Eric
Eric’s brothers noticed something was up immediately because he simply could not contain himself.
He was practically skipping when he showed up at the front desk that morning. He was also ten minutes late, which was out of character for him. There were precious few excuses for being late when you lived on the other side of the building. But Eric had been loathe to leave Lydia’s side or stop kissing her.
He showed up to work grinning, having missed his semi-usual breakfast in the kitchen.
“Hmm.” Connor stroked his chin when he saw Eric at his station. He had a donut and coffee and he handed them over to Eric’s delight. “Something happened. You talk to Lydia?”
Eric took a sip of coffee and shrugged, attempting to be mysterious. “Maybe.”
“Well, you didn’t just get some,” Connor said thoughtfully. “I can always tell. This is something else. You guys work your shit out?”
Eric smiled to himself and leaned on the front desk. He took a big bite of the powdered jelly donut Connor had given him. Connor rolled his eyes, crossing his arms and waiting patiently as Eric ate his entire donut and washed it down with a long drink of hot coffee.
“She’s my mate,” he said, casually. “She says so. I say so. We’re…” He sighed heavily. He was definitely not used to being so open about these things. He growled under his breath and said, “We’re in love. We had to hash some things out about the past but…” He grinned, feeling helpless to deny the enormous feeling that had taken over every nook and cranny of his heart. “We’re in love. She’s going to move down here and everything.”
“Finally!” Connor punched his shoulder, laughing. “I knew it. I always knew it. Well, I knew it when she showed up again. But Cody always thought you two belonged together.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Eric said, chuckling. He bit his lip, staring out at the lobby as guests ambled in and out. “We haven’t worked out the details of things yet. But I want to give her the chance to do whatever she wants to do. I mean, literally anything. She’s been scraping by for so long, you know? If she wants to go back to school or work here or in town or just sit in a hot tub eating bon-bons forever, that’s fine-”
Connor threw his head back and laughed at that. He had been in an especially good mood lately, but he looked downright giddy as he talked to Eric. “You’re a good mate.” He clapped Eric on the shoulder. “Starting to get jealous of you and Nathan finding your mates. Next, it’ll be Cody. And me…”
“Hey,” Eric turned to face him. Connor looked suddenly a little melancholy and that wasn’t like him. When he was bothered by something he usually projected it as aggravation. But he was downright sulky now. “You’ll find someone.”
“Getting long in the tooth,” Connor said, shrugging.
Eric raised his eyebrows at that. He’d never thought of Connor as anything close to lonely. “You’re only thirty-two.”
“Yeah.” Connor cleared his throat and punched him on the shoulder and Eric winced. “Whatever. I’m fine, man. I’m happy for you. We’ll have to have a big dinner soon with the four of us and the two mates.”
“Sure thing.”
Connor left to go back to his office and it was only a few minutes before Eric was bombarded with texts from Cody and Nathan, all wanting to know when he’d gotten together with Lydia, when she was moving to Colorado, if she was going to live at the lodge, when they could all have dinner…
The fifth time his phone buzzed on the counter while he was talking to a customer, he opened a drawer and dropped it inside. But he found himself smiling despite himself. It was sweet how much his older brothers cared.
At lunch time, Eric was on pins and needles. Lydia had promised to come down and have lunch with him in the dining hall. He bounced on his toes and checked his phone before heading out to sit at his favorite table by the front window, giddy with anticipation.
Must be love, he thought. I feel like I haven’t seen her in days.
Eric sat down and spent five minutes trying to choose the right Cabernet for lunch, which he decided should be fish. Lydia had always loved fish, whether in human or bear form. He knew Cody had just gotten in a shipment of fresh bass and he was always great at making bass an event.
At five past noon, Eric texted Lydia, who he had not heard from in the last hour. There had been a lot of flirty texting before that.
I’m ordering bass. ;)
He wasn’t about to ask if she was coming for lunch when they’d already discussed it. No need to make himself sound overly paranoid about her not showing up somewhere. That could be a sore subject given their past.
Another five minutes passed.
Eric frowned and restlessly fussed with his phone, his nostrils occasionally flaring as he sought out Lydia’s scent anywhere nearby. He looked out over the guests drifting in and out of the dining hall and stared out the window at guests passing by on the verandah that wrapped around the lodge.
He texted Lydia again.
You coming?
When another five minutes of nothing passed, Eric started to worry.
He couldn’t help but think of Lydia’s nightmares and the entire reason she had come out to Black Bear Lake. What if Eric wasn’t the one in danger? What if it was her?
Eric didn’t bother to cancel his order for lunch. He just got up and left, hurrying toward the stairs up to the suites, intent on finding Lydia and keeping his eyes, ears, and nose open.
He was halfway to his own suite, thinking she was probably there when he caught Lydia’s scent coming from a far hallway on the second floor instead. It was far from Lydia’s room and from his own residence.
It was close to Michelle’s suite, he noted.
He had spent some time in her room the few times they had gone out. He hadn’t missed the lingering scent of another bear shifter in the room either. Michelle had told him she had a business partner in town who came to work with her in her suite. Her entire job had sounded a little tedious and complicated, though Eric had expressed interest in hearing about it on their dates. But Michelle had always rolled her eyes and said it was boring to talk about.
Eric did not so much as suspect Michelle of anything nefarious in the least...until he followed Lydia’s scent right to her door. That was more than a coincidence. It wasn’t impossible the two women had met and they were just talking in there, laughing about what a dip Eric Strauss could be sometimes. The Lydia he had always known was shy about making new friends, but Michelle could be pretty disarming. It wasn’t impossible.
Except that the hairs on the back of Eric’s neck were standing up.
Lydia had not texted him back and he’d felt things were off with Michelle. It was one of the reasons he had rejected her in the first place.
None of this felt right.
Eric was wearing a sweater under his suit jacket and he took a deep breath as he attempted to get his inner bear under control. His bear was pacing, becoming increasingly restless not knowing where his mate was or if she was in danger.
Eric knocked on the door.
He heard something like a thump and some murmured talking. A male voice said, “We didn’t order anything!”
Eric frowned and said, “It’s Eric Strauss!”
“Shit, I knew I smelled him,” the man said. He was speaking softly, but Eric could just make his voice out.
Eric growled under his breath, his muscles tensing. Something was most definitely up.
He clenched his fists, prepared to strike if necessary.
“Let him in!” That was Michelle and Eric bared his teeth.
They had done something.
His bear roared in his chest. His blood was hot.
The door swung open and in a rush of warm air from the heater in the suite, he caught Lydia’s scent as sharply as if she were standing right next to him.
Everything happened very quickly.
In a second, Eric took stock of the suite. A handsome yet weasley looking man around his own age with l
ong dark hair had answered the door and he looked tense, as if he were about to throw a punch at any second. He stood by the door, his eyes narrowed at Eric.
Michelle stood in the middle of the suite, her lips pursed, staring at him with wide eyes. She wore a red parka and she had a bruise on her face and a bad scratch along her cheek still oozing blood as she began to dab it with a towel. She looked like she’d been in a fight.
Eric’s jaw clenched and he was about to ask where Lydia was. He had just opened his mouth, the man’s eyes fixed on him, when Michelle shot her hand out toward him. Her eyes flashed and just as he saw light that he recognized as the magic energy of a spell casting, he felt a terrible force strike him and take him right off his feet.
“Someone will see!” The man hissed, just as Eric was thrown back across the hall and hit the opposite wall.
Eric was stunned, the wind knocked out of him.
His bear demanded he get to his feet and fight.
Except that he couldn’t move.
“Well, drag him inside then!” Michelle snapped.
She sounded completely different. He felt blindsided. His head throbbed and his limbs wouldn’t move. He frowned, groaning. His bear was demanding he get up. But just as the man ran out into the hall and grabbed his feet, unceremoniously dragging him into the suite before anyone could walk by in the hall and see the ruckus, he felt a stranger rooting around in his head.
That was what it felt like anyway.
It was completely different than the few times when he had heard Lydia in his head. That felt like a warm hug. This felt like someone had barged in, breaking down the doors of his mind and making themselves at home when they were unwanted. He groaned again, his brow furrowed as he inwardly tried to fight the invasion. It made his head hurt and he was already feeling sluggish and dizzy besides that. His thoughts were slowing and becoming unclear.
I have to find Lydia, he thought. I have to…
But where was Lydia? He could smell her. She was somewhere close. He knew her scent better than anyone’s except his own brothers’. He had caught the scent of Lydia, even in dreams when he missed her so intensely it made his heart ache. There was no mistaking it.
She’s here…
He had to rise and fight and save Lydia. Except he couldn’t move and he could hardly think. That stranger was rooting around in his mind. The man was shutting the door, having dragged him into the living room of Michelle’s suite. They were looming over him, talking about him as he lay there, paralyzed. He realized it was Michelle rooting around in his head.
It also felt a lot like she was trying to take control of his mind and he couldn’t stop her.
“I told you,” she was saying to the man as they loomed over him. “Mind control spells are tricky!”
“If you don’t want to do the mind control-”
“I’m doing the mind control, dum-dum! I’ll knock him out and take him over. We’ll put him somewhere and he’ll wake up under my control. I just have to concentrate. And then we’ll come up with the plan. We just have to be careful!”
Eric wanted to scream at that. He felt his voice was stuck in his throat and even when he tried his hardest, his every muscle straining, all he managed was a soft, “Umph…”
“Hold on,” Michelle muttered. She glared down at him and he couldn’t so much as blink.
They had hurt Lydia. He knew that, he just didn’t know how. Though he suspected she was still alive. He could feel it. Everything in him wanted to jump up and rip Michelle’s throat out just for threatening his mate.
But all he could do was lie there as Michelle pointed down at him and whispered, “Sleep.”
And everything went dark.
18
Lydia
Lydia wondered if her mind might explode.
She had not been tied up - wherever this was - for long. But every second might as well have been an eternity. Because every passing second was another moment when Eric might be in danger.
She kept starting to freak out and having to calm herself down again.
She’d tried to telepathically connect to Eric a few times without success. It was tricky, since she really didn’t know what she was doing. They had only stumbled on this telepathic link by accident. It was something that had cropped up when they were younger, passing it off as a fluke. Now when they did it, it was in times of deep emotional connection.
She had never tried to force it before.
It was like wandering around, looking for a door on a long stone wall. She couldn’t find the entrance anywhere but she knew it was there. She felt as if she’d once known the way but had become lost.
C’mon, Eric. Let me find you…
If she couldn’t find Eric Strauss when she was lost, she had to think she would never be found by anyone again.
Lydia closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She would reach Eric’s mind simply because she had to. Not just for her own sake, but for his. For them...
But when she shut her eyes, she saw herself in a blue dress. It was an old memory. She was fifteen and as much in love with Eric Strauss as a fifteen-year-old could be, which meant endlessly and madly. Eric had promised they would go to the movies together. It was just another day to hang out as buddies. That’s all it would ever be, she’d told herself. Because Eric had a different life and she didn’t belong in it. It would only make Eric’s life harder and even at fifteen, she felt she was a little wiser about the world than he was. She had to be.
Eric had built up their night out. He wanted to take her to dinner at a fancy seafood restaurant because she’d told him she’d never eaten lobster. It had sounded suspiciously like a date and even though Lydia had promised herself she would not pursue Eric like that, she allowed herself to build it up in her mind. A date with Eric Strauss. She could pretend. She 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 sou
nded 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.
19
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 youngest, he was always a little touchy about his brothers being overprotective. He didn’t much like the way Cody was looking at him.
Eric (Strauss Bear Shifter Brothers 0f Colorado Book 2) Page 10
