"At any cost." He got up hastily, tension riding him for the unplanned, unwanted baring of his soul. "It's late, Dani. I can't risk more time here. I want you to stay put at the castle while I'm gone. I'll try to come back before daybreak."
He didn't wait for her to agree. He stalked toward the adjacent bathroom, willing the shower on with his mind, leaving Danika in silence behind him.
Chapter Seven
Reiver was waiting for him when Malcolm arrived back at the club.
"Busy night, Brandogge?" Reiver was in the public room of the establishment, reclined on a leather sofa, his dress shirt and suit pants unbuttoned. With him was a topless brunette under one arm, a blonde scantily clad in a red lace bra and panties under the other-club regulars whom Reiver kept in frequent rotation in his own personal stable. The women were in his thrall, puncture marks still faintly visible on their necks and limbs, hands roaming all over him as he watched Malcolm with shrewd, untrusting eyes. "I looked for you a couple of hours ago. Thane mentioned he thought you went out for a bit. An important errand or something, he guessed."
Thane, the ass-kissing bastard. Was he worried Mal might be his chief competition as Reiver's right arm? Little did the other guard know what Mal had in store for their employer. And if he got in the way when the time came for Mal to make his move, he wasn't opposed to taking Thane out too.
At least he'd sent the feminine diversion as Mal had asked. For that alone, he was tempted not to wish the guy dead in the fallout yet to come.
And whatever Thane's intentions, Mal knew better than to let Reiver think he had him caught in a lie or betrayal of trust.
"I went out to check on Packard and Kerr," he volunteered. "I didn't tell Thane where I was going, since I wasn't sure you'd want anyone else privy to your instructions where the woman was concerned. I figured Thane would know if you wanted him to know."
Reiver grunted, toying with a lock of the brunette's long hair. "There was a house fire reported on the MacConn lands tonight. Packard and Kerr haven't come back."
"They're dead," Mal replied flatly. "By the time I got there, things were already going south. The woman wasn't about to go down easy. Turns out she had a child to protect too. She was putting up a hell of a fight. It was getting messy."
He didn't have to fake the bitterness of his report. It echoed a similar one that had occurred seven months earlier, in the filthy hovel of a pimp's dank flat. Only Malcolm hadn't reached that altercation in time to make a difference.
He muzzled his hatred and channeled it into a mask of cold indifference. "Packard and Kerr were botching your orders. I had no choice but to finish things as cleanly as possible and obliterate the evidence."
"The Breedmate and her child?"
Malcolm shrugged, nonchalant. "As was your concern, she would've been a persistent problem. So I made sure the situation was snuffed out permanently. Packard and Kerr were collateral damage."
Reiver's dark brows lifted as he considered the account. Then he chuckled darkly and got up from the sofa, bringing his pair of human playthings along with him. He walked over to Malcolm and cuffed hi Sandckls shoulder. "Good work, Bran. No doubt you've worked up an appetite taking care of so much important business for me." Reiver shoved the blonde at him. "She's yours to do with what you will. Never let it be said I don't reward my loyal hounds with a juicy bone when they've earned it."
Malcolm caught the woman as she stumbled into him, dazed and unsteady from her service tonight. She reeked of liquor and narcotics, sex and blood loss. Mal's stomach recoiled, but his revulsion centered on the vampire who watched him closely, waiting to see how Malcolm would respond.
He had no thirst that needed slaking in this place, least of all when it would come from Reiver's leavings. But in seven months of indenture to his vow of vengeance, he'd passed worse tests than this. He'd be damned if he failed now, when Danika and her son were in his keeping, their lives in his hands.
It was rage for what Reiver had ordered tonight that made Mal's hands rougher than intended on the whore tossed at him. It was thoughts of Danika, the impulse he'd felt to pierce her pretty, unspoiled throat and bind her to him, that brought his fangs out to their full, razor-sharp length.
And it was stone-cold determination-a chill and hollow resolve-that made him latch on to the human's neck and swallow gulp after gulp of her fouled blood while Reiver held his gaze, chuckling with sick amusement.
Mal drank until Reiver was gone. Only then did he set the woman away from him, a sweep of his tongue sealing the wounds he'd made before he eased her down onto the sofa, where she fell into a hard sleep.
He wiped the back of his hand across his face, cursing a string of crude Gaelic between his gritted teeth and fangs. The taste in his mouth was rank, bitter. He spat some of it out, startled to hear a throat clear behind him.
Malcolm wheeled around to find Thane in the room with him. "What the f**k are you looking at?"
The black-haired vampire glanced from the limp form of the human female, back to Malcolm. "Don't mean to interrupt, but we've got a couple of patrons causing problems with some of the girls on the main floor. Slapping them around, getting too rough. I told the boss but he says he ain't running a public relations firm in here."
"Yeah?" Mal countered, still vibrating with unvented violence. "What are you telling me for?"
Thane lifted one of his massive shoulders in a vague shrug. "Boss said he doesn't want to be bothered with club issues tonight, so I was thinking I'd go down and dole out some etiquette lessons to the ass**les. Wondered if you might feel like joining me."