Billionaire Bear Shifters A Paranormal Romance Complete Series Boxset - Brittany White Page 0,96

ever. He would not let her go, no matter what happened. Even if she did die. He would not let her go this time, not after she had left before and he had failed to follow.

So Eric kept one arm around Lydia as he rolled and raised his arm, the shard tight in his grip. The sharp-edged porcelain dug deep into Eric’s flesh and he grimaced at the pain, but he focused on Michelle. He could hear her heart beating beneath the knit of her sweater. Eric brought the shard down right on the spot where her heart lay.

That twisted, evil heart, Eric thought.

Eric didn’t exactly have much experience with killing people. He didn’t have a chance to think about it now either. There was no time for that. There was only the shard in his hand, the sharp end of which was now plunging through Michelle’s designer sweater and sinking between her ribs into her beating heart. He wasn’t precious about it and he didn’t hold back. He simply stabbed her as hard as he could and when the shard would go no further, he let go and fell back, Lydia still in his trembling arms.

Michelle did not take long to die. That was something at least.

He saw the light leave her and suddenly everything stopped.

The walls stopped shaking and the furniture stopped flying around as Michelle went completely still. Her eyes were wide, still black with the magic remaining in her body, but they looked at nothing. She was unnaturally silent. She was gone.

Eric fell on his back, exhausted, his mind mercifully clear.

“Cody?” Eric said, his voice raspy and weak. “You still with me, bro?”

“Yeh...um...yes.” Cody sounded out of it.

“Okay,” Eric whispered.

His eyes were closing by themselves as utter exhaustion overwhelmed him. It had taken all his strength to fight off Michelle and keep Lydia alive and now he felt so tired he would not have been surprised if he fell into a coma.

“Okay,” he murmured again. “We’re okay.”

34

Eric

Eric had fallen asleep.

He didn’t remember doing so and it felt like a dangerous thing to be doing when your brother and your mate might be dying in your arms.

Still, he was definitely dreaming. Because the lodge had disappeared around him.

Lydia wasn’t in his arms and Cody wasn’t half-conscious next to him in Michelle’s suite.

He was wearing a tux and standing next to all three of his brothers in the ballroom of The Elkswood Hotel, one of a couple luxury hotels in Elkswood, Oregon. There was enough of an upper class clientele in the small city and a small financial district that a market existed for a place like the Elkswood Hotel.

The ballroom was lit by crystal chandeliers. It was full of other young and rich shifter boys in tuxedos and equally young and rich shifter girls in designer gowns.

It was the 63rd Annual Elkswood Cotillion and Eric was impatient. He didn’t want to be at the cotillion at all. He’d promised to take Liddy to the movies. The weird part was, he hung out with Liddy all the time. They went to the movies, and fished in the woods, and shifted to wrestle in mud puddles before going out for ice cream. They avoided their parents because Eric’s parents didn’t really approve of Liddy and Liddy was downright afraid of her own parents. Instead, they had each other. And Eric’s brothers were always nice to Liddy because if they so much as innocently teased her they were likely to get tackled by their youngest brother.

Eric tugged on his collar and Connor nudged him and whispered, “You’re squirming. Calm down. All we have to do is dance and hang out with the girls. It’s easy.”

“Wanted to hang out with Liddy,” Eric mumbled.

“Yeah, well…”

That was as much of an answer as he was likely to get.

Everything was exactly as Eric remembered it, down to the plastic cup of wine he’d swiped from a fox shifter named Mr. Geller. By eight-thirty, he’d been a little buzzed, and that was good. It gave him the nerve to ditch the cotillion without telling a soul, except that Cody saw him going. He caught Eric’s eye just as Eric was swiping one of the orchid corsages from a side table where one of the girls had left it.

He would ditch and go find Liddy and take her this corsage.

He’d be a hero.

He caught Cody’s eye as he swung out the door and they exchanged a knowing look. His brother wouldn’t rat him out. Eventually, Connor