Read the excerpt below and answer the question.
It was deeper and more intimate than the fear of evil and capricious gods and of magic, the fear of the forest, and of the forces of nature, malevolent, red in tooth and claw. (p. 13)
In the excerpt above, the letters “mal” in the word “malevolent” are a ______.
A.) suffix
B.) prefix
C.) base word
D.) compound word