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Riddick sat at the long table and toyed with his shiv, ignoring the cup of coffee steaming in front of him. He'd been on the ship – Serenity – for a week now, and unless he found a miracle, it looked to be much longer. Since he and God had long since parted ways, he wasn't holding his breath.
The AmeriChin contingency from Old Earth hadn't had the advantage of the interaction with the alien races and so had not progressed as quickly as the others. This Galaxy didn't have the technology to repair his ship, and their own ships had no drives that came close to the Necromonger transport's speeds. The mechanic, a pretty little thing, with a smell so innocent it almost turned his stomach, had taken one look at the engine and thrown her hands up.
He was trapped.
A clanging at the sink drew his attention to the room's other occupant, the man with the girl's name. It would have been amusing, especially attached to a male of that size, but the memories of a girl with a boy's name were too close to the surface now. He had gathered what remained of her body and brought it with him. The captain was taking him to a place he swore was safe; a place where her bones would never be lonely.
Cobb dropped down in the chair across from him and pulled out a knife and a small whetstone. He spit on the blade and ran it across the stone several times before he spoke.
'Glad yer here, spaceman. Think it's time we had a little talk, dong ma?'
So there had been purpose in the man's presence here so early in the day cycle. He should have known. He'd had little interaction with the crew, other than the captain and the doctor, who had insisted on checking him over for Reaver bites. The Valkyrie - River - had walked silently beside him back to the ship, close enough that he could feel her body heat radiating into him. After that, though, her shipmates had seemed to concentrate their efforts on keeping her cloistered away from him, recognizing the predator in their midst.
He allowed them their pretense, their false sense of comfort. They couldn't protect her from him forever. Like called to like and he felt her watching him almost as often as he hunted her.
That she was a Speaker was obvious. If her words at their first meeting hadn't clued him in, the captain's vague explanations of his finding would have. But where her violence, her madness came from, the crew seemed determined to keep hidden and secret.
'Noticed you eyeballin' the moonbrain awful hard like. Curious as to where yer intentions lie.'
Moonbrain, crazy, feng le, moony; the man never called her by her name, only referred to her in derogatory and mocking terms. It would be easy to assume they were natural enemies, sworn foes, but they sat next to each other at meals, sparred together, and Riddick had seen them seek each other out on multiple occasions. He considered shiv-ing Cobb then and there.
Instead he asked, 'Is she yours?'
The man's eyebrows shot up to his hairline and he leaned his chair back. 'Crazy? Hell no. I like my balls attached.'
'Then fuck off.'
Satisfied the conversation was over, Riddick turned his attention back to his blade, using it to scrape a line of dirt from underneath his nail. Apparently he'd underestimated the man, though. The point of a knife slammed into the table in front of him.
'I got yer attention now, shiny eyes?'
Riddick hefted his shiv in his hand and waited.
'Good. Then let's clear somethin' up. She may not be mine, but she is this ship's. An' the protection of this ship and what's on it is mine. So, let me ask again. Why're you creepin' 'round Moony?'
The two men stared across the table at each other in a tense silence. Before Riddick could make any further move, the door opened and the girl in question glided into the room.
'She is the darkness in the light. The night soothes his eyes.'
Cobb rolled his eyes and snaked his hand out to retrieve his knife before settling back into his seat.
River laid across the table, seemingly oblivious to the two men, and her hair spilled out between them. She hummed a tuneless melody and stared up, sightlessly, at the pockets of space visible through the windows in the ceiling. In a sudden move she extended both her arms, one hand grabbing the hand Cobb held wrapped around the knife and the other biting into Riddick's own hand, clenching his shiv.
'The king and her knight must make peace. All deadly violence walks out in threes.' Then she withdrew her hands and interlaced them on her stomach, returning to her mindless hum.
She had never touched him before, and Riddick sucked in a breath when her skin branded his. As it had repeatedly over the last week, her scent made his mouth water.
She carried no sex-smell; no man had yet had her. Inexplicably, while the innocence of the mechanic had been off putting, the girl's scent, intermingled with her sin and darkness, made the animal in him want to rise up and claim her in every way possible; drive into her, mark her, trap her writhing underneath him. He ran a finger down an errant strand of hair, conscious of Cobb's glare, but not caring.
As the silence stretched out between the three of them, he slowly became conscious of a change in her smell. It was growing deeper, heavier, muskier, wetter. His nostrils flared and his hand fisted in her locks as her arousal hit him like a wrecking ball.
She undulated almost imperceptively across the table and his grip tightened.
'Jayne.' Her light voice broke the stillness and Riddick was startled to hear the pleading note within it. He glanced up at the man and saw Cobb watching the two of them, his arms crossed over his chest, toothpick clenched between his teeth.
'You sure 'bout this ni zi?'
She whimpered. 'You promised.'
Cobb was quiet for a long minute and then noisily scraped his chair back from the table and stood. 'Yep.'
He stalked to the door and then stopped. 'You got half an hour, Crazy. Don't think I can hold 'em off any longer.' Then he flipped off the light and stepped out, sealing the door behind him.
The room was dim, lit only by the ambient glow of the floor runners, and River slowly rose and turned to face him, her knees resting on either side of his body. She slid her hands up the sides of his face and hooked her fingers underneath the straps of his goggles, pulling them off. She dropped them carelessly to the floor. She tipped his chin up with one fingertip and looked down into his face.
'Claim: To demand, ask for, or take as one's own or one's due; to take in a violent manner as if by right. Now is the time. Jayne will guard the door.'
He kicked his chair back and stood, hearing it clatter to the floor somewhere behind him. She was dwarfed by him, even boosted by the table, and he wrapped his hands around her hips and jerked her to its edge. In the next instant he was on his knees, his head between hers, his hands pushing her skirt up her thighs.
His shiv was still in his hand, and he used it to slice the sides of her panties, exposing her to him. He ran the flat of his tongue up her sex and his grin grew feral at her sharp gasp. With her smell and taste in his possession, there was no where she could hide that he wouldn't find her.
He set the shiv down and used his thumbs to skim up her outer lips, parting them, absorbing the moisture into the pads of his fingers. When he reached the peak, he rubbed, just slightly, and felt her hips jerk.
The other sweet spot. His personal favorite.
Somewhere far out in the ship he just caught Cobb's voice. 'Sorry, Mal. Some kinda door malfunction. I'll get Kaylee, soon as she's outta Simon's room.'
Riddick rose to his feet, bringing her dress with him. She had her arms raised in preparation and he pulled it off, throwing it down to join his goggles. She held out his shiv, balanced on the palm of her hand.
'Know what this is, girl?'
She flipped the shiv up from her palm and caught the handle in her hand. He growled low and fought the urge to take her right then, before he was sure of her comprehension.
He held motionless as she slid the blade underneath his tank and slit it in two as she spoke.
'Ancient rites and rituals of the Furyans; implies possession, ownership, selection of a mate.' She pushed the tattered remnants of his shirt from his shoulders and ran her hands down his arms, allowing the flat of the shiv to caress his skin. He shivered. 'Encompasses the necessity of trust, the penalty of betrayal; Furyans allow no straying.'
'This what you want?' In earlier times, she wouldn't have been given a choice, but he wouldn't take an unwilling mate.
As answer, she grasped his hand up in hers and licked the flat surface of his palm. He hissed as she drove the point of the shiv into his skin and cut a deep slash along his lifeline. He didn't look at the wound, or anywhere other than her as he took the blade from her and brought her hand to his mouth, similarly tonguing its surface.
She didn't even flinch when the shiv breached her skin. He had chosen well.
He carefully pressed his palm against hers and knitted their fingers together before pushing her down on the table and laying his body across hers. Her free hand reached between them and unbuckled his belt, undoing the fastening on his pants. He toed off his boots as she shoved the final barrier between them off his hips, her feet taking over when her reach became overextended.
Finally, they reached his ankles and he kicked them off, holding his body over hers, naked and proud. Conscious of the fact that he was big and she was new, he stuck two fingers in his mouth before dropping them down between them and slowly working them into her body. Her eyes were wide and staring and he felt her walls tighten around him, simultaneously trying to both reject the foreign invasion and draw it further in.
He leaned down and nudged her mouth with his, catching her lower lip between his teeth and running his tongue over it. He slipped his fingers further insider her and her nails dug into his skin, drawing blood.
'Shhh, little Fury. Let me in.' He would coax her hips with his other hand, show her how to accommodate him, but he couldn't release her hand, couldn't stop the intermingling of their blood yet, or the bonding would be incomplete. Instead, he ran his nose down her neck, stopping to nip at her pulse point and then continuing on to her small, but perfectly peaked breasts. He worried one nipple between his teeth until it knotted tightly and then he drew it into his mouth. He took long pulls from her, hearing her heartbeat begin to speed and her breathing pick up. And all the while he kept his fingers moving in and out, slowly scissoring with every thrust.
'Ohhhh!' Her fingers flexed on his back and her hips began their first rocking motion against his hand. He curved his lips against her breast and let his thumb flick against her clit. Her leg wrapped around his waist and she pushed up into him.
'More!' she commanded.
He would give her more.
His thumb steadily rubbing over her clit, he finally thrust his fingers fully into her, and when he pulled them back he added a third before pushing back in.
'Wode tien!' her mouth against his shoulder muffled her cry as her second leg joined her first and she locked them securely around his hips. Her hand was drawing blood again and she was growling into his skin as he increased the speed of his fingers against her bucking.
He was aching to be inside her, to pummel his way to climax, but she needed this, needed to come to be ready for him, and he would have his mate know she could trust him.
'Come on, little Fury, let go. Let go for me.' He moved away from her breast to plunder her mouth with his tongue. He flicked his thumb faster, faster and clenched her hand, feeling the blood squelch and slide between their palms, all the while swallowing her increasingly vocal cries.
He wanted to hear her hoarse pleadings, wanted her primitive screams as she came, but he could hear noises outside the door – Haven't seen 'er, Doc. You checked the vents already? - and knew that if they were interrupted now, he would kill them all.
She was keening against his lips, her nails leaving furrows down his back and he crooked his fingers one more time as he withdrew them slightly, only the plunge them deeply again. Her body clenched and froze, and then she bowed up against him, biting down on his chest to keep her wails quiet.
He jerked his fingers from her and then he was at her entrance, pushing roughly inside her, feeling her stretch further to mold around him, the fluttering aftershocks of her climax. He grasped her hair and pulled her face up to meet his eyes.
'Mine.' He thrust fully into her, until his pelvis was locked flush against hers and his chest was rubbing against her breasts.
He pulled back and slammed home again. 'Mine.' he repeated. The blood was rushing from his head in a dizzying sensation and everything was zeroed in on the wet slide of her walls against him.
He retreated and drove in a third time. 'Mine.'
Suddenly she hooked a foot around his knee and too quickly for him to anticipate, she flipped them over, never breaking the contact between their bodies. She grasped his free hand and brought it up beside his head, opposite the blood drenched pair.
'Hers,' she growled, meeting his ferocity in every syllable.
And then she began to move.
She pummeled him, each slide a pounding, grinding, punishing pleasure as she kept her eyes locked on his. He planted his feet on the table and met her thrusts, briefly wondering who was claiming whom and quickly deciding he didn't care. He would have bruises, she would have bruises; marks of possession and mutual ownership, to be worn with pride.
She was chanting something in an unknown tongue and her body was flickering around him. He freed his hand and gripped her hip, keeping her rhythm steady as they began splintering apart. He spread his hand over her stomach and pressed, grinding the heel of his hand against her clit.
She did scream then, as her second orgasm washed over her, and the sound pushed him over the edge as well. His hand slid around to span her bottom and hold her to him as he spilled his seed inside her, her walls still pulsing around him. She collapsed in a heap over him and Riddick gently unsealed their hands, his fingers slightly cramped from the bonecrushing grip they'd held. He ran a caress down her spine, smearing blood across her back.
'Mine,' he whispered a final time.
She lifted her head, her eyes black and fathomless and brought her hands up to cup his face, pressing red fingerprints across his cheek and temple. 'Yes.'
For countless seconds they rested there, River curled atop his chest, before they both lifted their heads, listening to the noise of feet running across grating.
Jayne's voice breached the door. 'Hope yer done, 'cause the go se is 'bout to hit the fan. Think you could be quiet for one gorram time,' he grumbled.
Riddick set River beside him and pulled on his pants while she drew her dress over her head. As the door began to open with angry sounds, he fastened his goggles around his head and rose to his full height, putting himself between River and the door.
She belonged to him now, and it was time the ship learned the new order of things.