Mal narrowed a look on the guard, trying to get a read on him. He didn't know if this was yet another test of Reiver's making or some trap of Thane's own. Somehow, he didn't think so. And at that moment, he didn't care.
"Let's go," he snarled, leading the way.
In the hour before dawn, Malcolm arrived back at the castle. Danika was dozing with little Connor in her arms, nestled together in a large, overstuffed chair in the great hall on the first floor. She woke when Mal entered, heard his booted footsteps, his long-legged stride, coming up the short flight of the stairwell from the tower house's entrance on ground level.
He paused in the arched entryway, his dark brows furrowing as his eyes lit on her and her sleeping son. "After the way we left things between us, I half expected you to be gone when I got here," he murmured.
His face looked so weary and grim, his expression so bleakly tormented, she had no choice but to ask. "Expected, or hoped?"
A quiet scoff, then a slow shake of his head. "Both, maybe."
He started walking farther up the stairwell.
"Mal, wait." She tucked Connor into a secure cocoon of blankets and pillows on the chair, then went to follow Malcolm. "Where are you going?"
His deep voice rumbled from the floor above. "To wash off the stink of Reiver's club."
By the time she reached him, he was already in the master bedroom, already stripping off his weapons and clothing. In moments he was naked, gloriously so. Thick muscle rippled as he strode across the floor toward the adjacent bathroom. Danika reached for his hand, forcing him to pause. The copper tang of human blood was ripe on him.
"You've been feeding tonight." She looked at his fisted hand, so large and powerful, heavy in her grasp. The knuckles were tinted dark with bruises, recent contusions not quite healed over. "You've been fighting. What else did you do tonight?"
He stared at her for a long minute, then drew his hand out of her hold and raked his battered fingers through his hair. "It's a job, Dani. Don't make me explain how I have to do it."
As if that was all he needed to say, he stalked into the bathroom and flipped on the shower. He stepped under the spray, began a vigorous scrub of his body.
She watched him for a moment, stung by his dismissal. And more than that, she worried for what his need to avenge his loss was doing to him. She dreaded what it might cost him.
"I think I have a right to be concerned about you, Mal. It's not as if we're strangers, after all." He didn't answer her, just kept up his furious scouring of his skin. He shampooed his dark hair with equal anger, then doused the suds from his head and body under the steaming hot water. "I care about you, Malcolm. I'm afraid for you."
"Don't be." His eyes blazed as he cut off the shower and pulled a towel off the wall hook outside the tiled alcove. "If you want to fear something, be afraid for yourself if Reiver realizes what I've done. Now more than ever, I need to bring that bastard down."
She shook her head, understanding only in that moment how consumed he was with the hatred he felt for Reiver. "This quest for revenge is destroying you, Mal, not him. How long can you brush up against evil and not come away stained with it yourself?"
"My problem. Not yours." He dried off hastily, then tossed the towel aside to step past her. "Don't worry about my life when you have your own and your child's to think about."
"You arrogant jackass." She glared at him, hating him for his self-sacrifice as much as she loved him for it. Oh, God. Yes, loved him. Some part of her probably always had. "There was a time I considered you among my dearest friends, Malcolm MacBain. And now-"
"Now what?" His voice shook with a tightly leashed rage as he wheeled on her, eyes blazing. "We had sex, Dani. Great sex, I'll grant you, but your timing sucks. My life is in motion. I'm on this path, and there's too damned much at stake here. I won't put you any closer to the fire than you already are."
"And I can't stand by and watch you burn." She swallowed past the icy clump of lead that sat in her throat. The feeling sank as she stared up at him, the cold settling heavily on her heart. "I've lost one man I loved, Malcolm. I can't put myself through that kind of pain again."
Only then did his face lose some of its hard line and vicious tension. A muscle ticked wildly in the grizzled side of his jaw, and now his eyes smoldered with a darker, less terrifying fury. "Danika, I ..." He scowled abruptly, blew out a raw curse. When he reached out to her, his hand shook a little. His fingers found her cheek with aching tenderness, curved around gently to cup the back of her neck. He brought her to him, placed a heartbreaking kiss to her lips.
She melted into him despite the hurt and anger that tore at her inside. His embrace was firm and warm, his mouth a soothing balm when all she wanted to do was rage at him, demand things she had no right to expect from him.
His fangs grazed her lightly as he let his mouth drift away from hers, then lower, to the sensitive skin of her throat. She held her breath with a needful anticipation, her veins calling to him, hearing his own heartbeat-his unspoken thoughts-echoing through every electrified nerve ending in her body. Her head tilted as though pulled on invisible strings, granting him access to the throbbing of her pulse. He kissed her there, tender and sweet. Teased the delicate spot with his tongue and teeth and fangs. A moan escaped him then, guttural with denial.
"I can't," he murmured against her lips. "I won't turn the mistakes I've made with you into something irreparable, Dani." He drew back, pressed his forehead to hers as he held her against his naked body. "Time was never on our side, was it? Fate gives us nothing more than a taste of what might have been."