Page 15 of Kidnapped Forced Mate

When the man doesn’t move, staring at me expectantly, it sends a cold shiver down my spine.

“What?” I ask with a frown.

“Get in the shower,” he replies flatly.

I frown at him, perplexed, catching the way his lips twitch and noticing the mole on the left corner of his mouth for the first time. Not more than a few millimeters beside the dent where his top and bottom lip meet, a flowery mole stands out, filling me with the sudden urge to reach out and touch it with the tip of my finger.

Catching myself in another heinous thought, I quickly reel my thoughts in and gather my resolve. This is no situation to wonder what the man’s face would feel beneath my touch.

He’s a psychopath.

“Not while you’re standing there,” I grouch instead.

“You don’t have a choice, Olivia,” he grates. The way he says my name sends a shiver of awareness down my spine, the sensation settling in the pit of my belly. He doesn’t have an American accent, his tone of voice almost anciently exotic. Maybe it’s that striking richness in his voice that elicits a bodily reaction from me – the sense of the unknown, the danger it imposes while maintaining a sense of familiarity.

Whatever it is, I never felt drawn to a voice before. Not even Luca, with his Italian accent, calling me by my alias could spark this amount of awareness in me.

I should be furious, I remind myself. After all, this is the man who messed up my plans and kidnapped me. He really kidnapped me, claiming to have saved me from the staged kidnapping that was all a part of the plan.

I can only imagine what’s going on back at the headquarters. Director Sheffield must be going insane, regretting ever promoting me to a field agent.

“I need my privacy. It’s the least you can give me.”

In response, the man sighs and turns his back to me. “Good enough?”

I roll my eyes at his back while I slip the dress off. I should be concerned about getting undressed in the presence of a dragon man, yet it hardly fazes me. Staring at his back, my head tilts to one side as I regard the odd way he remains appealing, even from this view. Tracing my eyes across his back muscles as they pull taut against the fabric of his t-shirt, I’m about to drag my gaze lower when he glances to the side.

“What are you waiting for?”

“I–er–don’t turn around,” I warn, quickly tearing my gaze from his back and scurrying to the shower stall. I turn the faucet and wait for the temperature to rise, glancing back and noticing that he still has his back to me, his arms crossed in front of him.

”I don’t understand why you’re keeping me here,” I wonder aloud.

“I told you already… My inner dragon won’t let you get into any more trouble. Call it a hunch,” he shrugs.

“Well, your hunch has cost me an important case I’ve been working on,” I huff before stepping underneath the shower. Closing my eyes as the perfectly hot water rushes from the crown of my head, flowing to every inch of my body, I think out loud, “You have me here for whatever reason, and I don’t even know your name.”

“Stryder,” he calls out, and my eyes spring open. I didn’t think he’d hear me across the pitter-patter of the shower spray, but he did.

“... Stryder Vulkan,” he continues, prompting me to turn around only to see him reaching for the door.

To my surprise, he leaves the bathroom without another word. I frown through the veil of steam around the shower stall, half-expecting him to come back since he doesn’t trust me not to try and escape.

But when he doesn’t return, I’m left to wonder why he refuses to let me go in the first place. Nonetheless, I have a life outside this remote island that I need to return to.

Then why does my body tell me I’m right where I need to be, his name rolling off my tongue so naturally when I say it?

Chapter 7 - Stryder

It’s impossible. I feel nothing for the woman besides the desperate need to keep her safe. Perhaps that’s all the fated mates clause is about. Our inner dragons are unable to see them come to harm, wanting to protect them for the sake of mating and producing offspring for the clan.

Perhaps my brothers were wrong, I think, as I stand outside the ensuite bathroom door, glancing over my shoulder and frowning in deep contemplation. The woman in the shower is nothing like I thought my mate would be.

Apart from the obvious contrast to my usual preference in looks, this one is feistier than I would have liked. I hadn’t thought much about what my human mate would be like, but an easy-going personality would have been nice. Easier, even, so I wouldn’t have to deal with her resistance and insistence to go back to the mortal world.

I guess that the Dragon Council hadn’t been anticipating resistance either. They expected me to just waltz into her life and make her fall in love with me, then willingly join the Aurora Dragons on Aurora Island as my mate.

None of them knew that, at first, I couldn’t care if she loved me or not. It’s impossible to force love to grow in a place where a seed isn’t planted. It’s not like I’ll ever be able to give her the love she desire if she has to open her heart to me. That’s why I’m convinced that my older brothers mistook this deep urge to protect their mates as love. They have it all wrong. I cannot let the woman go, simply because I can’t allow harm to come to her. It’s not love. It’s just the need to protect her, that’s all.

---