Page 13 of Unshakable

Toula hung up her cellphone and held her head in her hands, panic flowing through her system. She’d prayed the prayer, asked for and been granted protection. Was Henri the answer to her prayer? Had he been sent to keep them safe?

Chloe, she corrected. The prayer covered Chloe. Not her, not Alease, and not Delphine.

Definitely not Beatrix.

If Henri had been sent to save Chloe, he didn’t know or understand he had. No bolt of lightning came down from on high to inform him. While she knew hybrid beings like Henri had some special skills and abilities, would any of them rise to the level of fending off the powerful, malevolent being stalking her family for generations?

She couldn’t see how.

What was she thinking, kissing him, getting close to him? One romance with a Grigori wasn’t enough? Because of her and what she’d done in trying to protect Chloe, he was in more danger than he knew.

Picking herself up, she went to check on the girls. Alease’s light still shone through the crack under the door, so she let herself in. The girl slept with a book clutched in her hands. She’d aced her math test, of course, and Toula frowned when she pried a biography of Einstein from the child’s grip.

She sighed as she carefully marked the page, set the book aside, and turned off the light. No fairy tales for this one. Worrying about Alease’s trajectory would have to wait.

Alease sighed when Toula kissed her forehead, and she moved on to the room Chloe and Delphine shared. As they often did, the girls lay side by side.

At two, Delphine’s lack of speech made her older sister, the empath, someone who could understand her, and they shared a bond Toula respected and envied at times.

Even though they weren’t truly sisters.

Toula sensed the child’s emotions and needs as well and knew Delphine didn’t trust her grandmother as much as she trusted Chloe. Toula recognized there was nothing amiss with the youngest, nothing developmental. Delphine smiled and played and worked hard to keep up with the older girls.

She just didn’t talk.

Toula covered them with a quilt and left them to sleep, praying under her breath they would always have each other to lean on as they did now.

Of the three, only Alease seemed excited to see her mother tomorrow. She didn’t blame the younger girls because they didn’t really know their mother, had spent almost no time with her.

What would change once she graduated?

All other worries for other days.

A more immediate threat squeezed her heart. Why had this monster come to town? Why now? What did he want? Could Henri help her fend him off or would he simply walk into the house, scoop Chloe up, and walk away, unscathed?

Would she recognize him as the man she knew before? Did he have the ability to change his features, become someone else on a whim? For all her involvement with Michael and this wicked angel, she knew little about the powers they possessed.

She might as well be blind and deaf.

As she settled herself in her room, she perched on the edge of the bed and tried to plan for the next day.

Beatrix would arrive between nine and ten in the morning. Toula and the girls would be up, fed, dressed, and ready to go. They wouldn’t stay at the house, even if Henri succeeded in luring this demon into New Orleans.

She groaned as she considered how to explain any of this to her logical and reasoned daughter. Beatrix had never once entertained anything fantastical, anything beyond what could be proven via the scientific method.

She thought her mother was crazy.

They’d travel across town to her niece’s horse farm. Helen invited her to visit with all three girls every time they spoke, and she had a good relationship with Beatrix. They’d been playmates as children. Perhaps no one would question the spontaneous trip.

Glancing at her watch, Toula decided to call Helen first thing in the morning. The visit checked all the boxes. Got them away from the house. Wouldn’t overstimulate Chloe’s senses and would not alert Beatrix to any oddities.

Further oddities.

As Toula turned off her light and curled up beneath the covers, she felt better about tomorrow and put longer-term solutions out of her mind for now.

Her last thought before falling into a restless sleep revolved around reliving her brief, passionate kiss with Henri Gregory and how, for the first time in years, she didn’t feel completely alone.

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