Page 21 of Kidnapped Forced Mate

It's just… Strange.

Ever since I freed her yesterday, she's made no attempt to demand I take her back home. Despite this, she doesn't seem remotely interested in what the castle offers.

Not the museum, the library, or even the lab where Yazmine conducts her research. It seems that nothing I show Olivia piques her interest. By the end of the day, I’d given up much of the hope I had of charming her.

“You seem very… uninterested in all of this,” I observe when we end up in the kitchen for dinner. I haven’t planned for much, so I'm asking Stryker not to interrupt my time with Olivia.

He believes that I can woo her while remaining oblivious to the fact that I hope she doesn’t fall in love with me. By the looks of it, she’s far from that. Quite the opposite, really.

Olivia sighed as she took a seat on a bar stool around the island table in the kitchen. If she isn’t impressed by my cooking skills by the night's end, I’m willing to give up my quest and face the consequences at Stryker’s hands.

This is the only time I wish we weren’t so close. Being twins, it came naturally that we’d be inseparable. Neither of us considered that we might have conflicting ideas about love.

The moment the Council introduced the human mating process, Stryker’s eagerness led me to maintain a farce and pretend that I was equally excited. For him, as the youngest in the clan, he’d been sheltered and loved unconditionally. As the oldest twin by a few minutes, I always felt pressured to perform. To earn the love I was shown, even if it wasn’t said outright. The constant comparison between us made it difficult to forge my own path.

Not that I’m complaining. Stryker has always been the brother who has my back, no matter what. Oftentimes, I’ve wondered if he does the same for my sake, or feels the same way I do. Nonetheless, I have to maintain that I’m a willing candidate in the human mating process. Not just for my twin’s sake but for that of my brothers, who’ve proven successful in their endeavors.

“Uninterested, huh?” Olivia chuckles blandly, no humor evident in her tone. “I don’t know what you expect from me, Stryder. You insist on keeping me here, knowing I have work to do.”

“It’s not safe,” I defend, turning to her once I’ve placed the pasta in boiling water. “I told you that already.”

Olivia stares at me, not as blankly as she has all day, but with a sense of wonder filling her eyes. “Because of your inner dragon?”

“Because of my inner dragon,” I concede. “You won’t understand it, but it’s all I can explain.” She doesn’t know it, but I, too, have been struggling to grapple with how protective I feel over her. I know it’s probably because she’s meant to be my mate, so naturally, I’d have to protect her.

She doesn’t know about that part yet. Keeping with what the Council wanted – for my human mate to fall in love with me – I just haven’t gotten to telling her that she’s meant to be my mate. I’m hoping she’ll eventually open up to the idea of staying on the island, and open up enough to me so we can cross the bridge of conceiving children.

It’s challenging, I must admit. But it’s a challenge I’ve accepted if it’s something that appeases my family. Stryker especially.

If I was worried that the woman would fall in love with me and expect my love in return, I don’t need to be concerned after today. All I need to do is woo her enough so that she sleeps with me.

I've never bedded an FBI agent before, and it’s no easy task.

“I don’t have much of a choice in all of this, do I?” she sighs.

“Unfortunately, no,” I shake my head. “It would have been easier if I met you organically in the mortal world. You might have asked for my help yourself, then.”

“Probably not,” she titters. “If I knew you were a dragon shifter, I would have told you to leave me alone.”

I don’t know why, but her lighthearted jest cuts through me like a sharp blade. Was the Cube of Knowledge wrong this time around? Perhaps Olivia Jackson isn’t meant to be my mate. There’s no way she would have fallen in love with me. “You would?” I ask, raising a brow to hide the disappointment I’d rather not admit.

“Yeah…” she shrugs, turning her attention to the white marble countertop where her fingers are intertwined. “... I mean… I would have never thought it was possible, and I would have thought you were crazy.”

“Right… So now that you know I’m not crazy, what do you really think?”

Olivia looks up, her lips parting as she’s about to speak. Instead, a horrified squeal escapes her lips as she hurriedly hops off the bar stool and rushes toward me. Only when she flashes past do I realize she’s going for the stove where the pasta water bubbles over the pot.

She’s about to grab the pot off the stove when my dragon senses tingle, and I foresee the danger of her burning her hands. I rush forward instead, grabbing the pot and scorching my hands with boiling water.

Muttering a string of curses under my breath, I rush to the sink to soothe the burns with cold water. Behind me, Olivia giggles for the very first time. The pleasant, sweet sound of her lilting giggle fills me with a sense of joy, my heart feeling squeezed inside my chest.

“You know what I think?” she chuckles bemusedly. “You’re quite ordinary for a dragon man.”

“Is that a good thing?”

Olivia stares at me for a long time, then shakes her head. “I–I don’t know.” The glint of amusement on her face disappears, her eyes turning sad as she looks away. I can’t help but feel like she’s hiding something, and I just caught a glimpse of her truest self when she giggled.

“I…” Olivia gulps, brows furrowing with confusion. “... I think I’m gonna go to my room.”

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