Where The Ice Gives Way (Charlotte and Blake) novel Chapter 251

Chapter 251-A Wolf, A Soul Mate, A Whole Life I Never Knew

Jessica

I laugh.

That is the only thing my body seems capable of doing, becage obviously that is a joke A bad one, sure, and wildly inappropriate considering I have had

one sip of coffee and an entire morning of people looking at me like I am a vase wobbling near the edge of a table, but still.

A joke.

It has to be.

Except no one else laughs. Not Charlie. Not Charlotte. Not Emily. Not my parents. Hell, not even Theo.

Slowly, the sound dies in my throat, and when I look around, I realise the whole backyard has turned its attention to me. The conversations have softened Heads have turned. A few people glance away the second I catch them looking, but others don’t move fast enough, and I see it on their faces.

The pity and gentleness.

The kind of soft smiles people give when they already know the terrible thing you have only just been handed.

This whole wolf community breakfast whatever-it-is has gone quiet around me. Suddenly the smoke, the barbecues, the fire pits, the rows of tables, the people from school, the teachers, the faces from town, all of it presses in until I feel like I am standing in the middle of a world that knew me before I knew

myself.

I look at Mum and Dad. Waiting. Begging, maybe, though I would rather swallow/glass than admit that.

Dad steps forward, and his face folds in a way I have never seen before. He looks… wrecked.

“Charlie is telling the truth,” he says quietly.

The ground seems to tilt beneath me as he tells me everything. Every tiny, little, massive detail that they have kept from me.

A wolf. I have a wolf. There is a wolf inside me. And that wolf has a soulmate. A soulmate

“I think I need to sit down,” I say to no one in particular.

My fingers tighten around Charlie’s hand, and if I am hurting him, he doesn’t show it. He only shifts closer, his body angling toward mine.

“Come on,” he says softly. “Let’s get you somewhere quiet for a second.”

I nod because words have become too slippery to hold on to.

Charlie leads me through the house, and I follow because his hand is warm, and if I think too hard about any of this, I am going to have a heart attack g there on Mara Atlas’s freshly shovelled lawn.

The house blurs around me. Hallway. Stairs. The creak of wood under our feet. A bedroom door opening

Then I am sitting on the edge of Charlie’s bed, staring down at the floorboards while my heart thumps ton hard and the feat inside me

11:16 am

ppp.

Chapter 251 A Wolf, A Soul Mate, A Whole Life I Never Knew

A well

A fucking wolf?

What do I do with that?

What do I do with this?

How?

Why?

What?

The thoughts trip over each other until they stop sounding like thoughts at all and become one ong, panicked noise inside my

Charlie crouches in front of me.

skull.

I know he does because his knees come into view, then his hands, then his face as he lowers himself until he is looking up into my eyes.

“Tell me what you need right now,” he says softly.

I open my mouth numbly, with no sense of what to say.

He waits patiently while I drag in a breath that feels too big for my lungs.

“I…” I blow it out and press my free hand to my chest. “Wolf.”

That is all I manage.

And Charlie nods like I just gave him a full, perfectly reasonable sentence. “Yeah.”

My eyes sting, and I hate it. “Charlie, I don’t know if I can handle any of this.”

Pain flickers across his face, fast and sharp, but he swallows it down quickly, I see him do I see the moment he decides his fear is not important right

now.

“I’m not sure there’s any stopping it, Jess,” he says quietly. “But I can promise you I’ll be here every step of the way, if that’s what you want.”

My throat closes.

“I’m scared,” I whisper.

His face softens. “I get it.”

I almost laugh again, but this time it comes out small and broken. “Do you?”

“Yeah,” be says, and a tiny smile pulls at his mouth, sad but real. “Charlotte and I were freaked out for a while too when we this sited in’t know wolves existed. We didn’t know anything. We thought we were dying.”

11:16 am PPP.

Chapter 251 A Wolf, A Soul Mate. A Whole Life I Never Knew

My heart statters as he looks down for a second, like the memory still hurts. “We were on the floor, bones snapping, crying and saying goodbye to each

nther because we thought that was it.”

I picture it before I can stop myself Charlie and Charlotte younger, terrified, alone, no parents explaining, no pack waiting outside with breakfast and warm hands and soft voices. Just pain and fear and two kids thinking their bodies had met their end.

“What happened?” I ask.

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