The Wolf Came on Christmas (Johanna and Alexander) novel Chapter 32

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I wanted to smile, softened. The three of them really did look very peaceful and ordinary.

I sat down slowly in the other armchair, where Agent Aguilera had been that morning, and sighed. I already knew that Alexander had seen and heard me perfectly, but he was deliberately ignoring me, focused on the silent images of the news channel. I didn’t want to say anything, so as not to wake the children who were sleeping so peacefully, so I just stayed there, watching television the way he was, just as silent.

His voice suddenly startled me:

“…I had a plan,” he began, after a while of invisible tension between the two of us. “In case we had a son, I mean. When Anya became pregnant for the first time, I was a little scared. However, I assumed that if the child was a boy, and considering my own childhood, I would have at least ten years to think about what to do with him when his hybrid blood began to mature. Everything was planned so that, after his first transformation, I would send him to an ‘exclusive boarding school’ in Europe, which would actually be one of our private academies. That involved many matters I would have had to resolve, but Andre would be safe there and would learn to handle everything related to his change, and he would be educated as one of

our own.

“The problem is that Andre changed suddenly one day, shortly before turning seven. I had never known of anything like that, and it would have been very easy for me to hide it, if it weren’t for the fact that he changed shape right in front of his mother’s eyes. It was so spontaneous and strange. I was there, shaving, and I saw it. I had just finished bathing him, and suddenly, it happened. Anya started screaming. It was the most astonishing thing I’ve ever seen. Andre sneezed and within a few seconds his little body was trembling and hair was growing over his limbs, and the accelerated calcification was transforming the bones

beneath his skin…”

Alexander slowly caressed his son’s short albino hair, affectionately. His hand was large enough to cover the boy’s entire head. I didn’t know what to reply, partly because he wasn’t looking at me either. That was probably what he had tried to tell me at lunch, and couldn’t bring himself to say.

His blue eyes, dark and stormy, were now fixed on the fire and on his memories.

“I tried to explain it to her, but Anya was never fully convinced that it was simple nature, and not the product of a curse or something like that. She accepted it, although I know she never truly assimilated it. She was already expecting Sasha when that happened.”

I would have hated an awkward silence, so I made an effort:

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‘…I’m surprised she didn’t lose the pregnancy from the shock,” I commented calmly.

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“Well, no. I don’t think she would have lost it. Our genetics have proven to be very strong; although it’s a bit difficult for our women to conceive, it’s very hard for them to lose the fetus due to natural causes. I suppose that for an ordinary woman it’s even safer. Besides, I think my wife didn’t try to abort out of fear of me either.”

Hearing him speak like that, so defeated, hurt me.

I tried to imagine what it would be like if, from one day to the next, Paul had radically changed his feelings about me and, even if he didn’t tell me, I could feel that he no longer loved me. I hugged myself unconsciously when a shiver ran down my arms.

I was taking TOO much of his side. And that wasn’t good.

going to get any sleep again, keeping watch. I understand that it was very important to do so, but I didn’t like him making that effort in his condition (wounded, tired, perhaps poorly fed) either. Still, when I went upstairs to my room with the children, I saw him sit down on the large sofa with the gun on the coffee table, in a very alert posture.

The obvious dark circles under his eyes didn’t escape me, of course. That made me wonder how long he had gone without sleeping.

And with those wounds…

I tried not to obsess over it. If he had been shot fifteen days earlier and showed no visible signs of discomfort (none that I could see, at least), then he was extraordinarily strong, he could endure it very well and no one had to worry too much, right? No. That wasn’t it. Rex had told him so. And he could perceive all of that which I couldn’t.

I put the children to bed in my own bed and thought it wouldn’t be a bad idea to read Andre a story, but he fell asleep so quickly that we didn’t even get to the heart of it.

It had been a lot of emotions for one day, after all. I turned off the light and tried to sleep.

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