The Wolf Came on Christmas (Johanna and Alexander) novel Chapter 113

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My agitated pulse and my anger calmed a little when I considered that possibility. Then the sound of fast footsteps on metal reached me, and I hid behind a refrigeration unit immediately. Andre pressed himself harder against me.

“Johanna!” Luke’s voice called, and my soul returned to my body.

“Lucas! Oh, Luke, thank Heaven!” I exclaimed, and peeked out.

“Are you alright? Is the boy with you?”

Luke finished climbing up onto the terrace with a jump and came toward us. Andre pulled away from me and stood up on his own, now trembling from cold as much as I was. The sheriff looked at us with great relief on his feline face streaked with blood, and he took off his county police jacket, the only thing he was wearing over his torso. He handed the garment to me, and I didn’t hesitate to wrap Andre in it. Who knows what Álvaro had done with the boy’s clothes when he locked him in the cage with Rex.

“…we’re fine, they haven’t hurt us,” I confirmed, pressing myself against Andre to conserve heat. “We were very lucky.”

“Good,” the sheriff agreed with a snort. He brought a paw stained black and red to his chest, touched some exposed and bleeding wounds, growling low. “Where is the other wolf? And

the woman? I smelled them in there, but I haven’t seen anyone.”

“I don’t know. I don’t know where they are, they were supposed to be here.”

“Damn it.” This time Luke spat the words in a mixture of indignation and pain.

The puma-man stopped touching his wounds and crouched beside me with a tired gesture.

“What happened with Alexander and that monster?” I urged him, grabbing his forearm with stiff fingers.

Luke looked at me, his green-yellow eyes faintly shining in the darkness. He shook his head.

“I left them fighting. They’re very evenly matched. The lion is furious, and the wolf even more so. I don’t know what’s going to happen there. I tried to give him a hand, but the wolf almost attacked me too. I barely managed to fire two blind shots, with so many obstacles in the way. I preferred to take care of what I could handle, so as not to cause more damage.”

I let go of him slowly, imagining the worst. Andre whimpered, his ears standing very stiff.

Although I felt devastated again, I focused on comforting the boy and wrapped him in my

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Chapter 113-1

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arms once more, crouched beside him, smoothing the dirty hair from his face with my fingers. I leaned in to kiss his cheekbone, and although the smell he gave off was repellent, I tried not to focus on that. He needed support and comfort, not more rejection. I touched his tears of helplessness and pain, and clenched my teeth so I wouldn’t cry again as well. I just wanted that terrible moment to end once and for all. I didn’t feel capable of enduring another piece of bad news.

Just then, Luke stood up quickly, and Andre made a different sound, somewhere between a whine and a snort.

When I was about to ask what was happening, the little wolf raised his small, cold hand and covered my mouth; the roughness of his hard pads against my lips, a sharp smell of gasoline and motor grease. Silence surrounded us, silence in every sense: absolutely nothing could be heard anymore except the vast and hollow stillness of the forest surrounding the sawmill grounds.

There was nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Not even the sounds of fighting, anymore.

After a few seconds, still very far away, I was able to distinguish the clear sound of helicopter blades. That sound brought me more than infinite relief. I let myself fall against Andre, exhausted, and dizziness washed over me. In that moment, I believed I would finally succumb to exhaustion and stress and faint. But I didn’t-I held out long enough to see the lights of the great bird approaching and to feel the roar of its engines growing in my ears.

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<Chapter 113 2

“Don’t worry, we have everything under control! We’ll take over from here!”

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I didn’t know what to answer to that, partly because I didn’t fully understand what he meant…

He didn’t offer to let me get into the helicopter at any point, and although Mikhail tried more than once to get Andre to go with him, the boy didn’t obey. He clung to my waist; he didn’t want to let me go. I couldn’t tell whether that pleased the other wolf-man or not, because the expression on his face-so similar to Alexander’s-was serious and professional.

But just when it seemed to me that things were improving, Richie, Ishida, and Rex came back out through the opening of the internal staircase, and the Hattai approached to speak with Mikhail. Rex moved slowly toward the helicopter, still in his semi-animal form, leaning on a wooden block like a crutch, and Richie ran as fast as he could in the same direction, limping, shouting things I couldn’t hear. He carried Nika in his arms-a Nika who perhaps looked too limp to be alive…

Ishida said something that did not sound good, and that I thought I half understood.

Terror flooded me for a moment, and when I tried to grab Andre to hold on to someone, the boy slipped from my hands. He ran toward the internal staircase. I didn’t hesitate to run after him, with the Japanese wolf-man’s words echoing in my ears:

“Lai isn’t here, Mika! We saw the lion-but not your brother!”

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