Disclaimer: None of the characters belong to me. No copyright infringement is intended.

WARNING: Well, I still feel like I need to warn folks that this story is rated Mature for sexual content and violence. If you don't like smut, or reading about sex or violence or violent sex or sexual violence, PLEASE DON'T READ THIS. It's not for the squeamish or the prudish.

Kindly readers: And now we shall find out what happens when the dragon comes out of his lair and consorts with the public.

TEN

The glittering chandelier and sconces shuddered, sparked and dimmed, turning the air electric and plunging the hall into twilight. In the midst of it, Riddick's eyes were moonbeams on shattered glass.

People scattered, clearing the space that separated him from Jack.

"You forgot to tell me we were going to a party, Jack," he said, grinning madly, and sauntered toward her. He had not dressed for the event, wore what he always wore, that sleeveless black shirt, military pants and heavy boots, the shivs in his belt. He was powerfully built and loose-limbed like a cat. Lovely to watch. From a distance. She took two ill-considered steps back and his grin dropped away to reveal the snarl under it.

It was terrifying to face him somewhere she ought to be safe. To be reminded that he could walk among people as he chose. She never saw him anywhere but the Ministry of Defense—his lair—but there he was and closing in on her fast. By the time he reached her, the other dignitaries and news vidogs had cleared a radius around her of nearly twenty feet. As though she were a bomb about to go off. She willed herself to relax. Prepared herself to submit or to fight. Prayed to a godless heaven that she would know which to do.

"Guess my invitation got lost or something," he said and then he was chest to chest with her, breathing in her face. Softly, like a lover's endearment, he whispered, "Saw your tits on the news. Is this what you're doing on the nights you don't come to me, Jack? Showing those lovely tits around town?"

"A girl needs hobbies," she said, pure bravado on weak knees. Remembering that day in the Necromonger throne room, when he had brutalized her for his adoring audience, she decided she would fight. Let this audience remember that she had fought.

"How come you don't ever dress up nice for me like this?" he said.

"Because you'd just rip it off. That's why I can't have nice things."

The grin was back and she was sure that it would bring along his fist as a friend, but instead of hitting her, he lowered his head and kissed her. Not hard, not like the kiss that had split her lip, but like a man kissing his wife in a crowded theater. Almost loving. His mouth opening soft and hot against hers. For a moment his hands rested on her shoulders and then slipped down to the front of her gown. When he jerked it open, buttons popped and rained onto the marble floor at her feet. Her resolve to fight stalled as he took her bare breasts in his hands, kissed her throat, and then her collar bones.

She couldn't open her eyes to see the curious and horrified gazes of a hundred people. The vidogs were capturing it all, to be posted uncensored on the webs and dissected endlessly on the news. Neither could she bring herself to resist him. There was no way to fight his arbitrary moments of gentleness.

"Did you come here to humiliate me?" she whispered.

"What're you sayin', Jack? You ashamed to be seen with me?"

"It's a simple question. Is that why you came here?"

He didn't release her, but he straightened up, and when she opened her eyes he was looking at her with something she would have taken as adoration from a man like Ambassador Tilnos. From Riddick it always seemed to precede the urge to devour.

"No," he said. "You looked so beautiful on the news, I wanted to come here and smell you and touch you."

Before he could change his mind, Jack went down on her knees and began to gather up the scattered buttons, holding her gown closed with one shaky hand.

"You know I like you on your knees, baby, but you wanna do that here?" he said and she knew he was grinning, playing the ghoul for the cameras. No, he really was a ghoul and the cameras only captured it.

"If you didn't come here to humiliate me, no."

"What are you doing, Jack?"

"I'm going to … step out for a moment, to repair my dress," she said, her voice almost steady.

"And then?"

"And then if you like, we'll go into the theater and hear the rest of the opera."

The last button lay beside his boot and when she reached for it, he shifted his foot, pinning her fingers to the floor. "If I like?"

"Yes, if you like. I'm told that the last two acts are quite bloody. Ambassador Tilnos, how many people are killed in the final act?" she said. When no answer came, she turned her head, found the ambassador in the crowd behind her, his face pale.

He choked out the answer: "Nine."

She returned her gaze to Riddick, who waited with his arms crossed and a smile on his face.

"Nine murders in the final act. Matricide, patricide, incest, mutilation, mayhem, despair, and death."

"I like," he said.

When he took his boot off her hand, she plucked up the button and hurried toward the hallway to the lady's parlor, where an attendant sewed the buttons back on her dress with hands steadier than Jack's, and repaired a seam where gossamer had parted ways with brocade.

As the woman worked, Aereon passed through the door and after a moment of silence, said, "He intends to stay?"

"Is he still outside?" Of course he was. From the other side of the door came the stunned silence of a captive and inordinately excited audience. They were waiting for what terrible thing he would do next.

"Yes."

"Then I suppose he means to stay. He came here because he saw me on the news. I hold you accountable for any harm done because of it. You were the one who insisted I come here. Who sent this ridiculous dress. Who allowed those vidogs to broadcast me."

"You're right," Aereon said.

"Small comfort."

When the dress was repaired, Jack forced herself to take a brief glance in the mirror. She looked calm and controlled. So frigid that the marks of passion on her flesh seemed impossible. No one could feel that much lust for something made of ice. No one but him.

He seemed slightly unsure of himself when she returned to him. His gaze was silver hot, but he shifted on his feet as though preparing for a fight.

"Would you care for a drink, Lord Marshal?" she said. Something had to be said.

"Yeah, whiskey."

Behind the bar, someone hurried to fill a glass, and to Jack's surprise, Ambassador Tilnos crossed the room to retrieve it. He passed it to Riddick with a bow.

"A great honor to meet you, Lord Marshal," he said. "You have the eternal gratitude of the people of Cernunos."

Riddick took the glass, drained it in a gulp, and returned it to the ambassador's hand as though he were a server. Everyone was waiting.

"Will you give me your arm, Lord Marshal?" Jack said.

He gave her a quizzical look, but offered his elbow. She barely rested her hand on it, but he used his free hand to press her fingers more tightly to him. The crowd parted to let them pass into the concert hall, where the Announcer was in stunned and blessed silence until the couple had nearly reached the foot of the stairs. Coughing, he stammered into his mic: "Master of Wrath, Vengeance and Fury, Destroyer of Destroyers, Lord Marshal Richard B. Riddick, and Lady Marshal Jacqueline Riddick, Representative to the Helion Council."

A muscle in Riddick's bare arm jerked under her hand and her calm nearly dissolved into fear again. Below them, the crowd stirred at the announcement, gaping and whispering. Jack looked beyond them to the verdant stage curtains, thinking of the meadow before it was defiled.

He seemed at first to enjoy the opera, leaning forward to watch intently, his hand patting out the music's rhythm on his thigh. At the end of the third act, however, when the Fox Prince missed a chance to kill his scheming mother, Riddick slammed his fist down on the edge of the box and shouted, "Put the knife in her! Bitch is going to betray you!"

The orchestra fell into chaos and then silence, and the singer playing the Fox Prince jerked his head around and stared in alarm at the Lord Marshal leaning over the edge of the state box. He hesitated, the prop knife shaking in his hand, until his gaze drifted off stage, where someone was frantically gesturing for him to continue. After a moment, the orchestra stuttered back to life and the Fox Prince opened his mouth and sang. Riddick sat back in his chair, sighing in disgust.

"Come here," he muttered to Jack. "Come sit on my lap."

Not daring to refuse him, she settled herself on his right knee, but he put an arm around her waist and pulled her back against him.

As she was beginning to relax against him, he whispered, "Did we get married and I forgot?"

She kept her eyes on the stage, trying to remain calm and prepared.

"Because I heard them say Jack Riddick when they announced you. Did you tell them to say that?"

"No."

"Too bad. I thought that was nice."

He tugged at the front of her dress, and she caught his hand, saying, "Please, don't tear it open again."

"Then you better unbutton it," he said.

There was nothing else to do. She unfastened the buttons and he slipped his hand around her breast. Then he began to kiss and suck at the side of her neck, where the worst of the bites was still raw. She tried to pull away, but he wouldn't let her.

"Please, if you won't leave it alone, it's never going to heal."

"Please what?" he purred.

"Please, pretty please with sugar on top."

Surprisingly, he passed over it and licked at her throat, her shoulders, the cleft between her breasts, all the while rubbing her breasts in slow circles. It wasn't horrible, as little as she liked it being done in public. Jack reminded herself that there was no help for it, that she needed to turn off the part of her brain that felt the prickling gaze of strangers. The gaze of Councilors and Ministers. People she would have to see in daylight. In the chairs beyond her empty seat were Tilnos and Aereon. He leaned her back further on the arm of the chair, lowered his mouth to her bare breasts. She lay against his shoulder, let her mind go to the music, trying to ignore the steady insinuation of his hand under her skirt.

When he reached the top of her thighs and worked his hand between them, however, she went stiff with anxiety. For a while he did nothing else, simply went on kissing her breasts and holding his hand between her thighs. When the Fox Prince raped his mother and cut her tongue out, though, that seemed to excite Riddick and he pressed his hand up further. He smiled against her skin, at the betrayal of her body. Despite her anxiety, she was wet when he touched her.

In those first frantic moments, Jack turned over in her mind the things he might do. When he did none of them, she became truly afraid. If she couldn't think of what he intended to do, it was usually terrible. Instead, he slipped first one finger and then two into her. Eased them back out and in again.

Under her thigh, she felt the heat and hardness of his excitement, and her mouth watered with nausea. She held her breath, waiting for the inevitable: violence, sexual domination, public humiliation. He went on kissing her, his mouth on her breasts, her throat, her lips, with his two fingers sliding slowly in and out. Just those two fingers, curling inside her, with his palm pressed tight against her, while he made a soft purring sound against her skin. Pleasure crept closer and closer until she clutched his shirt in panic.

"Please don't," she gasped against his mouth.

"Don't what? Isn't this what you used to do to get yourself off?" Riddick said.

He didn't stop and the music roared in an ecstasy of madness as the bodies piled up on stage. In the midst of all that operatic anguish and death, came a thing she hadn't felt in years, since she had been that stupid teenager doing it to herself: a hot, gushing climax. Real pleasure untainted by cruelty. Hating herself for it, she moaned and tightened her thighs around his hand. He groaned in answer and pressed his face into her neck, breathing hard. When she dared to open her eyes, he was smiling at her.

"You're like a little vice in there when you pop," he said and kissed the corner of her mouth. He eased his hand out from under her skirt, and while she struggled to return her dress to order, he licked his fingers, deep in thought. He kept her on his knee for the final scenes of the opera, but she barely heard it. She sat in shock, feeling the steady warmth of his hand against her back. Nothing else, nothing worse, and yet she felt violated.

I don't know if I've ever made a woman cum before. It never mattered. Not what I was there for. But when I get Jack to orgasm, the way her cunt clenches on my fingers makes me cum in my pants like some horny teenager. 'Cause I'm thinking of what it'd be like to have her go tight like that on my cock or spill all her wetness into my mouth, and that's enough to do the trick. She's shaking all over, almost crying, holding onto my shirt. It upsets her that I've taken her there. It's one of the reasons I like to lick her cunt. She's always afraid I'll go all the way, make her cum, and that's something she doesn't want to do. Only now she has. Gone wet and panting for me, given up that little part of herself to me.

When the house lights came up, Jack rose from his knee and exited the box before anyone could speak to her. Riddick came after her, right on her heels, and she regretted her departure as soon as she reached the concert hall's foyer. Before her lay news vidogs ten deep and beyond that, the Lord Marshal's transport. His hand closed over her arm and he steered her through the cameras, intent on taking her with him. She might have avoided it if she had stayed. Might have delayed it at least.

"What did you think of the opera, Lord Marshal?" the vidogs shouted.

He paused at the ramp of the transport and graced them with a malevolent smile. "The music was okay, but people taking way too long to die. You stab a guy and he can still sing for five minutes, means you need to stab him again. Maybe with a sharper knife."

There was nervous laughter and then someone shouted, "And what did you think, Mrs. Riddick?"

"It was lovely and I'm not his wife." With a twist of her arm, she slipped out of his grasp and scrambled up the transport ramp ahead of him. In the bay, she hurried past the soldiers there and ran toward the narrow vestibule that led to the navigation deck. He was coming after her and whatever happened, she didn't want it to be in front of his men or news cameras.

He caught her violently from behind and pinned her arms to her sides, whispering, "You're in a mood, aren't you?"

"Are you happy? Did you get what you wanted? Showed them all that you're not the monster they thought you were?" she said in a tight voice.

"See how you are, Jack? You say you want me to play nice, but when I do, you don't like it. I was a real gentleman tonight."

"It was a lovely performance. Yours, I mean. So tender, so gentle. And now? The usual? Making me beg for death?"

"You don't ever beg for death," he sneered. He tightened his grip on her.

"What do you think I'm asking for when I say, 'Please'?"

He chuckled and bit her shoulder. "What did you talk to him about? I saw you talking to him on the live feed."

"Beaches. We talked about Shinouing Beach. He wanted to know if I'd ever been there. And we talked about the piracy proposal."

"Beaches, huh? And what did he say that made you look so mad?"

"You don't want to know," she said.

"I asked." He lifted one hand to cover her breast and she waited for him to rip the dress open again, but he only stroked her through the fabric. "Tell me."

"Are you jealous, Lord Marshal? Is that why you watch me all the time on the news vids? Make sure no one touches me."

"Jealous?" he said against her neck, sounding pleased with himself. "He was scared to touch you. I thought that was so cute, how you warned him when he was close to dying."

"Oh, he won't touch me, but what would you do if I touched him?"

He suddenly released her, and she felt anger roll off him in a poisonous cloud.

"Do you want me to hurt you?" he said.

"No."

"Then why say that? Always saying things that make me want to hurt you."

"You want to hurt me when I don't say anything. If I look at you, don't look at you. If I speak to you, don't speak to you. You pretend that there's some set of circumstances under which you wouldn't want to hurt me, but there isn't. If you enjoy this game of pretending you don't want to hurt me, that's fine, but don't imagine that I require that kind of stage dressing. I absolutely expect to be hurt." She said it all in a cold, steady voice, expecting an act of violence to cut her off, but she reached the end of it and he still wasn't touching her. Breathing steam down the back of her neck, yes, but not hurting her yet.

"It's interesting to see this up close and in the flesh. The way you talk to the Council. How you use their big words, act so cold. What'd they do to you, Jack, to turn you into such an icy bitch?" he said.

"They pitied me until I wanted to puke."

"Puke, huh? That's the first unladylike think you've said all night. I bet they pity you. Feel real bad they threw you to me like a piece of meat."

She felt the moment he slipped his tether. Then he pinned her against the wall, his chest to her back, and snarled into her ear, "You'll be a piece of meat when I'm done with you. I'll fuck you into hamburger. Nobody's ever gonna want to touch you when I'm done fucking you." He grasped her breasts hard, digging his nails into her, and jerked down on the front of the dress, no longer popping buttons, but rending fabric.

Not twenty feet away were a dozen heavily armed men and none of them came to see why she screamed. They never had and they never would.

Her fear seemed to satisfy him. He put his hands on her waist, picked her up, and set her aside. Sliding open the navigation deck door, he said, "Stop at the Garden first."

'The Garden' turned out to be her house. He let her go. Stood at the top of the ramp and watched two of his men escort her down it. Holding her dress up over her breasts, she hesitated halfway down and returned to ask, "You're not going to--you won't hurt someone else, will you?"

"No, baby, but you've had a good night and I'm trying not to ruin it for you. Now tell me what he said that pissed you off."

"He said it broke his heart seeing what you've done to me," she said, trying to keep her voice light. He laughed, a short bark and then a peal of amusement.

"And what did you say to him? You're gorgeous when you're mad like that. What did you say?"

He had ways to find out. People had heard, and he would find them. Or for all she knew, he had someone who read lips, who would watch the vid and tell him.

"I said, 'I used to love him. What do you think it does to my heart?'"

The look on his face was terrible: wild-eyed, lacking that unattainable thing, and ready for destruction. It was the way he always looked before he attacked her, but he stood two feet away, his arms crossed over his chest.

"Go on, before I change my mind," he said. She remembered other nights on that transport, when he'd come undone and brutalized her. Thrown her down on the troop deck and done it at his soldiers' feet. The two men standing on either side of her had probably witnessed it, unless they found it easier to look away.

She turned and walked quickly to the bottom of the ramp.

I mean to let her go, but I want her to keep looking at me so bad. Want to eat her up and get my soul back. I go after her, catch her just as the door to her house opens. I shove her inside and follow. Winna actually steps in between us and I knock her on her ass. No wonder I don't get invited places. I'm not a good guest.

"No," Jack says and the look she gives me is what I needed. She's scared and fearless at the same time. "I won't let you do it here. I'll go back with you, or on the transport, or fuck me out on the street if you want, but not here. Not here, you son of a bitch. This is my home."

I push her up against the wall. Saying no to me, like that's an option. She's hot with anger, boiling under my hands. She's so mad, she actually grabs my throat and squeezes.

Fuck me, but that's a new turn-on. My cock straight up salutes that crazy shit.

"Used to love me?" I say and lean into her little hands.

"That's what you wanted, isn't it? You want me to hate you, because you think hate's stronger than love," she says right in my face.

"Baby, they're not opposites."

She's not letting up with her hands and things are starting to feel a little tingly in my head. It's almost like I can see her normally. The way I saw before the shine job. She's got this halo around her and her cheeks are pink and her hair's more auburn than brown, not black at all. And those eyes. Put that lousy little moon I killed to shame. Makes me want to leave my soul in them. Let her scorch it all over again.

"No, they're not opposites, but you're wrong. Hate isn't stronger," she snarls, spit in the corners of her mouth, and I don't want her to stop. I want her to hate me a whole lot harder if that's what this is.

I grab handfuls of her skirt, to get it up to her hips, and she starts to loosen her grip on me.

"Don't stop. Tighter," I say. That makes her eyes get big, but she squeezes harder, as hard as she can. Her thumbs are digging into my throat and even my fingers feel strange as I fumble to get my pants undone. Then I'm in her. She's still wet from before and she wraps her legs around me, as tight as her hands grip my neck. It doesn't take long with her choking me, but damned if my legs don't buckle when I cum. Feels that fucking amazing. To stay on my feet I have to lean her hard against the wall, press my knees against it to keep her from slipping. Never had that happen before. Makes me wish she had more strength in her hands.

When she lets go of me, she whispers in my ear: "You want me to hate you, but hate is weak. I loved you enough to die. I don't even hate you enough to kill you."

"You will," I say, but it blows my mind that she doesn't already.

More to come