Where The Ice Gives Way (Charlotte and Blake) novel Chapter 244

Chapter 244 Old and Grey

Gareth

“These kids are going to turn me old and grey,”

I sigh, shaking my head with a chuckle as Blake’s link fades from my mind.

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Mara turns to me from the other end of the couch, one brow lifting over the edge of her mug. “Who’s in trouble now?”

“Charlie and Titan.” I rub a hand over my face. “Blake’s bringing him home now. Says they need to talk.”

Mara has raised wolves, loved them, patched them, scolded them, fed them, and held more frightened children together than most people

could count. She knows the difference between a problem that needs force and one that needs warmth.

She pats my leg and rises from the couch. “I’ll put the kettle on.”

“Of course you will.”

“Don’t use that tone with me, Gareth.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it.”

She gives me a look over her shoulder, then crosses the room with purpose. Within a minute, the quiet evening we had been having

becomes something else. She fills the kettle, sets mugs on the counter, pulls a plate of fresh biscuits from the tin, and starts gathering the

thick blankets she keeps folded in the basket near the fireplace.

I watch her move through it all with the same ache in my chest I always get when I see her become exactly what someone needs before

they even know they need it.

A good Luna does not always lead the pack.

Sometimes she boils the kettle, lays blankets over the backs of chairs, and makes a frightened boy feel as though the house already

expected him and had space waiting for him.

Not long later, headlights sweep across the front window.

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Chapter 244 Old and Grey

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His shoulders are stift. His hands are shoved deep into his jacket pockets, but not casually. He looks as though he has put them there to keep them from doing something else. His jaw is tight, his eyes too bright, and under all of that, beneath the boy trying to stared straight and not look scared, Titan is pressing hard against his skin.

Mara sees it too, I’m sure, because her face softens as she steps forward and takes the boys’ coats.

Then she turns to Charlie and opens her arms.

That does it.

The boy folds into her hug with a breath that sounds too tired for someone his age.

“Oh, honey,” Mara murmurs, one hand smoothing over the back of his head. “Come on. Sit down.”

Charlie nods against her shoulder before pulling away, now embarrassed, wiping his face quickly.

Mara leads them into the lounge room and presses mugs of tea into their hands before either of them can protest. Charlie sits on the couch opposite me, Blake beside him. Mara takes the armchair near the fire.

I lower myself back into my seat and look at Charlie properly.

“Well,” I say, keeping my voice even. “Tell me what’s happened.”

“It’s Titan,” Charlie says at last.

“Alright.”

“He’s…” Charlie exhales hard and grips the mug with both hands. “He’s losing it.”

“How?”

What follows is not neat.

Charlie tries to explain it, but the words come out in pieces, one tripping over the next.

I listen past the panic in his voice and the shame sitting heavy in his shoulders. I listen past the teenage heartbreak, past the fear of scaring a girl he clearly cares about, past the desperate way he keeps looking at Blake as if he is hoping someone will tell him this is

normal.

It is not normal.

Not entirely.

It sounds too much like a mate bond.

2/4

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Chapter 244 Old and Grey

One that should not be there.

One that, somehow, inevitably is.

My wolf goes very quiet inside me, and 1 keep my face still because the last thing this boy needs is to see worry on esise. But wors

there, cold and heavy on my heart.

Charlie might be in real trouble.

If his wolf is feeling the pull of a bond and Jess is not, if she truly is human and cannot answer it, then Titan could become unstable A wolf can survive rejection. It hurts, but it can be survived when the bond is clear, spoken, and understood. This is different. This is a wolf reaching for something no one else can see, while the boy carrying him tries to keep both feet on the ground.

Charlie has Charlotte, and Shanti could pull Titan back from places most wolves would never return from. But that is not a burden a sister

should have to carry forever.

Not if I can help it.

Charlie’s voice finally trails off, and he looks down at his hands. “So yeah,” he mutters, rough and embarrassed. “That’s what’s happening.

I think I’m losing my mind.”

“No,” I say. “You are not losing your mind.”

He looks like he wants to believe me and is afraid to.

are not broken and

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Chapter 244 Old and Grey

“You can sit at the table and try.”

There is no room for argument in her voice.

Blake stands first, nudging Charlie with his knee. “Come on.”

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