He whines pitifully. Shanti doesn’t do anything except hold where she is and let that calm stay wrapped around him. Dad moves forward carefully, standing in front of the rogue now. “Can you hear me?” he asks. The rogue’s gaze drags from Shanti to him. The effort of it is written all over his face, in the way his brow pulls and his focus moves like it’s forcing its way through fog, but he nods. “Yeah…”

“Do you know where you are?”

The rogue swallows before he answers.

“…pack…”

“Do you know what happened to you?” His gaze drops, his shoulders drawing in now with something that looks a lot like shame.

“…turned.”

Dad nods once, then asks the question that has been on all of our minds lately.

“Why are there more of you coming through our territory?” The rogue lifts his head. His eyes find Shanti again. Fear moves through his face in one quick, unmistakable flicker, and the second I see it. Every instinct in me rises hard enough to make my jaw lock. I don’t think he’s scared for himself… He looks like he’s scared for her. The bond snaps tight, and Lex surges under my skin, furious and already halfway to a snarl before I drag him back. *Mine.* Mine to protect. Mine to keep safe. Mine to stand in front of if I have to tear the world open to do it. The rogue swallows again, his voice rougher now as if the words themselves don’t want to leave. “They’re—” He stops, and his eyes flick to me, then to Dad, then back to Shanti like none of us matters as much as she does in this moment. “They’re coming…” My pulse pounds in my ears, though Dad keeps himself together. “Who is?” The rogue shakes his head once, like that isn’t the right question. Then he looks straight at Shanti. “They’re coming for you… We...They hear your call.” The words do not need to be shouted to hit like a blow. Lex snarls low inside me, and I take a step forward before I even realise I’ve done it.

“Blake.”

Dad’s voice cuts across the space between us, quiet but enough. I stop, but it takes a damn lot of effort. Dad asks the next question without taking his eyes off the rogue. “How many?” The man shakes his head again, slower now. “All of them…” His gaze drifts back to Shanti. “They feel you,” he says. All of them… Like a wave, a flood, like every rogue in the country has lifted its head at once and turned toward the same sound. Toward her. I don’t want to hear another fucking word. Lex is already there with me, raging hard enough that my hands shake with it. *Mine.* The thought isn’t even language anymore, just instinct and fury and something so deeply wired into me that it feels like bone. I stride forward before anyone can stop me.

Shanti turns her head as I come for her, calm where I am anything but, and then I’m bending, sliding one arm under her chest and the other beneath her back legs, lifting her clean off the floor. The rogue jerks at the sight of it, his eyes going wider, and I bare my teeth and growl at him. “Mine.” Then I turn and walk.

I hear Dad say my name behind me, and the scrape of boots and the chains rattling, but I don’t stop. I carry Shanti straight out into the cold night air, across the yard, through the back door, and into the house. The warmth hits my face and does absolutely nothing to cool the fire burning under my skin. Up the stairs. Down the hall. Into my room. I kick the door shut behind us and lower her carefully onto my bed. The mattress dips under her weight, and I take two steps back before turning away from her completely, dragging both hands through my hair and pacing once to the window and back. “Who the hell do they think they are?” I snap, rage pouring out of me. “You’re my mate. They can’t have you. I won’t let them touch you. I won’t let them hurt you.” I turn again, chest heaving, hands opening and closing uselessly at my sides. “This isn’t bloody fair. Why the hell do they get to feel you?” The thought gets worse the longer I think about it, twisting itself deeper. “That should only be for me,” Lex growls his agreement, pacing so hard inside me I can barely think around it. *We should hunt them all, tear out their throats, make them suffer.*

“Blake…”

I stop dead. I turn. Charlotte is there on my bed, shifted back sometime in the middle of my pacing. She sits in the sheets with her hair loose around her shoulders and her eyes fixed on me, wide and soft and very, very human. My gaze drops before I can stop it. Bare skin. Long legs half tucked beneath the blanket. The curve of her shoulder. The line of her throat. Her collar bones. Her milky, supple… My eyes snap back to hers. “Shit.” I turn around so fast I almost trip over my own feet, giving her my back immediately. My heart starts pounding for a completely different reason. “I’m so sorry, Lotty. I didn’t think. I wasn’t thinking. I’m still not thinking.” The words fall out too fast, too rough. I hear her move on the bed behind me while I stand there staring at my wall like it’s about to save me from myself.