"Two of Reiver's worst enforcers are dead inside that blaze. He sent them to kill you, Dani. Don't think for a second he won't retaliate on you or the rest of the MacConns if he has even the slightest cause to suspect you might have walked away from this thing tonight."
He let her answering silence fill the quiet of the car as he drove deeper into the night, farther into the rolling hills and wilderness plains of the Highlands where he was born. "As of right now, you're dead, Danika. You have to trust me. It's the only way."
"Where will I go?"
"Somewhere he won't think to look for you."
She went quiet beside him again, murmuring soft words to her baby as the bundle in her arms began to fidget and fuss. Malcolm couldn't keep his gaze from straying to her now and then as the miles fell away behind them. She was lovely still, with her pale blond hair and smooth-as-cream skin.
Time had made him forget how regal yet feminine her Nordic features were, but seeing her now was like looking through a glass to all those years that had passed-the centuries, in fact. Danika MacConn's beauty hadn't faded even a little, despite the faint shadows riding under her eyes that hinted at how long she'd apparently gone without a fortifying taste of Breed blood.
He regretted the loss she'd suffered with Conlan's death. Losing one's blood-bonded mate was the worst kind of suffering. Con was the lucky one, relieved of the grief Danika had to carrnd had toy without him.
And watching her interact so tenderly with her baby son opened up a deeper ache inside Malcolm-the ache of a recent loss of his own. It was an anguish that had nearly destroyed him but now gave him reason to breathe. To have patience. To avenge.
The last thing he wanted was a vulnerable female and baby in his care. All the worse that it should be this female, at this time ... in this place.
Steeling himself to the consequences of his actions that night, Malcolm turned the sedan onto a rambling path that could hardly be called a road. They bumped and jostled through a thick heath, following the line of an old cow fence of tumbledown stones. The fortress dominated the vista up ahead, looming as dark as pitch against the wintry night sky.
Danika leaned forward in her seat, peering out the windshield. "I know this place," she murmured softly.
"Aye," he agreed. "You should know it well enough, I reckon."
She was quiet for a long moment, staring straight ahead as he slowed to a stop in front of it. "This is the castle where Conlan first asked me to be his mate." Danika's face glowed milky white in the lights of the dashboard as she turned to look at him now. "Malcolm ... this is your castle."
Chapter Five
The fifteenth-century stone tower house had been modernized extensively inside. Cold gray stone walls had been coated with white plaster and adorned with contemporary paintings and black-and-white art photographs of the surrounding Highlands. Roughhewn plank floors were now gleaming hardwood, warmed by thick wool rugs. In place of tallow candles and mounted torches spewing soot and smoke from their open flames, Mal had turned on beautiful lamps to chase away the shadows of the castle's interior.
But it was the room he'd brought Danika and Connor to on the second floor that gave her the most unexpected jolt of surprise. A nursery. Unfinished, by the look of it. A wooden crib stood empty in the center of the cozy chamber. A tall chest of drawers stood against the wall to her left, beside a basket overflowing with a menagerie of stuffed animals and plush baby toys that looked like they'd never been moved. On the far wall, someone had begun painting a whimsical mural-grinning lions and monkeys, wide-eyed elephants and giraffes, frolicking together on a colorful, half-completed landscape of jungle trees and tall green grasses.
And, draped with a pale sheet in a forgotten corner of the charming little chamber, a rocking chair sat alone in the gloom like a specter.
"There are blankets and pillows in the chest," Mal said from beside her. "Use whatever you like."
When she turned to thank him, he was already gone.
A few minutes later, after settling Connor in to sleep, Danika made her way back down the curving stairwell through the heart of the castle. She could hear Malcolm in the kitchen at ground level, boots moving over the slate floor, cabinets be waing opened and closed. Warm yellow light seeped out from the open doorway as Danika approached.
Mal had his back to her as he scooped something out of a bowl on the counter into a plastic zipper bag. His black suit coat and leather weapon holsters were draped over one of the four chairs at the table in the center of the kitchen. Without looking at her, he asked, "Find everything you need up there?"
"Yes. Thank you." She stepped inside the rectangular kitchen. She looked around at the curved white walls, granite-topped cabinets, and glistening stainless steel stove that outfitted the place. "I remember when this room was just a vault and open fireplace hollowed out of the stone. You and Con would sit down here for hours, arguing philosophy and bragging of your varied conquests. As I recall, yours were often female related."
He grunted. "A long time ago."
"Doesn't seem that long, now that I'm here again," she said, marveling at how true that was. The span of time evaporated further when he turned to face her now, his stony gray eyes sober with concern. The sight of him here, in this place, after the danger they'd faced together just a short while ago, made her heart constrict. He walked toward her, holding the filled plastic bag in his hand. It dripped water off one corner, the snow inside already beginning to melt.
"No ice in the house, so I collected some snow while you were upstairs." He gestured to the table and chairs. "Sit, Dani. Let me have a look at that bump on your head."