The Wolf Came on Christmas (Johanna and Alexander) novel Chapter 54

Chapter 54-1

The baby remained very serious, almost frozen, and I didn’t notice it. When I felt satisfied with how I’d used the towel, I wrapped the baby up and picked her up with my good arm. With the injured one, which barely hurt anymore (not much), I pulled the curtain aside and then waved my hand a little to clear the steam faster-it was hard to see anything. I leaned for a moment against the sink, and Sasha burrowed into my chest, gripping my clothes tightly. Her eyes, however, kept staring toward where the door was.

That’s when I finally paid attention.

“Are you cold, sweetheart?” I remember saying, unaware of everything.

I turned distractedly and saw that the towels and the bundle of clothes I’d left on the toilet lid

were on the floor at my feet. I frowned. One second later, something icy ran down my spine when everything hit me at once:

Hidden in that pile of clothes, I had left the gun.

My first thought was that Andre had taken it.

But then my eyes found the fogged mirror above the sink, and cold sweat broke out on my skin again. There was something written on the mirror, traced with a finger using the condensation on the cold surface:

“I’M WATCHING YOU”

I took a step back.

Only then did I become aware that I wasn’t alone in the bathroom.

It was like the feeling of a television being on in the next room even when you can’t hear it. A kind of static in the air. I felt it in my flesh, as if he were right beside me. The steam in the bathroom began to fade very slowly, revealing the tall, dark, elegant silhouette of my unwanted companion. The first thing I identified in that pale haze were his eyes: yellow, penetrating, and feral.

His pupils were tiny dots in a vast, brutal golden sea.

And the black of his form, solid as rock.

I backed up until my heels touched the bathtub, opened my mouth, but couldn’t scream. Fear -that was the first thing that overtook me. Sasha sensed it too; she was about to cry, whimpering with her face buried in my chest, seeking shelter. I stood frozen, too terrified even to breathe. The gun-the gun, for heaven’s sake! My hands itched with the desperate urge to

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< Chapter 54-1

have the weapon and press it to that beautiful, lethal beast’s forehead.

+25 Points

There was no other way to describe him. He was so beautiful, so refined and delicate…

His head seemed small compared to the rest of his body, but his neck was thick and muscular, very strong, connected to a firm, sinewy chest. Like the tiger, this being was flexible and powerful, but with much less pronounced musculature and a lean, athletic body, you don’t need huge bulging muscles to look deadly. I think the fear he inspired came from the black color of his fur, slightly golden on the cheeks, forehead, and neck, where dark rings and spots were visible, like on a jaguar’s skin. His wide, wet nose cautiously sniffed my position. I couldn’t see his ears because they were flattened against his head in an unmistakably aggressive posture.

When Walter got angry, he did exactly that: he pinned his ears back and showed his small fangs to anyone who wanted to see them. The beast in front of me showed his perfect teeth -perhaps as horrifying as one of my own fingers-in a kind of pleased smile. He was taller than me, without a doubt, but not as big as Alexander. No-he wasn’t that tall.

And he didn’t smell. At all. Why did Alexander stink to high heaven in his wolf form, and this

creature didn’t?

The panther was wearing faded black jeans. Around his waist he had tied a purple scarf, far too familiar for me not to remember where I’d seen it before. His dark, serpentine tail swayed slowly behind him; and when my eyes found that unsettling appendage, I noticed he also had one arm hidden behind his body. A large part of me suspected he was hiding something, and I didn’t even want to think that it might be the gun Alexander had given me barely half an hour

earlier.

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< Chapter 54-2

Chapter 54-2

How had he entered the house without anyone seeing him?

How had he gotten past Ishida’s surveillance without being detected?

+25 Points

And yes, it was the gun Alexander had given me. The one I’d left on the toilet lid with the

towels.

“You are so beautiful,” he said softly, switching languages. “I imagine they’ve told you that a thousand times. With those silver eyes and that night-colored hair. Ah, Johanna, I would enjoy tasting that porcelain skin and those lovely lips of yours. But there isn’t much time-the king wants results this time.”

His voice carried a faint purr beneath it. Or maybe I imagined it.

His intentions disgusted me. I turned slightly to shield Sasha with my own body and whispered:

“I’ll never let you touch her.”

“Oh, is that how it’s going to be? Very well, beleza. I’ll just kill you and take her,” he said, the purr in his voice stronger now, reveling in his pleasure. “Like I did with her mother.”

My shock was climbing toward panic. All that filled my mind was not letting him take Sasha. I stiffened even more, clutching the baby against my chest, one hand over her head.

I think that’s when I started waiting for the perfect moment to act.

But I nearly felt my eyes pop out of their sockets when the animal raised the gun and lined the barrel up with my nose, then gently moved his elegant thumb over the hammer. As he pressed the dark pad of his finger against the metal grip, a hooked, pearly, razor-sharp claw slowly slid out, emerging from its nest of soft folds of skin and revealing itself in all its lethal length. Suddenly, in my terror-distorted perception, the gun and even the awareness that I could die at that very moment vanished; all I saw was the enormous claw of his thumb (displayed deliberately) as, with a slow motion, the feline being cocked the hammer so a

bullet chambered.

A small but satisfied smile made his lips retract again, and his dark whiskers shifted gracefully to reveal the tips of huge, curved, very white fangs.

“Say goodbye, Johanna. Today, the white knight isn’t going to save you.”

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