Treacherous

“Here.”

Bell took the small control Riddick held out. It was on a short band.

“Veron is the oldest one. She has a communicator. Direct link or whatever.”

Bell smiled at his thoughtfulness, but let it go. He didn’t need too much mush at one time. He might collapse.

“Veron?” Bell spoke into the communicator.

“Yes, My Lady?”

She saw Riddick raise a brow at the title. “Bring the children back, please.”

The connection went silent.

“So you like this title?” she asked him.

His lips thinned a bit, but he didn’t say anything. She was interrupted in pursuing the topic by the door chiming and then opening. Two dinner trays were pushed inside, two attendants each. Then Wies was running in, showing her a toy the girls had found.

Bell smiled, letting Wies prattle. She looked at the food carts and then looked at Riddick. He got the message and shook his head, jerking his head at Veron and the other two girls standing just inside the door.

“That’s nice, Wies. Why don’t you see if you can find something to eat on those carts there?”

Colin was there ahead of Wies, and he’d run. Tray covers hit the floor with loud clatters before the attendants could grab them from slippery fingers. Bell just ignored it. Noise was part of her household. She moved to the girls.

“The Lord Marshal tells me that you came to him.” The younger two nodded, obviously nervous.

Veron still had a tongue, “We heard of your children and wanted to help. We each had younger siblings.” She smiled, “My sister wasn’t much older than Thea.”

“How do you propose to make this work?”

She glanced past her, presumably at Riddick. “The Lord Marshal gave us permission to use the next chamber. We have nothing else. We could literally stay with the children night and day.”

Bell nodded, not convinced, but truly considering it. Riddick’s next step was a mystery to her. She wasn’t about to let him have all the fun for himself, and she couldn’t in good conscious drag her children into unknown danger.

“How old are you?”

Veron answered first. “I’m sixteen.” After a second of silence she nudged the girl next to her.

“Fifteen, M’Lady.”

“Fourteen, My Lady,” the other echoed.

Bell frowned at the girls, who wouldn’t look above her waist. “Are they okay?”

Veron smiled, “Everyone is scared of the new Lord Marshal.” Then she grinned a bit impishly, “And rumor says that you like to yell at him. They’re afraid of you.”

“Me?” Bell was actually shocked. They were scared of her because she stood up to Riddick? That was damn funny! She couldn’t help a glance back at the source of the problem. He’d been casually leaning on a table at the far side of the living area. Unmonitored, Thea had wandered to him. Now he was standing stiffly above her, staring down. Bell rolled her eyes. Oh, yeah, he was fearsome, scared of a one-year-old.

“I’m going to think about this, and we’ll probably put it into effect temporarily. He’s not ready for them to be underfoot constantly, and I’m not ready for them to be out of my sight for long. Understand?”

Veron nodded, still smiling. The other two peeked up at her.

Bell stepped closer to the two younger girls. They shrank away in the limited space. “You have nothing to fear here. You’re in danger only if you hurt my children. Don’t be afraid of the Lord Marshal. Consider the fact that he’s your lord and is here to protect you.”

They both slowly looked up at her. One swallowed roughly, but they held their ground.

She nodded her approval and stepped back. “Have you eaten?”

“No, M’Lady,” one of the younger said.

“Neither have I. Let’s eat.”

Bell dismissed the attendants on the way by, and pulled Wies off of one of the carts. “Eat the food, sweetie, don’t sit in it.” He just grinned, face dirty with something that looked cheesy.

Straight to Riddick, Bell scooped up Thea and gave him a quick hard look before moving back to the carts.

The girls sat with Colin and Wies and tried to control them a bit. Either way it was funny. Surrounded and they were still coming out in the lead. Bell fed Thea and ate some herself. Riddick watched.

Had there been sleeping agents in the food? Wies passed out first, head on Kalle, the youngest one’s lap. Thea went next. Then the other girl, Asya. Colin fought it for as long as he could, but he eventually slumped against Veron’s side.

“Is the room next door furnished?” Bell whispered.

Veron smiled, “Lord Marshal ordered it. Small beds for the boys and a crib for Thea.”

Bell looked up at Riddick, but he turned just a second before she looked at him. He moved away, entering the bathroom at the back of his chamber.

“What about you girls? Where were you going to sleep?”

“We can sleep on the floor, My Lady.”

Bell stood and put Thea in the empty chair. The infant slept on undisturbed. Beautiful. She paused over the little girl and brushed her dark hair back from her round cherub face. It was starting to get long. She’d be able to tie it back soon. Her heart swelled with the happiness of having them with her again. The fear and worry and anger were gone. Well, most of the anger.

She rang for a servant and got one within seconds. She asked for cots to be brought to the room next to theirs. It would work for the night, but they’d need more permanent sleeping arrangements, and possibly a room to themselves. They were girls after all.

Bell munched on cold food from the trays as she waited. Riddick came back, but didn’t come forward. Finally the door chimed, signaling that all was ready. “Let’s go,” she whispered.

She carefully picked up Thea. Kalle took Wies. Veron took Colin, but she saw him look around for her before he settled in. They moved toward the door only to look back to see that Asya was still asleep on the couch.

Bell considered waking the girl, but with a sleeping child in her arms a swift kick was all the option she had. Then Riddick moved forward and Bell watched in fascination as he easily scooped the girl up. He took two steps toward them and then just stared, one brow slowly rising.

She smiled, catching Veron doing the same as they turned again to the door.

They got them tucked away, girls included, and returned to their rooms.

Bell took a turn in the shower, relaxing for long minutes beneath the hot spray. She did a little crying too. Riddick didn’t need to see that.

“We supposed to do this regular family stuff now?” he asked as she opened the door back into the bedroom. He was lying on the bed, looking comfortable, but the tone of his voice was far from relaxed.

“I think we can be a family, but I doubt we’ll ever do shit ‘regular’.” She stepped out, wet and naked, with the light shining behind her. She knew in an instant that she’d caused the reaction she’d been hoping for. Swift movement, then hands grabbed and moved her. She eventually found herself on the bed looking up at him. “Did you need something?”

“Shut up.” His head dropped to her chest, his mouth hot on the drying skin.

“What if I don’t want to?”

That mouth found hers and she didn’t have a choice, not in the shutting up arena, or any other either.

Bell considered her concept of who Riddick was. Vertical, bothered by the worries of a life most unordinary, he was a mixture of a pain in the ass and her savior. She had glimpses, or more like recollections of how she truly felt about him, but he could make her angry in about a second and a half, so it was easy to overlook, to forget. But then at times like this, when all that was hard in him was spent and he’d transformed into a simple warmth at her back or front… Well, she just wished she could hold onto this peaceful feeling throughout her other dealings with him.

She was lying beside him, her head on one of his arms, watching her fingertips trail in and out of the patterns of shadow on his broad chest and stomach. “So what do we do now?” she whispered.

He took a deep breath, messing up the shadows for a second. She figured he was aggravated at her prying, but then he just dropped a hand on her head and smoothed down over her damp hair to her shoulder. “I don’t know.”

“I feel like we’re little kids with this big loaded cannon. We could do something really great with it, or something fucking stupid. And the whole universe is watching to see us screw up.”

She felt his head turn a bit. “You’re strange.”

“Shut up.”

A smile. Was she hearing that, or sensing it? Ah, well.

“When did it become ‘we’ and ‘us’?”

Bell raised her head, but she wasn’t angry. She pretended to consider and he just watched. They couldn’t hide from each other here like this. Their apparitions had melded together before penetration and had yet to separate with them both so relaxed. “Well, it started when you left me alive after saying ‘love’ in your bed.” She smiled here. “And became for real either when I said you couldn’t get rid of me, or when you started likin’ hearin’ me called ‘My Lady’.”

A half a smile, “I didn’t say I liked it.”

“No, you said it was ‘kinda good’.”

His eyes closed, but she bumped her face forward until their noses touched and he was looking at her again. “You shy, Riddick? Quit hidin’ from me.”

His shoulder flexed in the echo of a shrug, “Thought it would keep you safer.”

She smiled but didn’t push him further. It had been thoughtful, and she understood he wasn’t comfortable with that. She laid her head back on his arm. “So, what’s next? Invasion? Renaissance? Genocide? Revolution?”

“Can we just do something little?”

Bell snuggled closer to him, pressing her face to the side of his chest. “This is kinda little.”

His arm closed around her like a vise and she smiled into his flesh. When had Riddick ever done something little?