The Wolf Came on Christmas (Johanna and Alexander) novel Chapter 41

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Chapter 41-1

In any case, he shook his head and explained to me:

“No, it doesn’t hurt. It’s uncomfortable when it happens, and supposedly the more often you practice it, the higher the levels of the hormones that allow the change remain; and it makes the process easier and faster each time. But it isn’t painful, it just feels… strange. You know something isn’t right, as if you suddenly didn’t recognize your own body: you have parts that weren’t there before. The tail and the muzzle are the hardest to accept. The first times, it’s hard to reconcile the form you see in the mirror with the one you know belongs to you, and to adapt. It’s also not easy to learn to control it; two things can happen: either it triggers unexpectedly in moments of great anxiety and adrenaline, or you block completely in such a situation, and you can’t change until you calm down. The guidance of a peer is always indispensable in any situation-an experienced adult who knows what to do if you suddenly have an anxiety attack. Since my father spent a lot of time abroad, Hans was my mentor during my developmental years,” he told me, as if he were recounting with absolute ease a childhood fishing trip. “Changing is the easiest part of everything, in short. After a while, when you truly feel in control, it’s a wonderful sensation. You feel like your senses are heightened-which isn’t entirely true; the sensitivity is the same in one form or the other-but you feel big, like you believe nothing can bring you down.”

He spoke with such enchantment that I actually started to believe that being a werewolf was the greatest thing. Well, this empathy thing was starting to irritate me a little-it couldn’t be that easy to connect with him.

“Not even a bullet, or two,” I replied, reminding him of why he was in that bed.

“Obviously, you believe you’re invincible until you find out you’re not,” he answered me, with a sardonic smile. “No one is immortal; some are just tougher to kill than others. But for now, I can withstand that and whatever else for my children.”

I smiled faintly. What person wouldn’t feel lucky to know him?

It was hard to think that eight or ten years ago, Alexander had been a rich, spoiled boy from a very powerful family, whose only interest was leaving home and being accepted as a person rather than as an unquestioned leader. Without a doubt, they had a lot of humanity in themselves; they weren’t as perfect as they had seemed to me at first. Alexander had been wrong to run away, and he knew it. And if he had loosened up enough to talk to me about that, did that mean he was also accepting me as part of his group?

For an instant it occurred to me to ask him if I could give back all the money he had transferred to my account. All right, the idea didn’t last long, but I think I had a noble intention for about five seconds. A part of me felt a little unworthy of so much benefit.

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“What’s going to happen now, with your people here?” I dared to say after a moment.

Alexander looked at me again and took a deep breath.

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“Well, I have two ideas. The first is to contact my brother so he can land one of the company’s planes in Cheyenne and get all of us out of here before the cats manage to organize another attack. And the second is to stay and wait for those felines to show their faces, turn them into mush, and then continue on our way as if nothing had happened.”

I had gotten stuck on something he’d said several words earlier.

“One of the company’s planes? How many planes does your family have?”

“What?”

I blinked several times, trying to focus.

“Forget it, it doesn’t matter. I mean, you could try contacting your brother, right?”

“No,” he said flatly.

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Chapter 41-2

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Chapter 41-2

“No? Why not?”

Alexander looked me in the eyes again, and his looked very blue, darkened and serious.

“Because the moment we leave, you’ll be dead.”

“The moment we leave, you’ll be dead.”

Well, he could have been less “graphic” about it, right? No-actually, no.

Saying “dead” was definitive enough. Going straight to the point was the best gift he could have given me, I think; dressing up reality by swearing that everything would end once he left would have been cruel, and Alexander wasn’t that kind of person. That was something I did have figured out about him. A part of him was, certainly, very animal and wild, but he wasn’t cruel.

I looked at him for a moment, and the good thing was that he also fell silent, perhaps assessing the expression on my face. I don’t recall having one, actually, and that might have been what he was studying. Finally, I took a deep breath and said:

“I think I understand. If he didn’t hesitate to hurt me, what would stop him from killing me?” I replied, perhaps too calmly for the situation. “I should move somewhere else, maybe to another state. I can go back to my parents’ house in Minnesota.”

Alexander pressed his lips together slightly.

“There’s no need for that,” he finally said, convinced.

“What do you mean there isn’t? You just said-”

“Because the right thing to do is to end the problem at its root, and prevent it from following you anywhere else. Well, maybe you would do well to move once all this is over, that’s true; but we already know there are very likely two of them, and now we have to deal with them.”

“… You mean you’re going to kill them?”

A chill ran across my back. Alexander snorted.

“If possible, no. I’ll try to capture them,” he said at last. “Hurting them, killing them, would only be behaving like them; at some level, these beings think this is a contest of animal strength. But if I allow my people to kill those cats, everything I’ve tried to stand on for so many years will be useless.” He paused, and his eyes fell again on the sleeping children-or rather, on Sasha and her peaceful sigh. “I believe all of us are people before we are beasts.

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“…I needed it when I was attacked for the first time.” He stretched the collar of his T-shirt a little and pointed to one of the many scars he had, a defined knotted arc that looked like old bite marks. “I was eleven years old, and I was on a hunting exercise on my family’s lands, near Lake Baikal. It was one of the first times I transformed. That time, what attacked me was an ordinary animal, a bear,” he explained patiently. “Hans pulled it off me and managed to scare it away, but I spent almost eight months terrified of the idea of transforming and ending up like an uncontrollable beast, a monster. A full year had to pass after the attack before I felt safe enough to return to my other form. And then, yes-it hurt. The lack of practice made everything harder.”

Impressed by that, I stayed silent for a moment until I dared to say:

“I never would have imagined it. Anyone would say that, since animality is part of you, you’re not afraid of anything.”

“Fear must be a tool, Johanna. And of course I’m afraid. I fear for my family,” he told me, with great dignity and nobility. After a brief silence, he simply pointed to the empty side of the bed and urged me with a subtle nod of his head. “Why don’t you take advantage of the time that’s left and sleep a little? I’ll stay downstairs with my people-I’ve rested enough.”

“What are you saying? You were just operated on.”

“I’ve slept for almost twelve hours. I feel great. Come on-in your condition, the best thing is not to overexert yourself. Or do you want Hans, who’s the doctor, to tell you? I’ll be fine, I promise.”

I detected a slightly ironic, joking tone in what he said, and I felt much better knowing he was in good enough spirits to talk like that with me. I smiled reluctantly and stood up from the chair, without much desire to obey him. But honestly, the idea of my own bed and sleeping a little more didn’t sound bad at all.

“Alright, if you say so. Who am I to contradict you?”

“Very good. Whatever happens, I’ll be downstairs. I’m not going out today,” Alexander assured me, and I realized he meant “whatever happens with the children.”

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“Understood.”

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“Fantastic. Good night.” He looked one last time at his sleeping children, then back at me, adding, “And thank you for bringing them to me. It was good to see them when I woke up.”

“I thought Sasha would sleep better if she was near you.”

He smiled again, grateful, and left without saying anything else.

When the door closed behind him, I sat on the bed to take off my shoes and jeans, carefully. Suddenly, I was far too tired to think about showering. It took me a little while, and it also took effort to put on a shirt and my pajama pants, but I managed and took the side of the mattress Alexander had left free moments earlier.

I was a little surprised that the fabrics still held the warmth of his body.

A very warm, comforting sensation ran through me entirely; it’s always very pleasant to get into a warm, comfortable bed and not have to wait for it to heat up with your own body temperature. When I lay down on the left side, I noticed a smell different from mine on my pillow and breathed it in for a moment, deciphering it. I’ve read a thousand times authors who describe aromas with pompous, inaccurate words one can never really imagine, so I won’t even try: it was just a different smell on my pillow, salty and comforting. There was no doubt it was Alexander’s scent-the pure, masculine essence of his skin in the fabric and in my sheets. Behind me, the little girl curled up against my back and went still; I think I heard Andre say something in his sleep.

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