Author's Note: As always, reviews are appreciated and put on the Altar to the Mob of Insane Torch-Weilding Fans. This one's for you, Furyan Goddess. wink You've been begging for it all along and I'm just here to grant wishes.
Chapter Eleven: You
New Mecca
Two weeks later
The music was slow. She had to sing this song, lest she go mad. She had to make him understand. It was the one song she hadn't let Ziza talk her out of. Older than her usual music, it was a Bonnie Tyler song, 'Total Eclipse of the Heart'.
She had to make Riddick understand. She didn't mean it. She had never meant it. She could, indeed, love a murderer, and she did. She was so in love with him that seeing him constantly around Elizabeth, when she did see him at all, was infuriating.
She had Mario singing back up, instead of Kenny, as she had realized that Riddick and Alex both hated Kenny. As soon as this tour was over, the man was leaving Stellar... She just hoped that she could find a replacement.
None of it mattered, though. Not if Riddick wasn't beside her. Not if Riddick wasn't her mate, her husband, her protector, her... her world.
(Turn around)
Every now and then I get a little bit lonely
And you're never comin' around
(Turn around)
Every now and then I get a little bit tired
Of listening to the sound of my tears
(Turn around)
Every now and then I get a little bit nervous
That the best of all the years have gone by
(Turn around)
Every now and then I get a little bit terrified
And then I see the look in your eyes
(Turn around, Bright Eyes)
Every now and then I fall apart
(Turn around, Bright Eyes)
Every now and then I fall apart
The music sped up, grew more intense.
And I need you now, tonight
And I need you more than ever
And if you'll only hold me tight
We'll be holding on forever
And we'll only be makin' it right
'Cause we'll never be wrong together
We can take it to the end of the line
Your love is like a shadow over me all of the time
(All of the time)
I don't know what to do
And I'm always in the dark
We're livin' in a powder keg
And givin' off sparks
And I really need you tonight
Forever's gonna start tonight
Forever's gonna start tonight
The music slowed again and she took a breath, hoping against hope that he was here to see her tonight. She'd not talked to him since they had landed on New Mecca, though his ship stayed in the port, right beside her's. It had never left, never moved... But she couldn't find Riddick.
Once upon a time
I was fallin' in love
Now I'm only fallin' apart
There's nothin' I can do
A total eclipse of the heart
Once upon a time
There was light in my life
Now there's only love in the dark
There's nothin' I can say
A total eclipse of the heart
She smiled, throwing herself off stage right as the music hit it's climax, loving the sound. The crowd cleared and she began dancing. A slow, erotic dance that would have gotten her thrown off the planet, had it not been for the special license for uncensored performances that she had acquired especially for New Mecca. She had told him that dream. Now, on New Mecca, he had to see the dance she'd envisioned. She had to make him want her again.
And right as the drums were struck for about the third time, a huge palm covered her hand. She didn't have to look to know. It was Riddick and he was risking everything to have this dance with her.
Low, low, in her ear, he whispered, "It's alright, baby girl. Let's get this show over. I've got some... private entertainment for you tonight."
She looked over her shoulder and smiled a true smile. A smile just for him. She was so tired of fighting.
(Turn around, Bright Eyes)
Every now and then, I fall apart
(Turn around, Bright Eyes)
Every now and then, I fall apart
And I need you now, tonight
And I need you more than ever
And if you'll only keep holdin' me tight
Then we'll be holdin' on forever
And we'll only be makin' it right
Cause we'll never be wrong together
We can take it to the end of the line
Your love is like a shadow over me all of the time
(All of the time)
I don't know what to do
I'm always in the dark
We're livin' in a powder keg
And givin' off sparks
I really need you tonight
Forever's gonna start tonight
Forever's gonna start tonight
Once upon a time
I was fallin' in love
Now I'm only fallin' apart
There's nothin' I can do
A total eclipse of the heart
Once upon a time
There was light in my life
Now there's only love in the dark
There's nothin' I can say
A total eclipse of the heart
There, in the full view of sixty-thousand plus people, they danced and his eyes were solely on her. Those brilliant, full-moon eyes were focused on her, like she was the last real thing in the universe. The center of his universe. And it was the only thing that mattered.
He was obviously unconcerned with being recognized, after all, everyone thought that Richard Riddick had died years ago. They could be Riddick and Jack, Victoria and Michael, Adam and Eve. It didn't matter who they were, what they were, as long as they were together.
x-x-x-x-x-x-
Imam Abu al-Walid sat in a private box with Elizabeth Citresse, Lady Citresse, he had learned. Lady Citresse of Furya, handmaiden to the Queen, Chosen of Shirai, and Emissary of the Furyan Peoples.
He was inclined to believe her, once she presented a piece of paperwork from her leather bodice and Furyan State Personnel identification.
They watched Jack and Riddick dance, both smiling, though for different reasons.
"At last," Abu sighed, his smile paternal and proud of Jack. "Ten years have gone into these two. Now it is time for me to start with my Ziza. She will need a good, strong man soon."
Elizabeth growled at the old man's matchmaking. "So long as you've no intention of snagging another Furyan warrior for her, Holy Man. We Furyan women would like a few mates of our own, you know?"
He laughed, a low husky sound. His voice had never been the same after the Hunter-Gratzner crash, though Elizabeth would hardly know that. "No, no. No Riddick-men for Ziza. She needs an artist. A gentle man. One who will treat her like the precious artifact she is."
An old friend of both Elizabeth and Abu, Areon, an Elemental, fluttered into the box, no hair out of place, though she had just shimmered in from practically nothing. "Ah, but Abu, Elizabeth, you've no clue what is in store for those two."
"Areon?"
The Elemental just donned her most enigmatic smile, and would answer no questions from the two concerning the matter of Audrey Richards and Richard Riddick.
The way Elizabeth figured it, as long as neither freozki figured out that the notes they had both received weren't from each other, all was well. It didn't matter how it happened, so long as Jack and Riddick were together. That fact still didn't stop the woman from rollling her eyes in disgust. She hoped she'd find her freozki one day. It really rather annoyed her that a Terra human could be a freozki, when there were plenty of willing women on Furya.
Oh, well. Can't claim to know the Goddess' thoughts, now can I?
x-x-x-x-x-x-
Jack slid into her rooms, having put Alex to bed. Her window was open, though her door had been locked, and there was only one man that she knew that would use her window instead of her door.
Riddick...
He slipped out of the shadows, eyes so bright and so perfect. Though her sight was challenged by the darkness, she knew that he could see her as if it were broad daylight.
It made her feel hunted and sexy. He was the ultimate predator, and he had chosen to make her his prey, his mate. She knew now that he wasn't playing with her. That she wasn't some one-night-stand booty-call to him. He wanted her forever, and the note he had slipped into her sheet music proved it.
Jack, I need you. I may be a murderer, as you say, but it was all done in survival. Can you not accept me and be my forever-mate?
She tossed her sheet music to the side, and stepped into his arms the moment he opened them. It was a home-coming. It was where she had always belonged, but where she had fought against being.
His head tilted down and their lips were a breath from meeting when she whispered, "You'll never own me."
He shook his head and caught her lower lip, worrying it with his teeth gently. "No, Jack. You own me. You've thrown down on me and won, baby girl."
She knew instinctively that, right now, that was the closest she'd get to hearing him saying 'I love you.' She didn't need to hear it right now, but she hoped that, before the night was over, he'd give her those precious words. She smiled, though, at his choice of expressing his affection at the moment. He always made things seem like they were such a fight.
She stood on her tiptoes and kissed him as deeply as she knew how. She wanted passion and magic, power and fury. No more confusion, no more misunderstanding.
When he kissed her back, she pulled off his shivs and hers, disarming them both for the first time in years. Even in Abu's kitchen, his shivs had been within reach.
She stepped away and put the blades on her desk, not locking them up as she would have normally. This was Riddick and you couldn't lock up his blades. But she, and only she, could take them away.
She turned back to him, slowly pulling her shirt over her head. "Riddick...I need you."
There was a low growl, as if she had snapped some leash she had been unaware of, but had been tormenting Riddick. He was on her in a flash, picking her up and devouring her mouth.
She would have sworn she heard him whisper, "My Jack. Only mine."
It didn't bother her. She'd never wanted another man besides Riddick.
He lay her on the bed gently and she shook her head, knowing what he was thinking. He wanted to go slow, to cherish this, and she just wanted. She leaned up, bracing herself on her arms and whispered in his ear, "I want my mate to burn for me. To want me so badly that the only thing on his mind is satisfying both of us and snapping his hips against mine, burying himself so deep that I'll never be able to bear the touch of another man." She shuddered when his lips found her pulse, tasting it, pausing there to catch the rhythm of it. "Are you the man I want, Riddick?" she purred defiantly.
His head snapped up and in his eyes was a kind of animalistic challenge she had never seen before. It made her feel hot and wet. Wetter, anyway. She didn't think there was a woman in the Known Systems that could resist Riddick's particular brand of completely masculine charm.
He slid her clothes off and his own without much more hesitation. She knew that if they were in an open space, she'd start running about now, not that she truly wished to escape, but because he was more animal than man at the moment, and a strong mate never just surrendered.
"I'm the only man, Jack. The only man," he hissed, his hand going down to explore her moist folds. "No other, unless you want him to die."
When he slid his finger into her and she gasped, eyes going blind as that long digit brushed a spot that made her buck, he gave a satisfied growl. "There never has been another, has there, Jackie?"
She couldn't answer. Surely he didn't expect her to answer right now, did he?
He stopped and she could tell that he did.
"There never has been another, has there, Jack?" he repeated, pulling his finger out to lick at it.
She broke. "No. Never another. I couldn't stand the thought of their touch."
At that, he lay on top of her and pushed into her so deep that the first thrust made her scream, but not in pain. She suddenly saw the world in waves of pink, white, purple, and red. The kind of vision Riddick had told her was how he saw.
"Green," he whispered before looking over her again, like it was the first time he'd ever seen her. "So beautiful. You're so gods-damned beautiful, baby girl."
He slid out before snapping his hips forward and up, lifting her hips with one hand to assist her in being exactly where he wanted.
They thrust back and forth for hours, it seemed, until she couldn't stop the tidal wave of pleasure that shredded her consciousness, even as she felt him stiffen and his cum splash against her insides, rocking her further.
"Riddick!" she moaned, loud enough to be a scream, quiet enough to be a whisper of a whisper.
He collapsed on top of her, and she heard, "Sweet Gods... Jack."
x-x-x-x-x-x-
New Medina
Four days later
Sheikh Hazad was beyond furious. How dare Abu al-Walid, a man who was nothing without the backing of the Hazad family, do this? Divorcing Lajjun had been bad enough, though the Sheikh had supported the decision because no man should live with a wife as suspicious as Lajjun. Lajjun had been meant for the intrigues of some man's court. Not for the simplicity of being an Imam's wife.
There was no doubt in Hazad's mind that Victoria Blanchett was Audrey Richards... And she'd been on New Mecca with al-Walid's knowledge, but al-Walid had made no effort to report her to the Sheikh.
For that, al-Walid must die. His daughter should be just old enough to start training to be an adeni or a concubine for some man's court. Barring that, he could always take the child as a sex slave and sell her... After he broke her in. She was pretty enough.
But the thought of Audrey Richards, whom he had claimed as his eight and a half years ago, dancing with some strange infidel in the broad view of planets... That was unacceptable. It was humiliating, even if he and al-Walid were the only ones to know Victoria Blanchett's true identity.
Even on the off chance that Blanchett wasn't Richards, and Hazad wasn't willing to bet anything on that possibility, it was her fault. She shouldn't look so much like that damned temptress of al-Walid's.
He momentarily pondered the reports put out by Imam al-Walid that Audrey had committed suicide upon discovery of Abu's plans to wed her to a minor member of the Council on New Mecca for several thousand sheikels and a few acres of farmland in Helion Prime's mountainous region. There had been a proper funeral for her, though short due to her suicide, and a burial service, as she had died pure in Allah's eyes.
Who had al-Walid had killed to give his precious Audrey a chance to escape her duty as a child of the all-mighty Allah?
He threw a priceless old Earth artifact at the wall in his rage before drawing his blade as a servant came forward to clean it. Before the woman could move away, he slid the blade against the artery in her throat, killing her. He watched as she fell and bled out.
Yes. That was a fitting punishment for the Richards girl. He would take her, again and again, until the fire in his blood for her was sated and he could want no more. Then he would slice her throat open and pull her tongue out. The tongue that had seduced millions upon millions. The tongue that had seduced him.
And then, he would bury her in an unmarked grave that even Allah wouldn't be able to find.
x-x-x-x-x-x-
Author's Note: C'mon… Seriously. Did you think I was gonna let it end there? laughs manaically When I have Riddick under my complete control? Never!!!
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