Where The Ice Gives Way (Charlotte and Blake) novel Chapter 200

Chapter 200 No Bars Will Hold Me Back

Theo

I hear the outside door open, and Yelen roars. The sound tears through my chest and scrapes up my throat, too big for my body, too wild for human skin. He

roars for our mate. For the blood on her neck. For the injustice of it: For the goddamn fury of being locked in a fucking cage while Thomas drags her away

with claws at her throat. Then the door slams shut. Fuck. Igin on the others, frantic, my hands opening and closing like there should be something in

them. A weapon. A key. Thomas’s throat. “What do we do?” I demand, staring at Gareth.

His face is hard, but his eyes are careful when they meet mine. “Son…”

“No.” I shake my head, already backing away from the sound of that tone. “No. No. Don’t you tell me there’s nothing we can do.”

But even as I say it, the truth presses in around me. There is nothing we can do from inside a cage.

I grip the bars harder and rattle the door until the metal bites into my palms. It doesn’t move. It barely even gives. Still, I shake it again and again, because

maybe rage can bend the iron if I get angry enough. Maybe the Moon Goddess will decide this is the moment to make me useful. Maybe Yelen can claw his

way out of my skin and tear the whole door off its hinges. But nothing happens.

Blake grabs my shoulder. “Theo.”

I shove him off. “Don’t.”

“I’m trying to keep you from breaking your hands before we need them.”

“I need them now.”

“I know. Brother, hey, look at me.” He grabs my face in both his hands and forges my forehead to his. “I know.” He says softer now, his eyes filled with pain,

and I flick my eyes to Charlotte, to his mate, standing inside the cage with us. The girl whom he’s almost lost, time and time again, and now we’re here. I

take a deep breath that rattles out of me as a bell begins to ring outside.

The sound rolls through the prison, and my stomach drops. Emily. I spin and press my forehead against the bars, breathing hard through my nose, thinking

of any way I can get us out of this shit. Then I see movement: a tiny movement, almost nothing, but movement, near the cots. My head snaps up, and I

press my face harder between the bars, straining to see from this angle. A blanket shifts beneath one of the cots, just enough to show a pale hand gripping

the edge of the mattress. Then a girl’s head appears with dark hair, wide eyes, and tear–streaked cheeks. Shit. What was her name? Shit.

Lacey, Charlotte says through the mind link, her voice trembling as she pushes herself against the bars next to me.

Lacey. The girl Emily was helping when I brought the big guy in to her. My lungs fill for the first time since the door closed. My eyes flick toward the Munroe guards, who have taken seats in the corridor like bored idiots waiting for their Alpha to finish destroying someone in public. One has his chair tipped back against the wall. The other is leaning forward, elbows on knees, watching the front door as if all the interesting things are happening outside. I lift one hand toward Lacey, silently telling her to be still. Her eyes lock on mine, and she freezes. Good girl. Good fucking girl.

Blake, I say through the bond, keeping my mouth shut this time. Do you think that bark of yours can lead that guard over here?

Blake’s head turns slowly toward me. For half a second, his face is all murder and no plan. Then his mouth curves. Worth a shot, isn’t it?

He steps forward, rolling his shoulders once, then he faces the guards. I move back a step, giving him room as Blake draws in a slow breath. The guard.

tipped back in his chair, glances over with a bored frown, and Blake smiles. “Hey, shit stain.”

The guard’s frown deepens. “What did you just-”

1/2

1:04 pm P PN

Chapter 200 No Bars Will Hold Me Back

COME

The word punches through the corridor, deep and commanding.

The guard’s chair slams forward, his boots hitting the floor as his spine locks straight. Sweat beads across his forehead as he fights the command, jaw

clenched so tight I can hear his teeth grind from here. Blake tilts his head. “COME.” The second command snaps the guard’s restraint, and he stands. His

whole body trembles with the effort of resisting, but one foot moves and then the other. He walks toward the cage in stiff, jerking steps, eyes wide with

panic now, like he can feel his own body betraying him and cannot stop it.

The second guard shoots to his feet. “What are you doing?”

Blake jeans in close to the bars when the guard reaches us, and his grin turns wicked.

“Now,” he says softly. “Sit.”

Like a goddamn dog, the man drops his knees to the concrete and his face lands right in line with the gap between the bars. Perfect. I waste no time lining

up my foot, gripping the bars with both hands, and kicking him straight in his ugly fucking teeth.

The guard drops like a sack of wet laundry. His head snaps back, blood spraying from his mouth before he slumps sideways onto the concrete. For one

beautiful second, the whole prison goes still. Then the second guard swears and rushes toward him–wrong move. Gareth is already waiting. He moves so

fast I barely see his hand shoot between the bars. His fingers close around the guard’s collar, and the man’s eyes go wide a split second before Gareth yanks

him forward and slams his face into the metal. The sound cracks through the corridor. Once. Twice. Three times for good luck, I guess, and then the guard

drops beside the first, boneless and silent.

I would laugh, but my mate is out there with Thomas and Marcus, so the best I can manage is a sharp breath that scrapes the inside of my throat. I turn back toward the cots. “Coast is clear,” I call softly, trying to make my voice sound less like I’m two seconds from ripping the world apart. “If you wouldn’t

VERIFYCAPTCHA_LABELVerify