Jack was clearly hungry, and he made sure the food would be exquisite. There was even wine, which she said she'd drunk only a few times in her life. Riddick ate and drank lightly, but made sure her plate and glass were full. He found his eyes never left her.
When her hunger seemed sated, she smiled up at him. "This was wonderful. Do you eat like this every night?"
"No. Only on special occasions."
She blushed again. With the food and wine, she seemed relaxed, sleepy, less guarded. She yawned.
"Sorry."
"Don't apologize. Been a long day." He smiled at her, and for the first time since she woke, she made eye contact with him while smiling. He reached for her hand, and this time she did not flinch.
"Why were you so afraid of me back in the throne room?" he asked, softly.
She sighed, and looked away. "Well, you sent heavily armed men in a warship to forcibly remove me from a supposedly safe school. That's kinda scary, Riddick."
"Kid, you left with a woman who ended up in a triple max slam pretending to be you. I figured you needed to be extracted."
"I wish you'd asked me."
He stared at her. The thought had simply never occurred. Not that he would have let her say no, anyway. He finally shrugged. "Sorry."
She looked down at his hand again. Took a deep breath. "Dame Vaako said I was here to replace Kyra . . ." she trailed off.
"Not replacing anyone. I want you." Surprised to find that was the unvarnished truth.
She nodded, smiled quickly, and yawned again. She giggled. "Sorry. I don't drink often."
His lips twitched. He stroked her hand. "Did she say anything else?"
She made another one of those small noises in the back of her throat and pulled away. Something twisted inside of him.
"Jack . . ."
She wouldn't look at him. "That I was here to be a . . . pet. That you'd put a collar on my throat and make me sit at your feet . . ."
His jaw twitched slightly. He was going to kill that woman slowly. No wonder Jack was so terrified. He managed to say, lightly "well, they have an interesting personal life, the Vaakos. Not quite what I was planning."
She yawned again, looked embarrassed. "What are you planning?"
"Not sure yet. I just wanted you . . . here. I'm sorry I didn't come back for you before."
"It's okay. I can't spend my life being rescued by you."
He laughed, softly. "I don't think it's going to come up again."
She gave him a strange look, giggled again. "Because you think I can finally take care of myself?"
"Because you are safe here. No one will touch you."
"You think I'm staying here?"
"You're staying here, kid."
She went from giggly to pissed off without transition. "Since when is that your decision?"
What the hell is she talking about? Why the hell would she want to go anyway? She'd been happy enough to see me.
Dame Vaako. Right. His own anger started to build. She was messing with both of their heads, the snake.
He got control, took a deep breath. "You just got here. Do you really want to go already?"
"No! But that's not the point! You don't have the right to just yank me out of my life and lock me up in your rooms!"
He laughed. "Maybe you're right. In a perfect world. We ain't in one." He let his voice drop low and menacing. "The one we're in, you're better off with me than bein' used against me."
She pushed herself away from the table and walked to the other side of the room, staring at the image of a sun in the process of being devoured by a black hole. It suddenly seemed voyeuristic, sadistic, and he wondered why he'd picked it. Might have been better to go with something soothing. A nice seascape, maybe.
He came up behind her again softly, like death stalking on little cat feet. She did not hear him until he caressed her neck with one finger. She stood rigid.
He thought about telling her just to live with it. He thought about being the villain of the piece, doing exactly what Dame Vaako said he would do. Put her in chains so she could never leave . . .
I'm getting too used to telling people what to do, he thought, ruefully. And of people doing what he wanted without being asked. Might be good to have someone around who wasn't like that. Someone who thought she could say no. He ran a finger down the side of her face and exposed neck, marveling at the goose bumps; the rush of heat. "Stay. Please."
She relaxed slightly, turned to look at him. "Stay as what?"
He blinked. He still hadn't considered that; hadn't much thought past the point that she re-entered his orbit. Wasn't sticking her in the nursery with Ziza and her pack. Or alone in a tower like Aereon. "Maybe . . . maybe that's where your real choices come in. Sister. Friend. Bodyguard. Pet . . . " he said, teasingly.
"Infantry?"
He snorted. That was not happening. He could tell her that later. "Sure. But you'd have to become a necro."
She considered that solemnly. "Bodyguard?"
"Might take some training. But it would be useful."
She laughed, unsteadily. "Don't mistake me for Kyra. She was the killer assassin." She yawned again.
Kyra was an assassin? "I know you're not her." His voice was soft.
She turned around to look at the sun spiraling into oblivion. "Were you lovers?" she asked, a little too abruptly, her back to him.
"Jesus, kid, we were together for less than two days."
She shivered."You didn't answer my question."
"No, we weren't lovers."
"Did you want to be?"
He blinked at that too. Was that what was going on? He wanted to fuck a dead woman?
With a pang he realized, in a way, it was. He had been utterly besotted with her. And he'd felt guilty, because he knew her as a child, had been her older brother, in a way. And then he realized that none of that was true, and he was left . . . rootless, except for unsatisfied desire. Even the desire was rootless.
Yes, he wanted to fuck Kyra.
But this was Jack. The girl he really had known as a child. Who was now all mixed up in his head with Kyra.
"Dunno. Never really thought about it."
She turned around. He was so close, she brushed up against him as she did so. She backed up a little, putting herself square against the view screen. He stayed still as she searched his face.
"Why am I here?"
"Because I want you to be."
She made a move like she was going to slip away, and he put his hands flat on the screen, on either side of her head. She stared at one for a moment before turning back to face him. "What do you want from me, Riddick?"
He let the silence linger until she started to squirm. Then he smiled down on her, slightly. "Dunno yet."
"But you expect me to sleep with you."
"Been lookin' forward to that."
Her fear was back. He sighed, regretting teasing her. Regretted the loss of the easy intimacy they used to have. They'd slept in the same bed nearly every night after he realized the speculative looks, and sometimes more, she had been attracting. "I'm just talking about sleep tonight. I've missed you. I liked waking up with you safe beside me. And it's kinda late to be makin' other arrangements." Well, most of that is true.
She yawned again. "I can't think straight right now."
"Let's get you ready for bed."
She giggled, dreamily, her earlier anger seemingly forgotten in the narcotic of exhaustion. "You'll be here when I wake up this time?"
"I promise."
She was dead asleep before she finished changing. He undressed her carefully and carried her to bed. Maybe it had been a dirty trick, drugging her food.
Oh well. Made sense at the time. She'd been so volatile, so afraid. Guess he should have waited to wake her up until he could have stayed with her. Not given Belinda Vaako the opportunity to sink her fangs in. He should have given her time to adjust, someplace safe, someplace without Necros.
Waking up beside him, safe and warm, would be good for her. Or, at least, he knew it would be good for him.
He laid her on top of the covers and ran his hands over her body, lightly, trying to imagine the sort of person who would have a body like hers. Fairly muscular. Sweetly curved. Some scars, but nothing like the scars Kyra's body carried. Was she beautiful? He thought she might be. But he was so overwhelmed by the fact she was alive and here that it was hard to tell.
Her body suddenly seemed utterly alien. He really didn't know what he was going to do with her. Hadn't let himself think about it. He wrapped her up in a soft shirt and tucked her in to his bed, not ready for sleep. Decided he should read the damn report after all.
It didn't make him happy. Oh, they did what he told them to do – even tried not to use direct force, exactly, just threats. Jack turned herself over to his men to save lives. Guess that part was okay, though he didn't like thinking of her afraid. But she had panicked when they had confirmed who she was. Something about that sickened him.
According to the commander's report, she had actually pulled out of the grip of one of his soldiers, Nirgal. He knew him, picked him special for the mission. A big guy, solid, without a hint of the sadism that infected some Necro soldiers. She had knocked down the telepath. Wuss. She'd almost made it out the window before his men had her contained. A gifted fighter. He liked that.
But her injuries, they said, were the direct consequence of a suicide attempt, with a knife he'd put in her hands. He really didn't like that.
The telepath's report was more cryptic. He said that he had inadvertently triggered "an unfortunate chain of associations" in confirming her identity. "An unfortunate chain of associations" that almost ended with her slitting her own throat?
He summoned the man to his chambers. He was named Tier, not wuss, he'd have to remember that. While waiting for him, he secured all the weapons in his room. Never occurred to him she might use them against herself. He had been planning on giving her back her knife tomorrow. Not happening now. She was going to need bodyguards until he was sure of her. Probably good for her to have them anyway.
Tier was a slight man. He appeared cautiously at the door to his bedroom. "Hail, Lord Marshal."
Riddick turned slowly. The room was dark; the man could barely see him. Which might be why he was gazing at Jack with a curious look of tenderness. Tenderness was not a Necromonger emotion. Decided to think about that later.
"Come." Riddick led him to the next room. Riddick sat down, gestured the man to a seat. "You looked in her head?"
"Yes, sir."
"And she tried to kill herself."
"Yes, sir," Tier said, quietly.
"Why?"
"I did not probe her. I cannot be certain without doing that."
"Guess."
Not unlike Jack, Tier looked away. "It seems that some time ago, she was . . . brutalized by men trying to use her to get to you. When I put your image in her head to see if she recognized you she thought . . . history was repeating. She was unwilling to live through it again."
I am a total idiot, Riddick thought. Of course, that would be it. Poor kid. Poor little kid. "You know what they did to her."
"Yes."
"What?"
The man flushed scarlet. Embarrassment was also not a Necromonger emotion.
"I get the feeling I don't want to know," Riddick muttered.
Tier looked at him with something like gratitude. "I wish I didn't."
There was silence. Finally, Riddick asked, quietly. "Any advice?"
"Depends on what you want. You want her adjusted now, convert her."
"No fucking way," Riddick growled. The man flinched, swallowed, nodded.
"Then go slow. Give her time to adjust. She's very strong, but she hasn't processed what happened. She just shut down that part of her life. Being . . . taken by armed men from a safe place will trigger bad associations."
Damn.
The small man looked down, then asked, cautiously, "She was from New Mecca?"
"Sorta."
"She will also need time to grieve for her home. Or for any people left behind."
Right. Grief.
Tier met his eyes, and there was almost a challenge in them. "She associates you with death. And she's a little in love with death. Maybe because of you. Maybe it was safer to fall in love with an abstract concept than a vanished person. But if things get too hard for her, she might turn from you to it."
Riddick sent the man away. Stood in the doorway and stared at Jack for a long time.
She woke up confused, in a soft bed, in pitch darkness, with a warm body wrapped around her. One extraordinarily heavy arm curled around her waste, the other curved under her neck.
She tried to keep her breathing even. Not betray wakefulness until she knew what was going on. She wasn't the type of girl to just go to bed with some guy –
No, not some guy. Riddick. Riddick, who had saved her life again and again. Riddick, who sent armed men in a warship after her. Riddick, who had her poked and prodded and dressed up like a doll and hadn't told her that her best friends in the world were dead because of him –
---No. That wasn't fair. Kyra never would have been anywhere near him if it wasn't for her. And Abu was killed by an invading army that, at the time, he had nothing to do with.
She found herself absently stroking his forearm, marveling at the musculature; at its inhuman size. He seemed dead asleep, his slow breathing almost narcotic. He was right; there was something nice about waking up with someone.
Maybe this isn't so bad.
Aside from the fact she was in the bed of a brutal killer who was also the absolute monarch of a people dedicated to removing all sentient life from the universe.
Right. Maybe it is so bad.
Well, she didn't have to save the universe right now. Now, it was time to pee.
New problem. His arm was dead weight across her. She couldn't move it. Finally, she whispered, "Riddick?
"Yeah, kid?"
The asshole hadn't been asleep at all. Just laid there letting her first stroke, then struggle with, his arm. She was glad he couldn't see her face. "I gotta go to the bathroom."
He sighed. "Lights, dim." The room was suffused with the barest of glows. He let go reluctantly. She pulled herself out of bed, the air uncomfortably cool against her bare arms and legs. She didn't recognize the shirt she was wearing. She didn't remember changing clothes.
She took her time, washing her face and stretching before cautiously making her way back. All of the weapons were gone; something about that bothered her. She finally looked at Riddick, who was gazing up at her like a contented house cat. He patted the bed next to him. Telling herself she was cold, she crawled back under the covers and he wrapped his arms around her as if had the right to do so. As if he had done the same thing every night for years.
"Sorry I freaked out yesterday," she offered, gingerly.
"'sokay."
"You're sweet, in your own homicidal way."
"Yeah. I'm a softy."
She laughed, a little unsteadily. "So, now what?"
He nuzzled the back of her neck, sending an unfamiliar shiver through her. "Breakfast, see if you've been keeping up with your self defense training, coffee with Lajjun and Ziza; lunch if I can get away; definitely dinner and back to bed. Maybe introduce you to Aereon."
"You got it all figured out?"
"Yeah. But we don't have to get up right away." One hand was back on the curve of her belly, stroking it slightly, the other was wrapped around her chest, pinning her.
He doesn't think there are any boundaries between us. Not sure what to do about that. What do you do when the brutal killer who saved you as a child kidnaps you and takes you to bed, anyway? Nothing in her education had prepared her for that.
Sure it has, something treacherous suggested. When rape is inevitable, lay back and enjoy. At least he likes you. And it's not kidnapping when a government does it, is it? She shivered. "What do you want to do now?" she asked, uncertainly.
"Let's just lay here for a while. Get used to each other again."