Page 5 of Forced to Mate by the Mad Scientist (Kindred Tales Spicy Shorts #3)

5

KROSS

Kross watched from the corner of his eye as his charge fastened her five-point harness in the seat beside his. His hands clenched on the steering yoke of the long-range shuttle as he considered where they were about to go and how potentially dangerous it was going to be.

Not for him—he was a Kindred warrior, he could handle himself in almost any situation. But Sylvia was a curvy little human—soft and defenseless and oh-so-vulnerable. It drove him fucking crazy to see her put herself in danger all the time and yet there was nothing he could do but follow along and pray to the Goddess that he could keep her safe.

Goddess damn her!

His hands tightened even more on the yoke. She didn’t know it but she was his Fated Mate—Kross knew it as surely as he knew his own name and blood type. He’d known it from the moment he’d first met her…and yet he also knew he could never Claim her properly as a Kindred warrior should.

The problem was, he was a Hybrid—his mother had been a Blood Kindred and his Father had been a Beast Kindred with just a little Skellax mixed in. This particular genetic combination meant it would be impossible for him to Bond with a woman, even if he found the right one for him.

Kross knew this from painful personal experience. When he’d been younger, he had formed an attachment to a girl he’d grown up with. His parents had tried to warn him to leave her alone, but the two of them had run off together and attempted to Bond.

The pain of a Failed Bonding is something you don’t ever forget. It’s a soul-deep ache—an agony that never truly fades. The girl Kross had tried to Bond to him had been driven nearly mad by the pain. And even after it had lessened, she’d wanted nothing more to do with him—not that he fucking blamed her. He should have listened to his parents and never tried to Bond her in the first place.

Well, lesson learned. He was determined never to try and Bond a woman to him again. And for years—decades actually—he’d kept that promise to himself with no problem. Other than a few flings—mostly with sex bots to avoid any kind of commitment issues—he’d had no interest in females at all. He’d moved to the Mother Ship and made a place for himself, working in the Kindred’s Elite Espionage Corps.

And then Sylvia had walked into his life.

It started innocently enough with Commander Sylvan asking if he would leave the Corps for a while to become a Protector. The specially trained bodyguards were each assigned a single female scientist or diplomat to ward and protect with their life. Thinking nothing of it, Kross had accepted.

Which was when he had been introduced to Sylvia.

From the very moment he’d taken her hand when they were introduced, he knew—knew she was meant to be his. And yet, the cruel fate of his own genetics would forever keep them apart.

At first, Kross tried to tell himself he didn’t care. He told himself it was better to be close to her and keep her safe than to live without her in his life.

But he hadn’t counted on Sylvia being so fucking reckless! Why couldn’t she be a diplomat or a Good Will Ambassador, he often wondered. Why did she have to be a scientist whose research seemingly took her to only the most dangerous planets in the known galaxy?

He had trailed her from the lava fields of Vulrick Six to the dangerous jungles of Pera’tor Beta to the frozen wastes of Harkinor Prime where the deadly sub-zero temperatures could kill in a heartbeat. It seemed that everywhere she wanted to go could kill her…and that in turn, was killing Kross!

How he longed to gather her into his arms and just keep her safe! He wished she would agree to stay aboard the Mother Ship and do experiments in a lab instead of insisting on going on missions that could get her killed all the time!

Kross knew if anything happened to her, he would want to die too. But it wasn’t just the fact that he was constantly worried for her life that kept him up at night and made his job so difficult. It was the fact that he was relentlessly drawn to her—it felt at times like she had tied a golden cord around his heart and she was tugging on it anytime she was near him.

Every time they were in the shuttle together, her sweet scent invaded his senses. And every move she made—every swish of her long, reddish-gold hair, every movement of her soft, curvy body—called to him like a siren song. It was torture being around her—so close to her—and not being able to touch her. To not hold her and kiss her and Claim her the way every fiber of his being was begging him to do.

To combat his feelings and keep Sylvia from having any idea of his daily struggle, Kross had been forced to become an asshole. He was short and sarcastic with her—he pushed her away in every way he could think because he couldn’t risk letting her get too close. He knew if he did, he wouldn’t be able to stop himself from Claiming her—from admitting how he felt and how badly he wanted her.

And then, on their last mission, he had nearly ruined everything.

It was the damn leeches that did it, he thought, as he input their flight sequence into the shuttle’s control bank and requested that the Mother Ship fold space for them to Gim’bab Orious. Seeing her in pain—in danger—had nearly done him in. All he’d wanted to do was heal her—to comfort her and hold her close.

For a little while, he had allowed himself to do those things and Sylvia had responded to him. More than responded. He could still smell the scent of her desire as he had healed and teased her tender nipples. And the way she had looked at him…as though she was melting from the inside out just because they were close…it was Goddess-damned intoxicating.

Kross had certainly felt himself melting. He’d been a heartbeat from kissing her…from confessing how he felt.

And then sanity had reasserted itself, thank the Goddess. He’d been able to pull back from the brink…barely. Ever since he’d had to act like even more of an asshole to keep her off track.

He knew his behavior was hurting the woman he loved and he hated himself for it. But it was better to hurt her feelings than to scar her soul. Or so he told himself.

And in the meantime, they had yet another dangerous mission to get through. He just hoped that he could keep his Fated Mate safe without revealing his feelings.

He had no idea how impossible that was about to be.