The Wolf Came on Christmas (Johanna and Alexander) novel Chapter 69

Chapter 69-1

I froze when Alexander mentioned that.

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Andre let out a whimper that sounded more like an almost animal yelp, maybe from hearing his mother’s name and anticipating fear, I don’t know. I only know that I stopped twisting my fingers in my lap, and that my eyes opened even wider. That my face practically hurt from the tension of keeping my jaws clenched so my teeth wouldn’t chatter. What was he talking about? Alexander gently released Andre’s hands and stroked his face with his palm, calming him with that simple gesture. He relaxed his tense posture a little, but he didn’t stop looking at him with that childish accusatory demand to know.

Luke narrowed his golden-green eyes and wrinkled the bridge of his nose slightly.

That gesture didn’t give me a good feeling, nor did the fierce and wounded way Alexander looked at him afterward. But Hans took over that “interrogation,” so he was the one who asked the question, even though for some of us the pieces were already falling into place on

their own:

“What do you mean?” he demanded. “What did he do to your wife?”

“It must have been about a month and a half ago. Anya had just gone back to teaching, and one day when I went to pick up Sasha from daycare, she was already there. And her clothes smelled different. She smelled different, all of her, and she seemed happier than she’d been

in months.”

Nika uncrossed her arms and clenched her teeth hard as she spoke, when she spat out:

“Are you implying that she was…?”

Alexander stopped her before she could say what surely someone else was already thinking: with a single look he silenced her. I bit my lips unconsciously, finishing in my mind the sentence Nika couldn’t say. Was Anya cheating on him? When she had a newborn baby? My imagination filled with questions I never should have asked myself.

But I was getting ahead of things.

“It wasn’t that. I would’ve noticed.” Alexander said quickly. “Anya always carried other people’s scent on her coat, in her bag, in her hair, even on her hands. She spent all day in a building full of people, surrounded by children. If it had been something else, I would’ve known she couldn’t have hidden it in any way.”

So I had been right. Anya was a teacher. Or a professor. But she worked at a school.

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“And what about showers and soap?” Richie said uncertainly.

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“Richie, I’ve known her since she was nineteen, and I have advantages beyond human capabilities, let’s say. I’m pretty sure I would have figured it out.” the leader growled irritably. ” Besides, she would never have done something like that her Faith wouldn’t allow it; and after what happened to us, she believed more in her God than in anything I said. It’s ironic. that she always reproached me for not being religious enough, but at the same time she couldn’t pull away from me for that very reason.”

“She didn’t seem like the religious fanatic type,” Christian commented, remembering her.

“And she wasn’t.” Alexander cut in with a sigh. “She wasn’t a fanatic. She was a good Christian and she prayed, and no one can judge her for that. But I think it hurt her to learn the truth the way it happened, and that’s why she took refuge even more in her Faith.”

I noticed how carefully Alexander chose his words, so as not to upset his son further. Andre wasn’t stupid; a kid as smart as he was could surely draw some conclusions, but it all depended on how much he knew about certain things. I prayed he wouldn’t realize what everyone was implying in my living room with those vague words. His father had just denied everything, but the boy didn’t need to live with the sadness of losing his mother and also suspect her loyalty. They were creatures of principles, I realized, and loyalty was one of their strongest pillars.

I wondered briefly whether Anya had instilled that religious belief in Andre too. The boy didn’t seem very devout. Sasha yawned, catching my attention for a moment, and I didn’t stop watching her until she lay still on her father’s stomach, eyes half-closed.

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Chapter 69-2

“All right,” the sheriff interrupted, because the conversation was drifting. “You said your wife smelled different.”

“Yes. That’s when I discovered she had been talking to this cat more than once, and that she deliberately hid it from me – or maybe not. Maybe the cat was trying to find a way to get close to me again, and ran into her by chance. And not only that: when I confronted him in the woods, the cat promised to leave the area in a day or two, but he ended up staying more than two months; he packed up and moved into a hotel downtown. That started to make me nervous.” Alexander continued with the same seriousness as before. “By then, nothing felt like coincidence anymore. The cat met with her behind my back. He did something to my wife, or he told her something.”

“I know what you mean. Honestly, I don’t know how he does it, but that beast influences people in an astonishing way.” Luke agreed, with a shadow of admiration and resentment in his voice. “What happened next? Anything you can tell us will help.”

Hans glanced at him sideways, not very pleased, and the others didn’t seem very agreeable

either.

At that moment, even though Sheriff McCord had an animal face and belonged to the race the wolves considered their ‘enemies,’ he was behaving like a cop – like he should in any dangerous situation. He was trying to do his job, genuinely. And that made me feel much safer about my decision to let him in and listen to him in the first place. Was he treating this like a case to investigate? Kaylee, on the other hand, was listening with incredible attention. I wondered if she was taking mental notes to analyze later.

I assumed even they, in their small parallel world, had problems that required that kind of approach.

“Well… him approaching Anya like that,” Alexander added, now less reluctant, “just pushed me to decide faster to ask him to leave, trying to do it peacefully at first.”

“I bet he didn’t.” Richie said, upper lip curled in an angry grimace.

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sending back a messenger’s head on his own horse. Why didn’t you leave then? It was clearly a message for you.”

The leader snorted before answering.

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“Because the situation didn’t suggest it.” he said honestly. “And besides who would threaten me, even knowing who I am?”

I don’t know how right he was, and it didn’t sit entirely well with me that he thought that way.

Because being who Alexander was – whether ‘prince’ of the White Wolves, just another

werewolf a feline should fear, a family man, or simply a man of relative status in Anchorage

–

— didn’t exempt him from someone wanting to hurt him. I suppose that with what he knew back then, he wouldn’t have believed in a million years that a cat would try anything against him, when everything he knew said felines avoided canines, and experience had proven that

before.

I understood why he hadn’t taken it very seriously at first.

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