Silver Unicorn (Silver Shifters Book 3)

by Zoe Chant

  Cleo nodded, a few escaped curls bouncing. “Stretching is so bor-ring!” She rolled her ‘r’s. “But we will follow orders.”

  “Great! Go ahead and join the class,” Jen said.

  The girls went to the back, and matched the easy movements. It was clear to Jen that these girls were very experienced. When it came time to kick the practice dummy, the sharp thwack of their kicks impressed the rest of the class—and Jen noticed with approval that those who’d been tentative no matter how much she tried to get them to loosen up, began to put some real effort into their next round.

  Jen divided her time between guiding the students, watching Cleo and Petra, and noting with surprise that both Doris and Bird had remained, sitting on the hard benches behind the low divider between the front area and the studio floor. She couldn’t remember them ever coming to the studio before.

  The lesson for the day was getting out of an attacker’s grip on one’s wrists, and then breaking a neck hold. As usual, the teenagers jumped right in, but the older women were more cautious, terrified of hurting one another. Jen had them all practice on her as she pretended to menace them, until they loosened up enough to really try each move on their partner.

  As the hour neared its end, the room filled with laughter, and satisfying thuds as they worked their forms. Cleo and Petra stayed with one another, impressing the other teens as they flipped one another and exchanged mock blows. Jen assessed them, not surprised to discover that they, like so many their age, preferred the flashier moves to the more basic ones that they had done so many times their muscle memory made them perfect. But that was part of practice, too.

  To demonstrate, she moved in, and with a quick block here, and a hip throw there, tossed both of them just as they were trying a fancy maneuver. Cleo let out a whoop, and Petra a laugh as they hit the mat. Jen extended her hands to pull them to their feet, about to give them the lecture on saving the high kicks and jumping turns for demos, when she sensed an arrival.

  It was as if spring sunlight flooded the room after a gloomy day of rain. Her entire body shimmered with awareness. Expectation.

  Her back was to the door, but she knew it was Nikos Demitros. She had to concentrate to recover the words she’d spoken so many times. But the rhythm soon got her going in the familiar groove. She gave her talk, set them to one last round of form practice, and then dismissed the class.

  Only then did she let herself look. And there he was, his dark, wavy hair tied back, framing the sculpted bones of his face. Deep-set eyes, a high bridged nose, a mouth whose line curved entrancingly, ending at shadowed corners, calling Greek statues to mind. She wondered idly what those lips would taste like. What would happen if she tongued those mouth corners, if he’d open up to her—

  She shut down hard on that thought—and saw that Mikhail and Joey Hu had joined Doris and Bird.

  Petra and Cleo scurried off the studio floor, each bowing correctly before they began pelting their guardian with a stream of chatter in their language. Jen made herself check that the practice equipment had been wiped down and stored correctly before she left.

  When she was done, everybody was gone except Master Reynaldo (who began setting up for a weapons class for the advanced black belts) and the seven people who had so unexpectedly shown up. As Jen joined them, Bird said, “Do you have plans for lunch?”

  Jen, who had intended to skip lunch as usual, said, “I’m free until five, when I have another class.” She tried not to stare after Nikos Demitros, who walked his two charges out, followed by Mikhail and Joey Hu.

  Bird smiled. “Doris has her car out front. She can give you a ride. I have my bike.”

  “Thanks,” Jen said. “But I’m in my practice gear still.” She indicated her T-shirt and yoga pants. “I should go home and get a shower.”

  “We’ll be eating out on the terrace,” Bird said, and sniffed. “You’re fine!”

  Jen assumed it would be the three of them, or four at most, if Godiva was done with her camera transfer, and shrugged. “Lead on.”

  As she and Doris walked to the latter’s car, Doris asked, “I thought you just taught a couple classes at night.”

  “Four. Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays.”

  Doris sent her a look. “You took on two extra classes?”

  Jen said, “I added two more when they decided to divide off a couple classes that are really popular. I just didn’t mention it—I know neither you nor Bird has been much interested in martial arts.” And added quickly, “Which is okay. I’m not into knitting, and both of you know I’m a terrible cook, but you still put up with me.”

  Doris laughed. “Of course I treasure you entirely because I need taste testers for my kitchen genius.” Then she switched right back to the previous subject. “I knew you practiced regularly in your kung fu. I didn’t know you were that into teaching.”

  Before Robert died, Jen hadn’t taught, except once in a while to help out in a pinch. She’d begun teaching last year. It’s what you did when you were completely out of money, and ten years from receiving the very small amount she’d be due from Social Security. But she wasn’t going to tell them that. They’d done enough for her. “It’s a way to keep my hand in,” she said.

  Doris blinked over at her. “Speaking as a teacher, I think that four classes four days a week is more like keeping both hands, both feet, and a nose in. That’s real dedication.”

  “They’re all good students.” Jen grinned. “And I really love teaching the kids’ classes. The little ones are a crackup, especially when they spar.”

  Doris chuckled. “Unlike a lot of my high school students, presumably they want to be there. That can make all the difference. Here we are!”

  Doris pulled up behind Joey Hu’s red sports car, which was the first clue that this was not to be just the Gang of Four. Jen caught sight of a white head—Joey had gone to pick up Godiva. Several people were following Godiva up the winding garden path leading to Bird and Mikhail’s house.

  Jen spotted Nikos Demitros among them, his silver-touched dark ponytail bisecting a pair of splendid shoulders. At least he was facing away, so she could get in an awkward-free ogle of that line tapering inward from his straight shoulders to his narrow hips.

  And then he turned. She looked away quickly, and discovered his two students half-hidden by a spreading California Black Oak. They were talking in their language and pointing at Bird’s enormous house perched along a cliff. They seemed taken with the balconies along the windows of the second floor.

  Jen followed Doris toward the house. “I thought it was just us,” she said, trying to shut out the sound of Nikos’s voice up ahead, as he talked to Joey. “Looks like a party.”

  “Weather is perfect for Joey’s Korean BBQ,” Doris said—as if that explained it.

  “I thought that was going to be Friday evening, before we go to the writers’ workshop.”

  Doris said airily, “Joey says the meat has been marinating for days, so why not give the visitors a treat? We can do another barbeque on Friday. Unless you’d be tired of having it twice in a week?”

  “No chance,” Jen said with 100% sincerity.

  They reached the top of the path. Jen heard Bird say to the girls, “Pick any of the bedrooms with open doors on the second floor.”

  From years of habit, Jen felt a twinge of . . . not quite guilt at how much she enjoyed the fact that this house, which she’d always admired, now belonged to Bird. Keeping one’s carbon footprint as small as possible had always been important to Robert—and of course to her. But she couldn’t help admiring beautiful things created for the sake of beauty, as this house had been.

  Voices echoed from the kitchen, which opened onto the round terrace lined with flower pots, where they ate when the weather was fine.

  Jen heard Joey calling for Doris, which meant the cooks were about to start their magic. Jen drifted up to the far doorway, which would keep her out of the way, and leaned against a cabinet to observe Joey and D
oris prepare the food.

  She’d known Doris was an excellent cook for years, of course. And had helped wash up after meals. But ever since Doris hooked up with Joey, the sheer enjoyment of watching the two of them in a kitchen had become like an Olympic sport for her—Joey chopping with skillful speed, Doris scooping and stirring and tossing. They handed spice containers and utensils back and forth as if their minds were connected by telepathy.

  Doris entered the kitchen from the other end, but instead of moving to the sink to wash her hands, the way Jen had seen a thousand times, Doris looked around, saw her, and headed her way.

  Towing Nikos Demitros.

  “Here’s Jen. You had a chance to be introduced, didn’t you?” Doris said.

  Jen had about two seconds to feel awkward, then Nikos gave a slow, almost sleepy smile, and said, “We did, thanks. Mind if I join you in watching the chefs? The first time I met Joey Hu, he was preparing Sichuan food for a feast. It seems he found someone who is as fine a cook, eh?”

  All the awkwardness vanished. Nikos clearly liked seeing the cooks at work as well as Jen did. Jen said, “I’ve admired Doris’s kitchen magic for years. Watching her with Joey is double the fun.”

  Doris laughed, her cheeks pink. “Speaking of that, I’d better get on it before those hungry kids reappear and start gnawing on our arms and legs.”

  Doris turned away, and soon she and Joey were well into their rhythm. But Jen found herself distracted by Nikos. She could see Nikos’s profile out of the corner of her eye as he watched appreciatively not three feet away, definitely within arm’s length. Jen breathed in slowly, aware of the slow sound of his breath, the complicated scent that was partly soap, partly just him. She felt . . . warm.

  Then Nikos smiled her way, causing warmth to flood in a tidal wave, pooling deep. “I heard what you said to the students. It is something I often say to my own.”

  “What’s that?” Jen said, distracted by the curve of his mouth.

  “The young.” He tipped his head slightly. “They wish to gain attention by using the, how do you say it, the difficult and flashy moves. They do not seem to realize the appeal of expertise that looks effortless. Such as these two demonstrate now.”

  Jen wrenched her gaze back to Doris and Joey, who stood side by side, working in a rhythm that only they could sense as all the ingredients combined to their mutual satisfaction. It was true. Jen had never seen either of them playing around with fire or tossing knives into the air. Their skills were superlative anyway.

  “Will they want help, do you think?” Nikos asked.

  “They usually don’t. Doris always says they’re faster by themselves, so I’ve learned to stay out of the way. They’ll let us do cleanup assembly-line style.”

  “Good. That, I am more confident to help with,” he said, adding, “though in truth, I am not very handy in the kitchen.”

  Jen said, “Same—”

  A soft ringtone collided with her voice—coming from Nikos’s hip pocket. Nikos’s smile twitched to seriousness. Jen knew immediately that he recognized that ringtone, and whoever was on the other end was probably not calling to ask how the weather was in California.

  “Go ahead and get that,” she said.

  He paused, clearly torn. He didn’t want her to go away?

  “I’ll catch up with you after you’re done,” she added. Why did she say that? It was sheer instinct.

  The obvious relief in his face caused a warm burn through her as he said, “Will you excuse me?” One hand reached into his hip pocket. “My apology.” His head dipped forward, almost a small bow. “Thank you.” And he moved away, speaking into the phone in what sounded like Greek.

  Aware of his voice around the corner, she moved away lest it seem like she was listening in, though of course she couldn’t understand a word of his rapid, low-toned conversation. He wasn’t even that loud. But her ears seemed sensitive to the sound of his voice. A warm voice, slightly husky, but not raspy, much less grating. She sensed tension in his tone.

  “Oh, Jen!” Bird appeared at the other end of the hall. “Would you mind finding those girls Nikos brought? They’re still upstairs, I think, and the food’s nearly ready.” She shrugged a shoulder toward the beautiful carved staircase, her arms busy with a tray of sliced fruits.

  “Are you sure I can’t help with setup?” Jen asked.

  “No—I’m just carrying things as they finish them. If you find where the girls ran off to, that would be the best help!”

  Bird sailed off toward the terrace, and Jen ran up the stairs. She walked along the length of the house, poking her head into each room with open doors—most of them furnished with antiques from the twenties and thirties. All beautiful, but not a sign of two teenage girls.

  Had they closed themselves into one of the bedrooms? Jen was about to work her way back again, this time knocking at the closed doors, when she heard a giggle from midway down. She loped back to the upstairs lounge between two guest bedrooms. The lounge had an enormous sliding door with a grand balcony outside it.

  The two girls stood on the balcony looking out at the ocean. Jen could have sworn that room had been empty a moment ago, but she must have somehow missed them. “Time to eat, girls,” she said.

  Petra and Cleo turned, twin looks of surprise on their faces. They exchanged quick looks of dismay, and Cleo’s lighter skin reddened, as if they’d been caught doing something wrong.

  “Thank you,” Petra said with quiet dignity as Cleo giggled, and the two sped past Jen, heading for the stairs.

  Odd, Jen thought. Almost as if they’d been caught, or nearly caught, doing something they shouldn’t. But the room was clearly untouched, and the girls had been out on the balcony anyway, not snooping through closets or drawers.

  Well, maybe where they came from, it was considered rude to have to be summoned, or something. But Jen recollected being in Greece for a story she and Robert had worked on. She had fallen in love with the warm, generous Greek people of the countryside with their chairete, the charming Greek greeting meaning “Be joyful.”

  She shrugged it off as she reached the ground floor, and found everyone migrating toward the delicious smells wafting off the terrace.

  As she joined the crowd, she found herself searching the faces. Wow, she really was reverting back to high school! Well, if she had to have a crush at this point in her life, at least the unfortunate target would be gone soon, with no one the wiser.

  She forced herself to concentrate on the conversation Bird was having with Godiva and Bird’s daughter-in-law, who was living with them while Bird’s son was deployed overseas. They were talking about different types of seagulls when she caught movement at the edge of her vision.

  A quick look, to see Nikos framed in the doorway, his face tight with strain.

  Joey called to him, “Nikos! Like your ribs well done, or torched?’

  The strained expression smoothed out so fast Jen wasn’t sure she’d actually seen it—that it hadn’t just been the shadows. Nikos smiled as he stepped out onto the terrace with the economy of movement of a lifetime of martial arts. “Anything is fine,” he said.

  His head began to turn toward Jen. And she was staring again! She jerked her gaze aside and stared at a bed of fuchsia as if her life history was written there. But she couldn’t prevent herself from listening as Cleo and Petra ran over to him, chattering in their home language. He raised a hand and said something in a low voice, and the girls stopped. Jen peeked as they flashed guilty smiles around. It was easy to guess that he was reminding them gently that company manners didn’t include talking in a language nobody else could understand.

  Cleo promptly switched to English. “It was a whale, a great one! We saw it fountain the water up, so high, in greeting!”

  “Cute girls,” Doris said, coming up on Jen’s right. “The news did report a pod of whales sighted off the coast.”

  Jen said, “I thought whales only swam out way out beyond Catalina Island. There’s no way an
yone could see them from here.”

  Doris’s gaze slide away. “Maybe they dared to swim between the island and the mainland.”

  “That’s real rare,” Godiva put in. “In fact, I didn’t think they did that these days. Though back before the coast got so built up, you saw ‘em more often. Seals especially.”

  Doris exchanged looks with Bird. Jen had a second to wonder what that was about before Doris lifted her voice. “I came to tell you that the food’s on the buffet. Don’t let it get cold!”

  Nobody needed a second invitation. At once the entire party descended on the buffet table. Jen followed Doris, and soon she had a plate full of barbequed ribs, with cucumber salad, a tasty rice-and-vegetable dish called bibimbap, and a bowl of ginseng chicken soup that Joey’s grandmother had taught him to cook.

  Conversation circled from whales to seafood to how delicious the lunch was. Jen had chosen a place beside Doris, consciously picking a spot away from Nikos to keep herself from staring like some dorky teen with her first crush.

  Doris said, “My offer still stands. If you ever want cooking lessons, I’d be glad to initiate you into the mysteries.”

  Jen smiled. “Thanks. I’m too old.”

  “Nobody is ever too old to learn something new,” Doris retorted.

  “Hear hear,” Godiva put in from the other side of the table

  Jen shook her head, still smiling. “I swore off adventures in cooking after my cake disaster.”

  “I’d forgotten that,” Bird said.

  “Not me,” Godiva stated.

  Jen thought back to those days. It was the year before the writers’ group started meeting at the bakery. In those days, everyone had traded off bringing refreshments. Feeling she wasn’t doing her part, Jen had finally volunteered after the round had passed her twice. She’d decided to bake a cake. There were a million recipes online, so how hard could it be?

  Too hard for her. The cake turned out to be a brick. She’d been so embarrassed that she had planned to skip that Friday, rather than take that horrible cake and watch people gag over it, but Robert had insisted. “Forget the cake. You enjoy the people, and they’re the only audience we can trust to be objective when you read our latest article to them. Their opinions are so valuable! Just take some healthy snacks. They won’t drop dead if they don’t get their quota of bad carbs and sugar,” he’d said.