Billionaire Bear Shifters A Paranormal Romance Complete Series Boxset - Brittany White Page 0,88

found a pretty blue dress at a thrift store. Even if it wasn’t new, it was new to her. She’d played with her hair for two hours, deciding how to wear it. She’d bought herself a new $0.99 eyeshadow at the drugstore on a rainy day. That was a special treat.

Then the night before, Eric had called her, sheepish and apologetic. His parents had sprung an important social engagement on him and his brothers. He had to go to a cotillion the next day. No movie, no lobster dinner.

“It’s fine!” Even now Lydia could viscerally remember hearing her own voice go up high on the phone. “It was just hanging out. We hang out all the time. No problem. It wasn’t like...important.”

Eric had sounded a little hurt at how she’d dismissed it. At the time, she had not understood why.

It was nine o’clock the next night when Eric had come to find her, tapping on her bedroom window. She lived deep in the woods among the rest of the bear sleuth that Eric’s parents found so troublesome. She’d been in her sweats, reading a horror novel she’d read twice before and trying not to think about Eric Strauss.

“Hey.” She could remember his face so clearly when she opened the window; his shit-eating grin and his hair messed up from running through the windy woods. He was still wearing his tuxedo. “I ditched as soon as I could. We missed the movie, but we can hang out. If you want?”

That was the moment when Lydia had felt like Eric Strauss had her heart forever.

She’d put on her blue dress and fluffed up her hair, and he’d taken her into town. They ate ice cream and Eric told her about the cotillion and how much he’d hated it. He gave her an orchid he’d swiped from the cotillion. No lobster dinner, no movie. Just the two of them and a couple of ice cream cones.

It had been a perfect night.

Eric, Lydia thought, her fingers strained against her binds. Hear me, my love…

She could almost feel herself walking into his mind. But it was a lot harder to do without him right next to her and while being in distress. It was like trudging through mud or walking in water. She could feel him so close and yet so far away.

She heard a thump from outside the closet and it completely broke her concentration. It sounded like someone had thrown a table across the room. She was jerked away from Eric, or at least that’s what it felt like.

“Shit,” Lydia muttered around her gag.

They’re going to kill him.

Tears filled her eyes and frustration overwhelmed her as the ruckus continued outside her dark little prison. Something was going on. It could be Eric, she thought. Her hands shook even tied up. Her heart was beating so fast, she feared she was about to have an attack. What if they were killing him right now and she was stuck here, just feet away? Unable to help him?

Eric…

It was hard not to hope that if they killed him, they would kill her too. At least she could be with him then on the other side. Whatever that was.

Lydia held back her tears, clenched her jaw, and focused every ounce of strength on finding Eric. It was like trying to use a muscle she was barely aware of, or trying to see the true image behind an optical illusion.

Eric, my love…

Lydia?

Lydia’s eyes popped open and she gasped, nearly choking on her gag. She had heard him, faintly, like an echo in the distance.

He was trying to reach her. She felt as if their hands were nearly touching, their souls straining to touch somewhere out there in the ether.

Lydia…

That was all she heard.

Then the voice was gone.

31

Eric

Eric woke up confused.

“Eric?” Cody was sitting in a chair across from him, frowning. He was staring hard at Eric as if waiting for him to do something.

What was he supposed to do?

In fact, where had he been?

“What…?” Eric muttered, blinking as he got his bearings.

He was sitting on a couch by a window in one of the lounging areas around the residential suites. The trouble was, he could not distinctly recall how he had come to be there.

Everything felt fuzzy and confused. His head was throbbing and his entire body felt just a little achy as if he’d run a long way or had just been in a fight. Eric sat up, heaving a breath and clearing his throat. As the