Page 3 of Unshakable

When Toula got to workeach morning, all she ever wanted to do was go home. Never mattered where she’d gone or how long she’d been away. She always wanted to be home with her three girls the moment she left them.

Like magic.

She smiled as she clocked in for the day. Alease, Chloe, and Delphine charmed her world like the tiniest, most sincere magicians. They claimed all her time and attention, which had surprised her at first because she never shared the same bond with her own daughter, their mother.

Answering phones and processing insurance at the local dentist’s office didn’t usually take her mind off the girls, and today felt no different.

Her friend, one of the hygienists, paused at the counter and snapped her fingers to get Toula’s attention. “What are you daydreaming about today?”

Toula shook herself and smiled. “You know me too well. Alease’s birthday is coming up and she wants things, you know. She’s the practical one, smart, like her mother.”

“How old is she now?”

“Seven,” Toula answered with a frown. “Seven in a month.”

Which made Chloe four and sweet Delphine only two, all still little girls with very distinct personalities. She disliked leaving them in anyone else’s care, even though she needed the money this job provided more than she liked to admit.

“What kind of things does she want?” her friend asked, probably expecting to hear about dolls and crafts.

“She wants a microscope and a science kit,” Toula said with a sigh. “Just like her mother. She wants to study her sisters.”

Cathy laughed but Toula knew better, understanding how earnestly Alease wanted to put her sisters under a literal microscope. The child hung on every word her mother said, and since her mother was in the middle of her Ph.D. at Ole Miss, her life focused on science.

Specifically, genetics.

The idea of Beatrix studying genetic science and all nature’s mutations sent a chill through her body, to say nothing of little Alease. Because Beatrix would definitely study her daughters, odd as they were, even Alease.

And she would study other beings, too, if she could catch up to them.

The bell jingled at the front door, and Toula swiveled in her chair to face forward and welcome the first patient of the day. A new patient. She smiled at the handsome stranger as he approached, a niggle of familiarity washing over her memory.

Impeccably dressed in dark jeans and a blazer, he wore a wool scarf around his neck and matching toboggan over dark hair threaded with silver. He stood tall, well over six feet, as her neck bent to look up at him.

She faltered. Testing his pool of emotions, he wasn’t nervous to be at the dentist, or in pain, and definitely not a local. “G-good morning.”

“Good morning,” he returned her greeting and scribbled his name on the list. His woodsy cologne washed through the reception area. When she asked him for his insurance information, he looked at her and smiled. “I’ll be paying cash.”

Her eyes locked onto his and she knew, in the core of her being, he was one of them. Yes. Taller than average and something about the way his glittering eyes absorbed the nearest color shook old memories loose.

Memories of Michael.

Slammed back in her seat, Toula stared at him, grappling in her mind to recall his name from the list. “Henri Gregory?”

“Yes, that’s me.”

Could he be more obvious?

She fumbled to find the new patient forms, attach them to a clipboard, and hand everything to him. He took the forms and sat in the waiting room, his charming, yet kind, smile never leaving his clean-shaven face.

Nothing felt off about him, no malevolent intent, or turbulent emotions, unless he knew enough to suppress how he felt in her presence.

Still, she didn’t believe in coincidence, never had and never would. On the off chance he hadn’t purposefully searched for and found her here, Toula swallowed her surprise and tepid fear, taking the forms when he returned to her desk.

His kind didn’t go to doctors.

Dentists? Maybe.

“Are you new in town?” she asked.

“Yes,” he shared, touching his jaw. “I have an unfortunate toothache. Not the first thing I wanted to do when visiting somewhere new.”

No, he did not have a toothache. Visiting somewhere new? Sure. He seemed harmless, as he basically should be. Yet she knew enough about the Grigori to keep her guard up. “I’m sure the doctor will get you fixed right up.”

When he paused and studied her with his serious gaze, Toula shifted in her seat. Some enchantment, some kind of hormonal charm, settled over her. No man had looked at her with any interest in years, and she quite liked things quiet, anonymous, and dull.

Until now, as he reminded her what she’d been missing. Heat rose in her cheeks, and she figured she couldn’t avoid being affected. She’d nearly forgotten how striking these hybrid beings could be, how affecting to both men and women, without even trying.

Their seductive charms covered a multitude of sins and would land them under her daughter’s dangerous microscope if they weren’t careful.

Her friend, the hygienist, stepped between them, breaking the mesmerizing spell sizzling between their locked gazes. “You can come on back with me, if you like.”

And just like that, his essence moved on with him. Toula’s curiosity didn’t vanish. Henri Gregory wasn’t here by accident. She’d stake her life on it. Not after what she’d done in the back field four years ago.

In the relative quiet of the lobby, Toula shook herself and tried to think clearly. No, his appearance today was not an accident, couldn’t be an accident, no matter how much she wished it to be.

Why was he here, then? In this town, in this office, where she worked? Her pulse shot through the roof and her hands trembled because she knew.

He wasn’t here for her, no matter how instant and strong her attraction to him. No, Chloe was finally in danger and Henri Gregory, a Grigori, was here to protect her.

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