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“Because I needed to get close to him,” Mal ground out. “I needed to ge K ne>

“What happened to your Breedmate, Mal?” Danika reached out, smoothed her hands over his scarred, broken face. “Have you told anyone at all?”

He shook his head, mute for a long moment as the memories swelled, black as acid. “I hadn’t planned to take a mate. I’d been alone for so long, I’d gotten used to my freedom. I fed from human females, found pleasure with more than a few. But I made it my habit to steer clear of the women with this damnable mark,” he said, tracing the edges of the Breedmate birthmark on Danika’s trim belly. “But then I met Fiona. She was sweet and gentle and innocent—just a girl of twenty-two. Everything was fresh to her, everything a new adventure, something magical. She looked at me in much the same way, like some kind of goddamned hero from a fairy tale. I had centuries of living behind me, battles won and lost. I looked at Fiona and realized I’d forgotten what it was like to be so carefree and open.”

Danika gave him a tender, wry smile. “You were never either of those things, Mal. Brooding and enigmatic, yes. And devastatingly charming, in your own grim way.”

He nodded, unsure why it should come as such a surprise that Dani would know him so well, even after all this time. His mouth quirked with humor, despite the gravity of his memories. “I tried to keep that cynical, world-weary side of me away from Fiona. Figured I’d let it out a little at a time, lest I scare her off too soon.”

“But she didn’t scare away,” Danika said, holding him in a gentle gaze.

Mal shook his head. “No, she didn’t. We were together less than a year when I found myself falling in love with her. We blood-bonded, making our home together here at the castle. It wasn’t long before she asked me to give her a child. She was only a few months pregnant when …”

Danika’s breath hitched in her throat. “You lost them both at the same time? Oh, Mal.”

“She’d gone to Edinburgh to pick up some custom-made bedding—something to match the mural she was painting on the nursery walls.” He grunted, throat still rough with regret. “It was morning, so I stayed home. As it was, I’d been working on a surprise for her that I hoped to finish while she was gone. The rocking chair was almost finished when I felt a jolt of terror through our blood bond. Fiona was in danger, in pain. And I was trapped in this bloody fortress by the sunlight burning outside its walls.”

Danika swore softly, pulling his head against her breast. “I’m so sorry, Malcolm.”

“I called her cell phone,” he murmured, remembering all too vividly the fear that had gripped him in those frantic first moments. “I called six times, a dozen … it K6;&; irang unanswered. I had no choice but to go out and look for her.”

Danika’s heart thudded beneath his ear. “In broad daylight—knowing it would kill you?”

“I didn’t care. I went on foot to the city, the fastest means of reaching her. I followed her through our bond, into the crudest of Edinburgh’s slums. It was near noon, and my skin was turning to ash. But she was alive, and I still had a chance of saving her.” He shook his head. “I wasn’t in the city more than a few minutes when I felt our connection go still. It severed, and I knew she was dead. I’d failed her.”

She sat down next to him on the edge of the bed. “You did all you could, Malcolm. More than anyone would expect.”

“No,” he said. “Not yet. But I will do right by her. I don’t know how long I stood there in the street after she was gone, sensing my flesh was burning but feeling only the emptiness of loss. But then dark clouds moved in and a heavy rain started. It bought me time, which I used to search the city. I looked for her until I found a drug dealer who’d heard of a pimp scoring large off finders’ fees for pretty young women—even some men and children—in demand by a client of particular tastes.”

“Live human game,” Dani breathed. “For Reiver and his blood clubs.”

Mal nodded. “I never