The Wolf Came on Christmas (Johanna and Alexander) novel Chapter 44

Chapter 44-1

+25 Points

The bluntness between them left me completely disoriented-they truly must have known each other very well, and not even so many years apart seemed to have affected that.

Now, what came next left my throat dry:

“…I would gladly have had your children, even if only to be loyal to you.”

“That’s your problem. I don’t want at my side someone who only cares about keeping up appearances for the sake of the family, or who lives to submit to my will and be ready to please me all the time. If that’s the case, loyalty doesn’t mean a damn thing to me. My children were born from the love I shared with Anya, and they are mine. I won’t let anyone do to them what they did to me. Nika, I’m sorry I hurt you-but I don’t regret what I did. I’m very proud of having lived like an ordinary man all this time,” Alexander objected, with the same firm, dignified tone as always-and raised his voice a little, making me jump. “You can come in now, Johanna. We’re finished here. I’m sorry you had to hear all this-it seems we couldn’t find a better moment.”

I closed my eyes tightly, embarrassed. Perfect.

I peeked back into the kitchen, and they were still there, standing and staring at each other with weariness. She seemed to be trembling. Alexander, though, looked quite calm and even somewhat remorseful; his eyes were very transparent in expressing what he felt deep inside, and I realized he couldn’t tell her how sorry he was for not letting her in on his plans, maybe.

But he was right: if he didn’t want anyone to look for him, he couldn’t tell where he was going.

The decisions of a strategist…

“Good morning,” I said, as if nothing had happened there. “I don’t want to interrupt, but I need the diapers for Sasha and to prepare her bottle before she dissolves my shirt with her saliva.”

“You’re not interrupting anything-we’re already finished. Isn’t that right, Nika?”

The blonde woman and I glanced at each other awkwardly; or at least, I only looked at her for a moment and she looked away after assessing my appearance. I understand-my looks at that hour weren’t the best. She was so tall and beautiful, like a model. And in contrast, she had strong shoulders, like an athlete. Her whole strict, impatient bearing suggested she wasn’t exactly into modeling; she struck me as more military than anything else (with that tight hairstyle and those fierce pale-blue eyes that at times seemed very light green). Or maybe that’s how she had been raised: to always submit to the will of her “alpha” and be a tough girl about everything else. I wondered what role wolf-blooded women played in their intricate society.

112

< Chapter 44-1

+25 Points

“I’d say we finished a long time ago, Alexander. I’m going to check on Chris,” she agreed after a few seconds of silence, and turned to leave through the kitchen door. “He needs to sleep a

little.”

The door closed with a hard slam. I understood she was angry. I went to the counter to get the bottle I had left drying the night before, then to the fridge for the milk. My arm already hurt much less, and moving didn’t hurt nearly as much as the day before.

He simply held his place patiently beside the table.

“I’m sorry. For all of this,” Alexander apologized, while I was dealing with the milk and the

bottle.

Sasha had gotten excited again by the smell of food, I imagine, and abandoned my shirt to turn toward what I was preparing for her. She started making adorable little noises, like coos or soft whimpers, and stretched a tiny hand toward what she wanted.

“It doesn’t matter-anyway I didn’t hear much, I’m still a bit sleepy,” I replied.

“…you do realize I can smell a lie, right?”

I turned to look at him, catching the irony in his words and expression.

Comments

H

Vote

528

LUCK DRAW >

“So?” I pressed, seeing he hadn’t explained what he said in the kitchen.

“So what?”

“You said fifty-fifty. What did you mean?”

+25 Points

“Oh, right.” He closed the used diaper and put it in a bag for the incinerator. “On one hand, yes -like you, I think Sasha feels safe with you because she doesn’t smell in you what she smells in me or in Nika. Our children depend a lot on their sense of smell in the early years, almost like any baby, and they have trouble getting used to ‘different’ people. Sasha-and even Andre-cried a lot in their first weeks of life when I tried to hold them. Of course, it’s because I was ‘different’ from their mother, and it took time for them to recognize me as their father and accept me. It was very stressful for me, but observing them taught me many things about our kind-things that… well, I think no one had studied before.”

“Because your people don’t… pair up, let’s say, with ordinary people?”

“Probably. But don’t fool yourself-I haven’t been the first to leave everything behind to go with a common human, and I won’t be the last. I’m just the most notorious case, you know, because of the inheritance and what my position means to many.”

Right. Open-minded enough to date a human-and want to marry her, on top of that. I understood the “gravity” of the matter then; to put it in human and “scandalous” terms, I suppose it was like Prince William running off with a cabaret dancer instead of marrying Kate Middleton. I assumed that for his people, having a non-wolf partner was some kind of social taboo, or inconceivable for the elders. Obviously, I saw it as a problem. If everyone suddenly started looking for partners outside their bloodline, their secret society would soon stop being secret and could be destroyed.

I imagined how the public would react to them-the new, the unknown, with fangs.

“I understand,” I finally said. “So I just earned it by being me.”

“No, Johanna, I assure you it’s nothing personal. Nika is angry with me-that’s all.”

H

528

Comments