The Wolf Came on Christmas (Johanna and Alexander) novel Chapter 108

Chapter 108-1

He loosened his pressure on me a little, but he didn’t let me go. What he did do was lower the weapon. That was an enormous relief, although I wasn’t completely free. I would have liked to have enough breath to scream at Alexander not to risk fighting that monster, but-

“Don’t talk as if we were animals. I’m not a beast like you,” Alejandro growled.

“I am not a beast, I am a hunter,” the lion clarified. “And you agreed to be my prey.”

“Then let it be only between the hunter and the prey. Isn’t that the only thing that matters to you? You said you wanted my skin and my flesh. Come and strip them off my bones if you can defeat me. If I am an animal, as much as you believe, then you don’t need any hostage to put me in the mood.”

The white wolf’s tone was cold as an iceberg. The cold had reached his eyes, darkening the bright blue into a violent and dangerous shade. He was seriously considering it-he was going to fight for me and for all his companions, for my son, for his own. For Nika. For Hans.

And I felt that he was so charged that there was no way he would lose.

Rex was right. Sooner or later, Alexander was going to fight, even if he didn’t like it.

The lion dragged me with him as we backed out through the door into the hallway, and Álvaro moved with him, always between us and the wolf-man. We went down the stairs backward (1 don’t know how I didn’t fall-we could have broken our necks on that dangerous descent). and Alexander followed us closely, five or six steps above us. Finally, we reached the ground floor in the wood workshop, and with a severe growl, the lion grabbed me by my good shoulder.

“Álvaro, take her to the cage, with the others. Don’t kill her, do you hear me?” he gave a direct order, which the other accepted with a not very pleased growl. “Once I’m done with this beast, we’ll see what to do with all the others.”

And he pushed me into the panther’s arms again. I stumbled, but Álvaro grabbed my wrist and pulled me, now he was using me as a shield.

“Alexander!” I screamed-my voice suddenly came back when the foul-smelling feline holding me captive dragged me through another door beneath the metal staircase. His sharp claws tore through the fabric of my clothes until they pierced my flesh, but that didn’t stop me from shouting. “Alexander! Don’t let him kill you, please! Your children need you!”

I don’t know if he heard me or not, but I know the next thing I heard were furious growls.

And then the crash of wooden beams exploding against the floor-a thunderous roar.

They had begun their battle.

Avero led me through dark comidors while the sounds of the fight taking place in the sawmill workshop reached my ears faintly. Little by little, my eyes adjusted to the dim emergency lights and to walking while my whole body trembled. The panther walked behind me, pushing me lightly with a hand on my injured shoulder. Every blow and every roar that echoed through the walls sent a shiver down my spine. I couldn’t distinguish between Alexander’s animal volice and that of that feline monster, and I felt very disappointed in myself for that.

I forced myself to remain strong. In a few seconds, I would be with Andre and with Rex.

“Don’t feel bad, Johanne,” Álvaro said jokingly. “It won’t last long. My king is very strong and an excellent fighter, and your little dog friend was sedated. I bet his reflexes aren’t the best right now. He won’t take long to fall.”

I clenched my teeth, my eyes burning from the tears gathering. Álvaro was speaking slowly now, and with less arrogance. Did he feel bad? Weak?

Maybe this was my last chance. I didn’t know if I could manage it, but suddenly the idea of striking him in a way he wouldn’t see coming, grabbing one of the knives hanging from Nika’s bulletproof vest and stabbing him… didn’t seem so bad. The problem was gathering enough courage to risk it. I had never stabbed a person in my life, not even an animal. My father had never allowed me to butcher prey on my own. I had no idea how hard it was to make the blade of a knife sink into someone else’s flesh.

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“His mother is French, an ordinary woman like you. He showed me a photo of her-é uma beleza-just like you. Makes me want to go meet her.” He laughed weakly and pushed me again to make me walk faster. “He always says he was his father’s favorite mistake. And mistakes are things that a man as powerful as Saleh Al-Brahkhan doesn’t like brought to light -you can imagine. They trusted he would die young.”

So much pride in speaking of someone who was as sick or sicker-than he was. It made me angry again. More than anything because of the brutal speed with which everything fell into place. No wonder Luke suggested we contact the lions and gave us the means to do it-he already knew that the one who had visited him in his own house was one of the Al-Brahkhan. That’s why he spoke of “making them see it as a commitment” if we contacted them. Because he already knew Haydar was one of theirs, a brother of Alhasan, and that at the mention of that-if we were clever enough to discover it-the Arab lions wouldn’t take long to react.

Too bad we discovered it so late.

“…how nice,” I muttered.

Álvaro grabbed my injured shoulder hard to force me to turn in a place that smelled of engine grease and filth-that was all I could decipher in the half-darkness. My sore flesh hurt and I let out an annoyed cry.

“You’re hurting me!”

“Oh, he hasn’t even started.”

Although I truly felt fear at his words, I was surprised when I saw we had entered a storage area in a basement. The distraction was timely; it saved me from doing something I might have regretted later. The floor sloped downward gently and there were no stairs-the corridor was wide, perhaps for transporting heavy things with carts. There were the so-called cages, and there was more light-fluorescent tubes.

I understood what they were: a double row of metal compartments facing each other, lined with wire mesh, where tools, small machinery, work clothes, and other valuable supplies were kept under lock and key. Several were occupied and locked with padlocks, others seemed empty; a few were open, with the doors swung outward. The wire mesh protecting the cubicles ran from the floor almost to the ceiling, leaving only a slit of about twenty-five centimeters between the top edge of the doors and the concrete ceiling, and-

My foot stepped on something that splashed. I stopped abruptly.

It was dark.

Blood.