He needed her so she could keep expanding his numbers. That was all this was about. He didn’t value her as a person, as someone he needed to protect. She was the reason his clan harbored so many shifters.
“You’re watching me,” she said out loud once she realized it.
“I’m doing what’s necessary to keep my clan in one piece.”
Her blood chilled. She twisted to peer out the nearest window, but she couldn’t see through the darkness outside. The idea that someone she knew had been watching her this whole time made her skin crawl. It could have been a shifter she’d trained, someone she’d helped into Zander’s clan. After all she’d done, she’d been betrayed.
Faster than she could react, Ford snatched the phone from her hand. She thought he would have something to say to Zander, but Ford disconnected the call and tossed her phone aside.
“You’re staying here tonight,” he snarled.
She looked up at him with confusion and shock. After the gears in her mind started spinning again, she said, “You could drive me back to the cabin. You don’t have to make room for me here.”
Ford shook his head. His eyes burned with the light of his beast, giving away his emotional state. Had it not been for his eyes, she would have seen his anger in the way he stormed out of the room.
She followed him and wished she weren’t such a burden. Ford had retreated to his bedroom. She watched him throw pillows around, rip blankets from the floor, and shove his anger into every jerky motion. She expected him to hand her a pillow and a couple of blankets to make her own bed on the couch.
Once his own bed had been cleaned up, he marched past her with pillow and blanket in hand.
“You don’t have to do that,” she said. “I can make my own bed.”
He pointed back to the queen mattress. “That’s your bed tonight.”
Her jaw dropped. Annoyance fluttered through her and sharpened her tongue. “I didn’t come here to steal your bed out from under you. I came here to get under you, and I’ll be damned if this night ends with both of us unhappy.”
He chucked what he’d been holding onto the couch and whirled on her. She could have moved out of the way, but no alarms of warning went off until Ford had her pinned against the wall. His hands circled her wrists as he looked down at her with his burning eyes.
Desire made her push her chest out to see if her nipples would graze him. She was right. Pleasure rippled down her front, all the way to her core.
“I am doing my best to keep my damn hands off you,” Ford growled. His breath touched her neck, her clavicle. “That monster you call a clan leader has made it very hard for me to control myself.”
Ford pressed his knee between her legs, where her sex throbbed and begged.
“I want to fuck you so hard that you’ll never want to go back to him. I want to make you scream my name so I can believe for a little while that you could belong to me…” His gaze softened, and a sigh escaped him. “But I know you’ll never be mine.”
Ford released her. He yanked the lamp plug from the wall and plunged the room into darkness. Daphne listened to the springs of his couch groan. Ford had, effectively, gone to bed. Meanwhile, Daphne leaned against the wall and struggled to catch her breath.
She slowly sidled into the bedroom and closed the door behind her. Burying her face into one of Ford’s pillows, she was greeted by a cloud of his scent. She swallowed her scream and tried to ignore the pulse still thrumming through her body.
No man had ever set her on fire like that.
The burn took half the night to fade. Daphne pressed a pillow between her knees so it might feel like someone was lying with her, but her body still ached for real contact.
Chapter Seven
Ford had never wanted to hurt another man so badly since his wife’s passing. The rage he’d felt that day seemed miniscule compared to how he’d felt while listening to Zander’s thinly veiled threats. If that man came for Daphne, Ford wouldn’t hesitate to give his life for her.
Worse yet, Ford was willing to do the one thing he said he’d never do again. Blood had stained his hands once. He’d wrecked his clan when he removed its head. He didn’t know how large Zander’s clan was, but Ford doubted he would lose sleep over Zander’s death. No clan deserved to live under a man like that.
King killer, they’d called him. Not that his previous clan leader had been much of a king. He’d been a sniveling man in the end. Seeing that Ford’s wife was dying, his clan leader had taken it upon himself to change her. Her disease had not been the end of her. She might have had another decade had his clan leader not acted against her will.
Ford hadn’t been able to stop himself when he’d learned of what happened. Now, he wondered what he would be like if Daphne were hurt. Strong and independent, Daphne wouldn’t die because of an accident. Someone would have to mean it if they killed her.
His beast snarled. It lashed out at him. The taste of blood lingered on its tongue and it craved more, but there was no one to hurt. The man Ford wanted to kill wasn’t here. He prowled the outside of his home, searching for whoever had eyes on Daphne, but he had no intention of killing the spy.
The spy was just doing their job. Ford knew what it was like to live under a man who had outrageous demands and even worse punishments. So long as the spy watched and did not touch, Ford would keep his hands to himself.
His beast begged to be set free, but Ford couldn’t risk leaving his home unattended. He couldn’t shift in town. Gavin wouldn’t appreciate a dragon exposing them.
Gavin had kept to himself for the most part. He didn’t seem to care that another shifter was lurking on his territory. That also meant that Ford knew little about the man. Gavin could have been another harsh dictator, for all Ford knew. The happiness of his clan made Ford think otherwise, though.
He shook himself. Was he truly considering entering another clan for this overworked woman who would never be his to please? Ford had his one chance. He’d lost his mate and killed his clan leader. No clan would ever welcome him again. Once Gavin found out what Ford had done, then he would hunt Ford down to make sure it never happened again.
And Ford didn’t blame him. Both a good leader and a corrupt one would do the same. A corrupt leader would do it to save their own hide. If Gavin was the man Ford suspected him to be, then Gavin would kill Ford to protect his people and their secret.
Before Ford knew it, the sun had painted the sky in shades of rosy dawn. He hadn’t slept a wink, and yet his beast seemed relentless. It had accessed a secret stash of energy that made Ford’s muscles hum. He could do nothing, though. He had no target, nowhere to direct the frustration winding him tight.
When the first sound of movement inside reached him, he debated staying outside. Daphne’s allure dragged him through the front door. He wanted to know what she looked like right out of bed. The sight of her did not disappoint.
Her shoulder length hair had formed a mussed halo around her head. She blinked sleepily at him on her way to the bathroom. When she recognized him and a small smile graced her lips, the walls around his heart crumbled a little more. Upon leaving the bathroom, she stared at the couch, her head tilted.
“You didn’t sleep,” she said.