He could feel the connection between him and Lydia as strong as 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 would notice his absence. But by then, Eric would be outside town, running up into the woods to the sad little shack that Liddy lived in with her parents who always give Eric the stink eye - he tried to avoid them - and who Liddy was afraid of.
In the world of dream logic, there was no passage of time or real distance between locations. Cody ran out of the hotel, his tuxedo jacket and his corsage in hand, and headed toward the woods and suddenly there was Liddy’s sad little house, a dim light glowing from her bedroom window.
He wasn’t a kid anymore. His dream self knew that. But as he jogged through the mud, headed towards that window, he felt fifteen again.
“Hey.” Liddy opened the window and grinned at him and he knew right then.
That’s my mate and I love her.
“I ditched as soon as I could. We missed the movie, but we can hang out. If you want?”
Again, the scene changed and it all felt so real that Eric thought he had traveled back in time to his adolescence. Liddy and he were free, out on the town, and feeling invincible. Nothing could stop them because he loved her...even if he didn’t have the nerve to tell her yet. Because it was already perfect. Why screw things up when there was always the chance she wouldn’t agree?
That was the night he’d almost kissed her.
He knew his parents would be upset. A Strauss didn’t just go ditching a cotillion and if he did, he was probably Nathan. Nobody expected that kind of behavior out of Eric.
He’d taken her back home sometime after midnight and they’d both stood awkwardly by her back door, shivering because the night was chilly and they hadn’t brought coats. But Eric had lent Liddy his tuxedo jacket and he liked seeing her wear it over her dress.
“Thanks for ditching to hang out,” Liddy had said. She bit her lip, her cheeks rosy from the cool air.
“I’d rather hang out with you than those stuffy jerks,” he said. He felt ballsy.
Then things had gone quiet. He leaned forward, but Liddy was already pulling away. His heart broke just a little. But it didn’t dampen the whole night. Nothing could.
He watched her go inside and only then did he whisper, “I love you.”
“Eric?” Connor’s voice was unmistakable; low and stern.
Eric stirred. He was warm and comfortable and Liddy looked so pretty in her blue dress…
“Eric,” Connor said more firmly. “I see your eyes twitching, man. Wake up. It’s been two days already.”
“Mmm...comfy,” Eric murmured.
He heard Connor laugh and managed to open one eye, shutting it just as quickly when the bright light of the room threatened to blind him.
“Hey, Nathan, man,” Connor said, “dim the lights?”
Eric tried again and ever so slowly opened his eyes again. He was in his suite, in his bed. He felt...okay, outside of being a little tired.
With a jerk, he sat up and said, “Liddy!”
“She’s okay!” Connor said quickly. “She’s in your spare room-”
“Cody-”
“Cody’s at his place,” Connor said. “Everyone’s okay.”
“Everyone’s okay,” Eric said slowly. His head was throbbing suddenly and he winced, lying down again. “Everyone’s okay.”
“Lydia actually recovered first,” Connor said. “I mean she was conscious. Whatever you did, Eric, it took a whole lot out of you. But we’ve had the best healers looking after you. Shifter specialists and all. We think it was fighting off the mind control that really did you in. I know it was tough, but one of our healers said you shouldn’t have been able to fight it a
t all. Michelle was powerful as hell. Then you went and kept Liddy going. Whatever that connection is between the two of you, it’s something. Saved both your lives.”
“We’re mates,” Eric said. “I want to see her. Head hurts though.”
“Sure,” Connor said. He had been sitting on the edge of Eric’s bed as Nathan hovered in the doorway. “Hold on. Let me get you something for your head…”
Connor handed him a bottle full of some funky smelling milky stuff. He knocked it back and immediately felt a little less cloudy and when he sat up, his head didn’t hurt. Once he got out of the bed, he felt much stronger.
“Look at you,” Nathan said, cackling. He had a full beard now. He looked a lot better than when Michelle had him pinned against the wall. “Tough as nails, my kid brother. That’s a Strauss for ya.”
“Learned from my elders,” Eric said, tossing him a wink. “Okay. I gotta see Lydia. Thanks for looking after me, guys.” He got to his feet, steadying himself, and only then did the notion of his job even occur to him. “Oh shit. What about the front desk-”
“We’ve got it covered,” Connor said quickly. “I’ve been covering the front desk and I changed some schedules around to help out. Everyone’s pullin’ for you. Although I can’t say concierge duties are up to their usual standard without you around.”
Eric rubbed his eyes, shuffling toward the door, eager to see Lydia. “What happened after that throw down anyway? Didn’t the guests get freaked out-”
“We did make some noise,” Connor said, sighing. “But we managed to smooth it over. Put it down to a brawl between troublemaking guests. Told everyone we kicked the offenders out.”
“And Michelle…”
“You killed her,” Connor said quietly.
Eric nodded, his jaw clenching. He didn’t know how he felt about it. He wondered if he ever would. “I didn’t want to have to do that. But, she gave me no choice. And James-”
“He tried to come after us while you were up there,” Connor said. “We ah...took care of him. He talked a lot before he went though. Apparently, he and Michelle have been scamming any shifter with some money they could find and piling up a lot of bodies along the way. But I get the impression you were the biggest fish she’d ever gone after.”
“She could’ve pulled it off,” Eric said. “Maybe. If I didn’t have Lydia.” He headed toward the door. He could almost sense her in his mind already. He wondered if that would be happening more often now. “We saved each other,” he said, just as Connor patted him on the back.
Connor and Nathan had been busy making Lydia comfortable from what he could see as he crossed the hall into the spare bedroom that he didn’t often use. Any personal guests he just put in their own suite, though he had often fantasized about turning the room into a nursery someday when he had a mate of his own and a cub on the way.
“You’re awake!” Lydia said from the bed.
The room was softly lit. Lydia was sitting up in bed, reading, and she moved to get up as he walked in.
“Don’t get up,” he said. “I just…”
It was such an overwhelming relief to see Lydia, alive and safe. He was weak kneed with relief and he smiled to himself, sitting on the edge of the bed happy just to look at her, almost embarrassed by how little he could control his expression. His eyes brimmed with tears and he swallowed.
“Um, it’s nice in here,” he mumbled, glancing around. “Actually, it’s really nice in here. How?”
Connor and Nathan had redecorated a little, softening the room up for Lydia. Which seemed unlike them. There was a new baby blue bedding, and a new lamp on the nightstand, and fluffy throw blankets and decorative pillows. Neither of them had been any use in decorating the lodge and only rolled their eyes when anyone said words like “sconce” or “ crown molding.”
“Alanna,” Lydia said, chuckling. She took his hands in hers and he swallowed, letting his eyes slip shut for a moment just to listen to her heart beat for a minute. “Nathan’s mate. She’s so sweet. She’s been visiting me everyday. We’re friends already.”
“Yeah?” He opened his eyes again and smiled. “That’s good. I’m glad you guys are buddies.”
“It made me think…” Lydia took a deep breath. “It made me think maybe there really is a place for me here. In a way I didn’t dare to dream before. Like I could have a home here. And I’ve never really felt that about any place.”
“That’s what I’ve always wanted for you,” Eric whispered, his voice cracking just a little. But he held himself together as he leaned forward and kissed Lydia softly, just enough to taste that familiar sweetness he had loved for so long.
My Liddy’s finally home.
“You’re tired,” Lydia said, raking her hands through his hair. “We both are. Still got a little recovering to do.”
“Hey, I’m a Strauss,” Eric said. “Tough as nails.”
“Okay, well for my sake,” Lydia said, rolling her eyes. “Will you stay here with me for a bit?”
“I’ll do anything you want,” Eric said, and kissed the tip of her nose.
“Shift,” she said, scooting over on the bed. Her cheeks were pink when she said it, as if she might be a little embarrassed. “It’ll be like it was when we were kids. When we’d take naps as cubs. Just be careful not to claw up the bedspread.”
Eric laughed under his breath and waited until Lydia was comfortable again before hopping off the bed and shifting into his bear form. For once, it seemed like his bear was only peaceful and content as he climbed up on the bed that creaked under his weight. The bed was, mercifully, a king size, at least. Though he still had to curl up carefully atop the covers so as not to push Lydia off the bed. Lydia remained in her human form and she curled up against him, humming happily as her fingers sank into the thickness of his fur.
“This is how it should be,” Lydia murmured, “always.”
Epilogue
Lydia
Three months later…
The afternoon was crisp and cool and a gust of wind made Lydia shiver as she jogged across the campus of Black Bear Lake Community College. Her last class for the day had been cancelled and as much as she was enjoying her first quarter of school, she was excited to catch Eric just as he was getting off work. The bus that stopped off near the lodge was just about to pull out as she veered around a manicured hedge and muttered apologies to the couple she nearly mowed over. But she made it and climbed up the bus stairs, flashing her bus pass as she caught her breath, her cheeks rosy from the cold.
It was spring in Black Bear Lake.
The bus ride was short and she barely had time to get distracted by her book - a thriller about an art thief - before she was hopping up again, smiling in thanks to the bus driver as she disembarked, readjusting the straps of her backpack as she headed up the short hill to the grand entrance of The Black Bear Lake Lodge.
It was no longer the busiest season at the lodge. But there were still guests frequenting the place. When winter turned to spring, the snowy mountain peaks became lustrous green forests and humans and shifters alike still came from miles around to stay at the resort, if only to stare at the beautiful views while sipping their cocktails on the patio before heading off for spa treatments. The pools were heated and and the tennis courts were bustling. There were also bike tours, guided hikes, and kayaking on the lake itself. The lodge wasn’t booked to capacity as it was so often in winter, but it was still doing a brisk bit of business.
“Hey, Tom!” Lydia grinned at the bell man who stood at the door and tipped his cap to her. The sliding doors opened automatically and Lydia swept in.
After just a few months, she was pretty sure she’d managed to meet nearly everyone who worked at the lodge. Her phone buzzed in her pocket and Lydia grabbed it. She’d already texted Eric to let him know she was off early.
Late lunch in the dining hall- come!
Lydia nodded to herself and turned on her heel, heading off to the dining hall. The Strauss brothers often ate
in the kitchen, usually with Nathan’s mate, Alanna, in attendance. But, apparently, today was special as they were all sitting around a big table by a window that looked out on the lake in the distance.
Everyone at the table waved as Lydia neared and she felt that now familiar and almost nervous flutter in her heart approaching this new family.
There were still times, even after three happy months with Eric, where she felt she didn’t belong with someone like Eric Strauss. Her childhood had been rough, at best. She was distant enough from her own parents that she hadn’t so much as spoken to them in two years. But oddly, even though they came from such different backgrounds, Eric’s relationship with his own parents wasn’t so far off.
“My brothers and I always felt closer to each other than to my parents,” Eric had told her just a few weeks ago. “That’s why it always made me crazy that you thought you didn’t fit in with us. We didn’t even fit in with us.” It had made her laugh but it also made her love him even more.
“Come, sit,” Eric said. He hopped to his feet, kissing her cheek when she came over. “We have fresh sea bass. Cody worked a miracle again.”
“I love bass,” Lydia said, still a little out of breath from hurrying over from the bus. She spotted Alanna across from her and threw her a wave. Nathan had his arm around his very pregnant mate and he seemed more interested in making sure she had enough on her plate than anything else. “Hey, Ali!” Lydia said.
“Hey!” Alanna said, giggling as she shoved Nathan’s hand away. “Nathan thinks I’m eating too much fish.”
“Oh my God,” Lydia said, rolling her eyes. She leaned back to talk around Cody sitting next to her and caught Nathan’s eye. “Eating some fish while pregnant isn’t bad! Also we’re bear shifters. It’s fine. The Omega-3s are good for the baby, actually.”
“I told you,” Alanna said.
“Sit on my lap,” Eric said. Eric kept slipping his arms around her waist, pulling her closer as he kissed her neck.
Billionaire Bear Shifters: A Paranormal Romance Complete Series Boxset Page 24
