Page 7 of Unshakable

Toula waited whileHenri squinted at her, as if he didn’t fully understand what she meant by ‘empathic’. Now, he raised his dark eyebrows as he raised his hands in surrender. “You have my attention. Tell me what you mean.”

Toula studied him, too tired to get into a complex conversation about something she didn’t fully understand even after forty years.

She shrugged and went back to her drink. “Simple, really. I feel what you feel, as if your feelings belonged to me. As if they originated within me.”

“Only my feelings?” He still sounded perplexed. “Because I’m here with you?”

“No,” she answered with a sigh. “The feelings of the whole world. Everything from physical hunger to the deepest emotions one can feel. All of it, from everyone, all the time although, the closer a person is to me, the more I feel of them, like sonar or radar.”

The tall man with the big persona fell silent. He slid into a seat across from her and wrapped his large hands around his nearly empty glass.

Finally, she could breathe, just a bit. The immediate feeling of drowning dissipated enough for her to mutter the understatement of her life. “The flood is quite overwhelming.”

“I imagine.” Henri glanced at her and nodded, encouraging her to continue.

“I can handle most things, most of the time. There are tricks I use to mitigate the influx and something from the other side of the world may never register. Not all the empaths in my family have been strong-minded enough to persevere. I haven’t mentioned my younger daughter because it’s too painful to admit she wasn’t strong enough. She couldn’t bear the strain and killed herself.”

Some sympathetic sound came from Henri, reflecting the swell of pity coming from his heart. “And your other daughter, the scientist?”

“Beatrix has many problems, and empathy is definitely not one of them.” Toula shook her head and snorted. “Instead, she sees this oddity in our family and would rather dissect us.”

“Yet she leaves her children in your care.” Henri observed as he circled the ice in his glass. “Seems strange.”

“I don’t know which is worse,” Toula admitted. “The danger I can see or the one I can’t. These girls are lab rats to her. I know what she’d do if I weren’t standing in the way. I still don’t know what this Fallen Angel means to do after chasing us for generations. At least I finally know what he is.”

“Maybe I can be of some help,” he offered. “I came here on a whim, yet I don’t believe in coincidence. I’m here for a reason, even if I don’t know exactly why yet.”

She frowned and considered his offer. No one had been on her side for so long. How she ached for someone to be in her corner, fighting the unseen threat alongside her. She knew enough about Grigori to understand they had their own, separate, set of concerns and timelines, so she had one more question.

“Are you looking for redemption?” she asked, knowing she’d get one of two responses from him. Which response he gave would tell her all she needed to know.

To his credit, he thought long and hard before he answered, as if he understood she tested him. Offering a small smile, he said, “If Grigori can be redeemed, you mean. There’s no certainty around the idea. For me, if redemption comes, it comes. I’ve lived too long to believe any single thing I do could redeem my soul.”

While not a perfect answer, Toula accepted the statement as self-sacrificing rather than self-serving, based on his emotions. He gave a better answer than Michael gave her all those years ago, before he’d walked away. Henri wanted to be helpful, to make a difference because doing so was the right thing to do.

He’d come all this way and she liked the way he smiled at her. How his strange eyes sparkled with mischief and curiosity. Those emotions were real, she felt them for both of them, and he did not try to hide himself now, knowing she could read him.

She returned his interest in her with a knowing look. “You have self-interests, of course, and they might align with mine. For the time being.”

A few years ago, she had prayed for and been granted protection from and by the Grigori. Now one of their number sat in her home, beside her, pledging his help. Her hand folded over his and she leaned against him.

She had no idea what their protection might ultimately look like, but this might be a good start.

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