Billionaire Bear Shifters A Paranormal Romance Complete Series Boxset - Brittany White Page 0,50

wild as he looked at her over his shoulder.

But that wasn’t what she pictured now when she closed her eyes.

Now she saw Eric in his bear form, but he wasn’t looking happy as he scampered through the forest. Instead, he was being violently torn apart. The woods were dark. Lydia could hear him howl. It felt like her heart was being ripped out of her chest…

“Stop,” she murmured. Lydia sat up straight in her seat on the bus as it barreled down the highway toward Black Bear Lake.

She’d dreamed of Eric being murdered before her eyes seven times now. After the third time, she’d started to worry. After the fourth time, she’d decided it meant something. She’d heard about repetitive dreams before. Most humans just took them to mean that a person’s mind was caught up in something and their subconscious was trying to sort through it. But magical folk knew better. When a dream repeated so many times, that meant the fates were trying to speak to you.

“Oh wow…” The mountains of Black Bear Lake came into view and Lydia smiled to herself. She’d forgotten how beautiful it was up here. She sat back in her seat and tapped the window with her blunt nails, impatient to get to the lodge. She hadn’t really spoken to Eric about her visit, much less her motivation for it. She had only texted and asked if it was a good time to come down and catch up.

Waiting for Eric’s response had been agony. A lot could happen in five years. Back then, she was surprised he hadn’t found a mate yet. But now… She had to think he was married, probably with a kid. He was too good of a catch, just like his brothers. The fates wouldn’t leave them single.

“Black Bear Lake stop!” The bus slowly pulled up to the station and Lydia took a deep breath, anxiety bubbling up inside her.

Eric had offered her a suite on the house. She hadn’t expected anything like that and it was sweet, especially given their rather unresolved history together. To say it was also more luxurious than she was used to was a gross understatement.

Lydia zipped up her worn out jacket. The trip down from Washington had seemed endless. She’d used up a chunk of her savings for it and that wasn’t counting that she had to quit her job. The scammy telemarketing company where she worked wasn’t the type to shell out for unexpected paid time off. C’est la vie, Lydia thought. If she needed to, she’d go back to the woods. She missed hunting anyway.

In another life, Lydia thought, she would be going back to school. It was something she often thought about and had never had the money for. What she would major in? She had no idea. Other people who had money could afford to go to school without knowing what they wanted to do with the rest of their lives. Lydia had always envied them that luxury.

Lydia filed off the bus with the rest of the passengers and gasped at the wall of bracing cold outside. She was not equipped for this kind of weather. The Pacific Northwest could be plenty cold too but this felt sharper and she didn’t have the coat for it. She wrapped her scarf around her neck a second time and rubbed her bare hands together, blowing on them, and wishing she could shift as she waited to grab her luggage.

Even the bus station at Black Bear Lake seemed fancy compared to anything she was used to. The southwestern design of the station with its dark wood benches and statues of historical figures seemed more like a museum than a bus station.

Lydia was more than happy to huddle inside the station with a hot cup of complimentary cocoa while she waited for the shuttle to the lodge carrying a dozen other fresh guests. She tried not to think about her anxiety over seeing Eric for the first time in so long or to wonder if he had that mate and cub she suspected he had. All the while, she stared down at her cup and pretended she didn’t feel like a pariah in her dowdy threadbare clothes while sitting next to a shifter wearing a parka that probably cost as much as her rent.

Welcome to the other side, she thought wryly.

The shuttle was just pulling up to the lodge when Lydia’s heart started racing. She caught her own reflection in the window as