XXI.
Hope was still about two weeks away from Borean and her brother when Riddick arrived at Furya, the edges in his face sharper, the lines around his eyes deep from lack of sleep and too much worry. He still wasn't able to hail them when he already was in sight of the planet and the things he envisioned that could have happened to the people on the planet grew worse by the minute.
He was more than relieved when he saw Laney on the side of the landing field, obviously unharmed. He saw Tyr, Carlos and a few others arrive while landing the ship on the otherwise completely deserted landing field but the person he craved to see didn't appear. Could she still be that angry?
He stormed out of the open hatch and knew instantly that she wasn't on the planet; he would have felt her if she'd be near.
Laney was going to approach him when she saw Riddick storming out of the ship but the expression on his face let her stop dead in her tracks. She couldn't see his eyes but he radiated that much anger she couldn't suppress a shudder.
"Where is she?" He didn't waste any time with pleasantries.
Laney swallowed hard; she tried not to be afraid but failed poorly. "She is on her way to Borean. Aereon has found her brother and since you wouldn't talk to her she left on her own."
Riddick stood six inches away from her, his jaw clenched and his hands fisted; he had a hard time not to close them around her neck and throttle her.
"Run that again by me! What do you mean by 'on her own'? How could you let her leave without backup? And all the more knowing that there is at least one traitor wanting our heads? And what the fuck do you mean with 'I wouldn't talk to her'. She didn't even try to hail!"
"You know how she is; you can't stop her when she has made up her mind. And apart from that it is not ours to tell her what to do." She answered a bit stiff, mustering all the courage she could find in her.
"Bullshit!" He wasn't just angry, he was furious by now.
Riddick was frightening her and it cost her to speak up but he had to know and so Kerry stepped forward. "I stood behind her when she tried to hail you; the computer announced that the call got through but you would refuse to take it."
He knew she wasn't lying to him; she was too afraid of him and aside from that he would have smelled a lie but something didn't make any sense here … he never would have refused to talk to her.
"Kerry, run a full scan of the com station, somebody has tinkered with it. Laney, Tyr, Carlos, with me."
They settled down in Hope's work room they also used as a kind of head quarters. "17 year old boy, thin, curly hair, works in the fields, supposed to life in a ship I didn't see when I landed. Who and where is he?"
The three across the table looked at each other … he had exactly described George.
Laney cleared her throat before she started to speak; the horror about George's gruesome death was still written all over her face.
"You mean George. He is dead. The hounds killed him before he was able to hurt anybody." She told him the whole story about George, his uncle, his giving himself away, Aereon's visit and Hope's departure on George's ship and everything in between.
A deep silence fell over the four people after she had finished her story.
Riddick was the first to speak again "How did she cope with all that shit? Aereon's lucky that she already left the planet; should have thrown that old bat out of the airlock right after picking her up at Rain3." (**)
Laney sighed deeply; she hadn't yet told him about Aereon's foretelling. "If you want to know if she's still mad with you then the answer is 'no' but when she thought you'd refuse to talk to her she didn't take it well; she didn't even get angry and she asked Kerry not to talk about it but, ..."
Kerry chose exactly that moment to storm into the room, she was completely upset. "George had implanted a virus into the system! We would have never found it if we hadn't especially looked for it. We've been able to hail everybody and get hailed by everybody except of the Defiant. The Defiant got the 'transmission not possible' message und when we tried to hail the Defiant the 'refuses to take message' popped up on the screen while the hail never left Furya. That little bastard really deserved his death for all the hurt he had caused!"
"Kerry!" Laney reprimanded her "Nobody deserves to die like that!" and then turned to Riddick. "There is another thing I have to tell you."
Riddick listened to her explanations and felt anger rising in him with every word. How dare that damn Elemental tell Hope this bullshit? Not that he gave a damned about it but he could easily imagine how Hope must have felt hearing of her own death, foretold by a so called friend. Riddick didn't believe a word, there was no way he was going to let that happen! Hope was his and he would revolt against fate if necessary ... he was not going to have this! Never! Thinking about the Elemental and her ways to see the future his anger started to bolt.
He wouldn't only throw her out of the airlock … that would be way too kind; he would throw her out piece by fucking piece. How dare she say that Hope would die? She was supposed to live, to be with him. Losing her was quite simply unacceptable.
If he wouldn't know Hope well enough to be certain that they'd have had to cuff her to her workbench to stop her from leaving he would have taught them a lesson they'd never forget in their whole life.
"We can reach her on George's ship. Hail her, now. I want to speak to her."
Laney exchanged a glance with Kerry and sighed deeply; everything that could have gone wrong for the two of them in the last weeks actually did go wrong. "Riddick, I'm so sorry; we've talked to her the day before yesterday. She went into cryo sleep afterwards. We can't talk to her until she reaches Borean."
"Fuck!" he jumped up, the chair toppling over behind him. "What did she say, how is she?"
Laney hurried to answer and to remember each word they had spoken during that call.
Riddick paced back and forth. "Did you make sure that George wasn't able to send a message to anybody before he died? Did you make sure she's save at Borean, that she doesn't get greeted by mercs there, that it's not another set up?" He could read in their faces that they hadn't. "Fuck you! Damn stupid idiots! That's unbelievable!" Riddick's fist crashed into the wall, breaking quite a dent into it; he really would have loved to cool off his anger with one of them but there was no time for that. At least not now.
"Laney, I need all the data she has got from Aereon. If there isn't anything else I'll leave in 20. And better pray that she's fine. I won't forget and I won't forgive such stupidity." Not even when Hope was as much responsible as the others; at least Tyr and Carlos should have known better.
In fact he left exactly 18 minutes later. The Defiant would have to show again what she was capable of; he had calculated the time he would need to reach Borean but even at the highest possible speed he would need about 17 days.
Damn; again he was hurrying after her. Why on Furya hadn't she waited for him? Stubborn, stupid woman. He only could hope that she hadn't gotten herself into trouble.
He was known for his patience, in fact he had patience in spades but that woman had a talent to get to him, those past six weeks had gotten even him to his boundaries. And now another 17 days to pass. 17 days not knowing how she was, if she was safe, another 17 days in which she was thinking he had refused to talk to her.
If somebody would have told him that someday he would be chasing after a woman he would have laughed his ass off. And maybe killed the fuck for insulting him. But now he did exactly that and that little voice in his head that had been so quiet for so long started to nag him again. 'Is she worth all that trouble? Think about it, man!'
He had done a lot of thinking in the last weeks. To pass time, to distract himself from the horrible scenarios his mind made up that could have happened. He thought about the time he had spent with her. A wonderful time; in fact the best time in his whole life. It's been a time full of first; their first kiss … his face softened at that thought; the first time he had buried himself inside her, had lost and found himself in her eyes; the thought of their first fight made him grin … she was such a hotspur; the first time she had to face his beast, had unleashed it herself and then shown him that she wasn't just able to cope with it, no, she enjoyed it, welcomed it. He had wanted to show her how much she was his, how much he was in control and it had taken him quite a while to realize that he belonged as much to her, that they were nothing but equal.
His smile got more than smug when he thought of the first and surprisingly only time he had tied her to their bed … he definitely should do that again …
She was pacing back and forth in front of him, wildly gesticulating with her arms. She had learned that her former colleague, Carl, had passed one of her inventions as his and she was furious. He had let her ramble for a while to get off steam but when she wouldn't stop he told her to. "Stop it. It won't change anything when you continue to lament about it and I hate that pacing in front of me. The ship is not big enough for crap like that!"
Hope glared at him for a moment. "Oh yes, Mr. nothing faces me would not be angry! Mr. oh so calm would just swallow it! I'm not you, Mister!"
He had left the cockpit then without a word and had gone to their room; there was no arguing with her when she was in that mood. It didn't take long until she followed him.
"Babe, I did warn you; I won't listen anymore if you don't stop pacing." She stopped for a whole minute but wasn't able to stand still for a second longer.
Riddick heaved a sigh. "Babe, you wanna go to the gym?"
"Fuck, no! I'm angry, I don't want to tussle. I can't see how this possibly could help me!"
When the thought first occurred it was just a possibility to hold her still, to stop her from that damn pacing but on second thought … that thought was capable of development … He had his belt out of his trousers, had her pushed flat on the bed and her hands bind together behind the bed before she was able to get enough air into her lungs to protest. She wriggled on the bed and spit fire and looked so damn gorgeous that he instantly got a hard on that nearly burst his trousers. "I told you to stop it but you wouldn't listen, now would you, babe? I think you need a little lesson in following orders. And if you don't stop yelling I'll have you gagged too." He would get her mind completely off that Carl.
She stared at him with half closed eyes, her brows furrowed. "You wouldn't dare! And now release me!" she hissed out between clenched teeth.
A big mischievous grin split his face. "Watch me" and he continued to unlace her boot. When she started to kick at him with her other leg he trapped it between his thighs and immobilized her effectively … she was so damn hot trying to get herself out of his grip and the hold of his belt. Her sock followed her boot to the floor and for a second he was caught off guard at the thought what he would do with her; she had held still for a second but when she sensed his absent-mindedness she kicked again with all she had in her and that was quite a lot since he trained her. She even nearly got him to stagger.
"Babe, I'll have to punish you for that." He grinned and bit down on her toe. Her surprised and angry cry turned into a moan when he immediately licked across the bite mark to sooth the sting. She was aroused by now and his hand slid up her leg and massaged her calve. "Now will you behave? First you will tell me what you want right now."
"I hate it when you make me do that and you fucking know it!"
"See, you are already starting to use the right words." he teased her "All I know is that it turns you on, you just don't want to admit it."
He sucked her toe into his mouth and nibbled on it, immediately stopping when he saw her shiver and licking her lips. "Did you like that? Good for you because you won't get any more until you tell me what you want. And I won't sit here all evening until you decide if you wanna get fucked or not. Come on, it can't be that difficult. See, I'll make it easy on you, just repeat my words 'I want you to …'" his voice was a seductive deep, dark growl he knew she loved and made her wet each time.
But she still just bit her bottom lip and glared at him. He knew he would make her do exactly what he told her to but it would take some further persuasion ... stupid obstructions she still had.
He put off her other boot and sock, closely followed by her trousers and let his fingertip trail from her ankle up to her center in a feather light touch. Her breathing became ragged and she lifted her hips to get nearer to his finger. He knew perfectly well what she wanted him to do but he would deny it to her until she did what he told her. "Babe …" He could see the internal fight in her eyes, he had her nearly there.
"Babe, I want you to spread your legs for me." His mouth watered … he could see her arousal, smell it and damn did she smell good; he could not wait to taste her, to lick across her already wet folds, to suck her clit into his mouth.
Slowly, ever so slowly she parted her legs, spread them for him. Her eyes met his gaze, she was completely captivated into his spell. "Riddick" whispered low enough nobody else than Riddick would be able to hear her words.
"Yes?" And he could see the surrender in her eyes.
"I want to feel your hands on me, your mouth, I want you to kiss the living daylight out of me, want you to part my folds, want you to plunge a finger inside me while your tongue is playing with my clit until I come and then I want to feel you inside me, want you to fuck me until I scream your name. Was that what you wanted to hear? Satisfied?"
He knew what it had cost her to say it, but he also saw the pulse beating furiously on her neck, see her flushed cheeks, hear the blood singing in her veins, calling him … she was more aroused than angry.
Her words made him shiver and his beast inside purred with satisfaction. But what really got to him was the way she trusted him to tell him all that. To give in and allow him to set the pace.
"Not yet, babe, but soon. And you will be too." And he even tried to suppress that smug smile that wanted to creep over his face.
He removed the belt from her hands as soon as she caved in; he liked her hands on him too much to refuse himself of that pleasure. The ship night faded into a ship morning until Hope curled up to Riddick, his arms around her holding her in a tight embrace, a very satisfied smile on their faces. Her body fit so perfect into his. Hope was nearly asleep, when his voice pulled her back.
"Shall I kill him for you?"
Hope raised her head to look into his eyes … he was absolutely serious. It touched her. Despite what everybody else thought he didn't like killing. He did it without any remorse but just out of necessity, to survive, to protect. Yes, maybe a few times out of revenge and with gusto but still ... he wasn't a mindless killer. But he'd kill for her.
She kissed him and then shook her head "No, not worth the effort; warp is about forming a subspace bubble enveloping the ship and distorting the spacetime continuum and Carl isn't even able to write 'subspace bubble' or 'spacetime continuum'. He'll kill himself with his experiments." She laid her head back on his chest, her fingertips caressed his pecks. "Riddick …"
"Mhm?"
"Riddick, I … thank you." ……
And now it was a first again. For the first time he had a very bad feeling. He still didn't give a damn about Aereon's foretelling but deep inside he had that bad, bad feeling; his guts were twisted into knots when he thought of her being alone on that planet without back up and not knowing if George had been able to send a last message.
Riddick sighed deeply, his hand rubbed over the fast growing stubble on his skull; he'd have to shave it soon. He tried to hail her knowing that it would be futile but not able to resist; she would be in cryo sleep for at least another one and a half weeks. He hadn't worried that much in his whole live.
(**) chapter XXVI of 'Defiant'