Where The Ice Gives Way (Charlotte and Blake) novel Chapter 258

Chapter 258 Safe Enough To Break

Jessica

The cold slaps against my damp face and turns the sweat on my skin into something almost painful.

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The yard is silver and black around us, moonlight caught in the snow, firelight flickering orange over the blankets spread across the ground. The flames snap and breathe from the fire pit nearby, and the smell of smoke curls through the air with snow and fear and wolves.

So many wolves.

I can feel them everywhere around me, and it almost becomes too much.

But Charlie is everywhere around me.

His arms under me. His chest against my side. His heartbeat pounding through my ribs as he lowers me onto the blankets. I grip his hand the second he lets go of my body, fingers locking around his because I need him right here with me.

“I’m here,” he says immediately, dropping beside me. “I’ve got you.”

I try to answer, but then the pressure under my skin cracks, and a scream tears out of me.

It feels like something inside me has found the seam of my body and is pushing against it with both hands. My back arches, my legs kicking against the blankets, and every bone feels too full, too bright, too awake.

“No,” I sob. “No, no, no.”

Mara’s hand comes to my shoulder. “Jessica, listen to my voice.”

“I can’t.”

“You can,” she says, firm enough that the words cut through the panic. “Your body knows what to do. Your wolf knows what to do. You are not breaking apart. You are changing.”

Changing.

The word is too small for this.

11:48 Sat, Aug 1

Chapter 258 Safe Enough To Break

I drag my eyes to his, to Titan’s.

“In,” he whispers.

I suck in a broken breath.

“Out.”

It shakes out of me as another wave rolls through my spine.

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Then Charlotte’s hand closes around my other one again. The second she touches me, something deep inside my chest pulls toward her.

My eyes snap to hers.

Charlotte is kneeling beside me in the snow, hair loose around her face, eyes bright with tears she is refusing to let fall. Blake is behind

her, one hand on her shoulder, but she is not looking at him.

She is looking at me.

Her wolf presses close behind her eyes, quiet and aching, and the thing inside me reaches so hard that my whole body trembles.

Charlotte inhales sharply.

She feels it too.

“Jess,” she says, voice soft but steady. “Don’t fight it.”

I shake my head, crying harder. “It hurts.”

“I know.” Her hand tightens around mine. “I know, but some of the pain is your body opening the door. Let that part happen.”

“I don’t know how.”

“Yes, you do.” Her eyes hold mine. “Listen to your wolf. Listen for her. Not the pain. Not the fear. Her.”

Another scream rips out of me as heat burns down my legs.

Gareth’s voice cuts in, calm and short. “Hands open. Don’t lock your muscles.”

“I can’t,” I gasp.

“You can,” he says. “Let your body move. Don’t hold it stiff.”

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11:48 Sat, Aug 1

Chapter 258 Safe Enough To Break

Mara shifts near my head. “Good. That’s it. Breathe.”

Charlie’s grip is warm and shaking. “Jess, I’m right here.”

Charlotte leans closer. “You’re safe. You’re outside. You have space. You have us.”

My gaze darts past her.

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Mum stands with both hands pressed to her mouth, tears streaming down her face. Dad is beside her, expression destroyed, one arm tight around her shoulders. He looks like every sound I make cuts straight through him.

For one second, our eyes meet, and I see the apology there. I see the love. I see the choice he made for me breaking apart in front of him.

Then pain surges, and I lose him as something snaps beneath my skin.

A pressure I did not know was there, wrapped around the deepest part of me, splits open like ice under spring water. Magic, maybe. A spell. A lock. I don’t know. All I know is that it breaks, and the thing inside me floods forward with a gasp that is mine and not mine.

The world goes white.

White like fur under moonlight.

White like breath in winter.

White like something that has waited too long in the dark and is finally touching air.

Shakti, my wolf whispers in my mind as she stretches her legs. My name is Shakti.

“Shakti.” I echo out loud in a shaky voice, as my eyes spill more tears.

Charlotte’s voice trembles. “That’s her, isn’t it?”

I nod, or try to. “Shakti.”

The name comes out cracked, barely more than breath, but Charlotte’s face crumples as if it means something to her too. Her own wolf presses closer behind her eyes, and something passes between us then that I don’t completely understand. But I feel it. I feel the connection between us.

It isn’t like Charlie.

11:48 Sat, Aug 1

Chapter 258 Safe Enough To Break

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The wolf behind Charlotte’s eyes feels still in a way. She feels calm, deep, patient, like snow falling over a battlefield until even the blood disappears beneath white. There is something peaceful about her, something that reaches out without grabbing, something that does not demand anything from the frantic, burning thing inside me.

And that is what my wolf feels like.

Burning.

She’s not angry exactly. Not violent. Just full of something too big for the small, scared place she has been locked inside. She feels like heat, and movement. Like a pulse under the earth waiting to split it open.

Charlotte’s wolf feels like the breath before.

Mine feels like the thing that comes after.

And I don’t know what any of that means. I only know they are reaching for each other.

Like they were never meant to stand apart.

Then my bones begin to move, and I scream, but Charlie is there, forehead pressed close, voice rough.

“I’ve got you. I’ve got you. Let her come, Jess.”

Charlotte speaks over him, soft and fierce. “She’s not taking you. She is you.”

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