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his looks; the revelation that his own Breedmate, Eva, had betrayed him into the deadly ambush had taken away everything else.
    “ Madre de Dios ,” Rio whispered roughly. “No one should be near me. I’m losing my goddamn mind! What if I… Cristo , what if I did something to her? Tegan, what if I hurt her?”
    Alarm tripped Tegan’s senses. The warrior wasn’t talking about Eva. She’d died by her own hand the day her treachery had been discovered. The only other female who had any regular contact with Rio now was Tess, Dante’s Breedmate. Since her arrival at the compound a few months ago, Tess had been working with Rio, using her healing touch to mend what she could of his broken body and trying to help him rehabilitate from both the physical and the mental wreckage left in the wake of his ordeal.
    Ah, fuck.
    If the warrior had harmed her, accidentally or not, there would be some serious hell to pay. Dante loved his woman with an intensity that had surprised everyone at the compound. Once the reckless bad boy, Dante was wrapped around Tess’s slender finger and didn’t care who knew it. He’d kill Rio with his bare hands if anything happened to his mate.
    Tegan hissed a curse. “What did you do, Rio? Where is Tess now?”
    Rio gave a miserable shake of his head and gestured vaguely toward the back wing of the sprawling mansion. Tegan was about to take off in that direction when urgent footsteps sounded on the long corridor that led from the general area of the estate’s indoor pool. The soft smack of a light, barefoot gait drew nearer, followed by a female’s voice raised in concern.
    “Rio? Rio, where are y—”
    Tess rounded the corner in a squeaking skid, wearing black workout pants over a wet baby-blue tank swimsuit. The look was pure sports therapy business, but any male with eyes in his head and red blood in his veins would be crazy not to notice how beautifully she filled out all that nylon and Lycra. Her honey-brown hair was swept back in a long ponytail, the ends damp and curling from the pool. Peach-polished toenails stopped dead at the edge of the field of broken porcelain in the foyer.
    “Oh, my God. Rio…are you all right?”
    “He’s okay,” Tegan told her flatly. “What about you?”
    Tess’s hand went up reflexively to her neck, but she nodded her head. “I’m fine. Rio, look at me, please. It’s okay. You can see that I’m perfectly fine.”
    But something had gone down a few minutes ago; that much was obvious. “What happened?”
    “We had some setbacks in today’s session, nothing major.”
    “Tell him what I did to you,” Rio muttered. “Tell him how I blacked out in the pool and came to only to find my hands wrapped around your throat.”
    “Jesus.” Tegan scowled, and now that Tess moved her fingers away from her neck he could see the fading outline of a bruising grip. “You sure you’re all right?”
    She nodded. “He didn’t mean it, and he let go the instant he realized what he was doing. I’m fine, really. He will be too. You know that, right, Rio?”
    Tess cautiously stepped forward, avoiding the shards at her feet yet keeping a healthy distance from Tegan like he was more of a threat to her general safety than the feral wreck that was Rio.
    Tegan wasn’t offended. He preferred his solitary existence and worked hard to maintain it. He watched Tess move slowly toward Rio’s stiff stance at the sideboard.
    She gently placed her hand on the warrior’s scarred shoulder. “Tomorrow will be better, I’m sure. Every day there are small improvements.”
    “I’m not getting better,” Rio muttered, in what could have sounded like self-pity but seemed more a bleak understanding. He shook off Tess’s touch with a snarl. “I should be put down. It would be a blessing…to everyone, especially me. I am useless. This body—my mind—it’s all fucking useless!”
    Rio slammed his fist down on the sideboard, rattling the broken mirror glass and putting a tremor