Hearts of Shadow

"Hearts of Shadow"
Written by Crux


A/N: I do not claim ownership of Richard B. Riddick nor anything affiliated with him. Virona, the Harbringers and the Rodere are completely my creations, however.

Virona crouched atop the ledge of the roof in the silent, moonless night, peering down into one of the numerous skylights. The inside of this particular apartment was black and empty and no movement could be seen inside. She was especially thankful for the lack of moonlight; it would make her melding with the shadow all that much easier.

She waited patiently in the dark for her quarry, her calm mind quietly reflecting on the reason why she was here. What she was here to do.

Richard B. Riddick, more commonly known as just "Riddick", was a formidable target, indeed. All three Harbringers before her had met their untimely ends at the points of his knives. This thought didn't deter her in the least, though. Instead, it merely served to harden her resolve. Riddick was her fate, and if so be it, her end as well. She had trained those long 10 years with only this moment in her thoughts. He had become her ultimate obsession and failure was not in her mind this night. Though she might meet her end, it would not be before Riddick had met his.

Her slender left hand stole to one of the twin daggers sheathed at her hip, her long fingers running over the encased blade. The knowledge of the weapons' presence and her own belief in her skill to wield them stilled her thoughts, and she became empty once more, a vessel with one single purpose.

So she crouched there in the dark, and she waited. Time had no meaning and she was unable to tell whether she had been waiting for twenty minutes or two hours. As long as the night still cast its deep shadows within the recesses of the apartment, it did not matter how long she had been waiting. For he was now there.

He didn't bother to turn the lights on, as she had suspected he would, and he moved within the apartment in total confidence despite the darkness. She caught glimpses of his own blades stashed on his person, his smoky-lensed goggles, the way his heavy body seemed to move without effort.

Riddick paused directly beneath the skylight, and she knew her moment had come. Closing her eerily-colored blue-gray eyes, she willed herself into nothingness, feeling her body become intangible. In this smoky haze state, she drifted down through the skylight, straight through the glass and down into the apartment. A muscle in his thick neck twitched just as she re-materialized, landing behind him without a noise.

The curve of one black dagger was pressed against his throat, while the other remained low on his back, to the left of his spinal cord. His head tilted slightly to one side, seeming to glance over his shoulder at her, though he did not move more than that.

"You're good, kitten. I'll have to give you that."

His voice was low, husky and rough, and held a slight amount of amusement. She did not respond, other than to press the dagger at his throat tighter against his flesh, the wickedly sharp blade nicking his skin slightly.

"C'mon, Virona. Let's talk about this."

When he spoke her name an unexpected jolt of shock raced through her body, causing her grip on the blade at his throat to falter slightly. How did he know her name? He wasn't supposed to know that, he couldn't know that.

Riddick skillfully exploited her momentary lapse of concentration, shoving one large, leather-wrapped hand between his neck and her arm. Twisting it around in a movement that was too fast for her eyes to follow, he had her arm pinned behind her back, his other hand quickly capturing her free wrist.

Virona ground her teeth in silent frustration. This was not going well, not at all. Her head shot back to butt Riddick in the face, hoping to loosen his grip on her hands. No such luck. He merely growled lowly in annoyance and spun her around to face him.

Before she bring one of her daggers to bear, his fist was coming straight for her face and then it connected solidly with her jaw. Black spots swam in her vision and she felt the ground rushing towards her and she was fainting, even while she was trying to convince herself that she wasn't.


"Wake up, kitten. We need to talk."

The voice grated through her brain, bringing her fully back to consciousness. She was immediately aware that she was immobilized, wrists and ankles trussed to bedposts. And her jaw ached like a son of a bitch.

Blue-gray eyes fluttered open to fix Riddick with a glare so baleful that it probably would've killed a lesser man right where he stood. Riddick, however, seemed unfazed and merely smirked down at her.

"Glad to see you're awake. Means you probably don't have a concussion."

She pulled against the bonds that held her wrists, groaning inwardly at the lack of slack she had and how tightly they were tied. One glance down her body told her that he had divested her of her weapons and she silently hoped they were not damaged. Nothing besides her jaw ached, and she was still completely clothed, as small a blessing as it was.

"You're too pretty for a merc, ya know that?"

Virona bristled at being called a "merc". She was not just some common rabble, scrambling to make money by hunting down pathetic criminals. She was a Harbringer, one of only four highly trained select assassins. And out of all four, she was the only one who possessed the unique ability to meld into the shadows on a whim.

There would be no melding shadow escape for her this time, for she saw that the sun was just breaking the horizon and even now beams of light were penetrating through the skylight. She was trapped here, at least until night fell. She would merely wait until he left her alone for a period of time, then she would shadowmeld right out of her bonds and out of his damn apartment. Comforted by the fact that she had not yet failed, she spoke:

"I am no common mercenary, Riddick. And do not ever refer to me as such again."

He arched one brow skeptically at her haughty demeanor, crossing the room to a control panel on the wall. Upon pressing one of the buttons, metal shutters descended to cover the skylights, throwing the room once again into inky blackness, the only light now coming from a small window she guessed was in the kitchen. She heard his voice and he was close, too close.

"I think I'll call you whatever I like, kitten. In your present state, there ain't much you can do about it."

His silver eyes suddenly gleamed in the darkness from the foot of the bed. She was captivated by their strange light, having never seen Riddick without his goggles on before. The fact that his eyes had been altered so he could see in the night was of little consequence to her mission, so she had never bothered to view the footage the Rodere possessed of him skulking, killing in the dark.

Riddick chuckled. It was a dark, wicked noise.

"In fact, there's a lot you can't do anything about. So many things I could do to you, and you'd hardly be able to move a muscle..."

Virona squashed the ugly thread of fear that splintered through her at his words. It was dark enough now, she had a chance to escape. If only he would leave her, even if it was only for a few minutes...

Her thoughts were rudely interrupted by the feel of her bootlaces being undone. His thick fingers deftly loosened the laces, then he pulled the boot off of her foot. Moving to the other one, he proceeded to do the same thing. She was dumbfounded. What the hell was he going to do, tickle her to death?

"What... in the hell do you think you're doing?"

Riddick knelt upon the bed, between her rather wide-spread legs. He chuckled again, as if it were obvious. A blade suddenly appeared in his hand and her breath caught in her throat as he lowered it to the seam at the crotch of her black leather pants.

"What does it look like, kitten? I'm doing anything I want."

With that said, he slid the point of the blade through her pants, the knife going through the leather like butter, but leaving her skin untouched. The blade slid all the way down the inside of her thigh to the bottom of her pants, leaving her suddenly incredibly exposed. He began slicing down through the other side in the same fashion, noticing her lack of underwear in the dim light.

"Mmm. No underwear? That's a first for a female merc."

He snickered as the knife cut through the bottom of her pants, then the blade was gone, back to wherever he had been hiding it before. His large, warm hands slipped under her ass, and with a sudden loud ripping noise, her pants were nothing but ruined scraps. These he began pulling off her and out from under her slowly, seeming to relish every inch of her milky, unblemished skin he revealed.

He opted to use the zipper instead to remove the sleeveless black leather bustier that contained her generous C-cup breasts, though the shiv came back to quickly slice through the armholes. Riddick pulled her final piece of clothing off, taking in the sight of her completely nude beneath him.

She lay silent, stunned into sudden shock at this turn of events. She had been expecting another beating, had been steeling herself for it, but she was totally unprepared for... for whatever this was. His hot breath was suddenly feathering across her naked slit, and she was mortified to feel the rush of heat that began pooling between her legs.

"Don't worry, kitten. I'll make you come so hard you won't even remember why you came here in the first place."

Large, leather-wrapped hands cupped her buttocks as his face moved closer, eyes closing as he breathed in her scent. The tip of his long tongue extended slowly, licking up the full length of her slit. She tasted wonderful, clean and musky, completely woman. He began to expertly eat her, dipping his tongue in and out of her, his lips coming up now and again to suck at her clit.

Despite her best efforts to remain motionless, Virona found herself unable to keep still when his lips found her clit for the third or fourth time. Sexual activity was highly discouraged amongst the Harbringers, and she had only hazy recollections of what this had been like, of how good it had felt.

Her hips began to grind against his face, seemingly of their own accord, even as her mind raged at her treacherous body. Riddick was quickly bringing her to the edge of climax and her breathing sped up as her muscles tensed in anticipation. His tongue was relentless, sliding up and down through her folds which were by now wet with more than his own saliva.

One hand slid around from her ass to her cunt, and he sank two large, rough fingers inside of her. He began thrusting them, slowly, his tongue flicking against her clit with the same rhythm as his fingers. Her back was arching now and she was panting, straining strongly against her bonds. His lips closed around her clit again, and she exploded. Her hips were bucking up into his face and she was moaning wordlessly, loudly, her head thrown back in ecstasy.

He kept the same steady rhythm with his fingers and tongue as her orgasm rode through her, leaving her body limp and shivering. Slowly, he drew his fingers out from her cunt, his mouth sucking her flavor off of them as he regarded her form with eyes that seemed to smirk in satisfaction.

"See? What'd I tell ya? Probly don't even know your own name now."

She couldn't think straight, hell she could hardly even move after what he just did to her. The whole thing was so unexpected, so wildly random, that she had had no time at all to prepare herself for this possibility. The way this scene always played out in her mind was she slipped down through the skylight, landed behind him, and slit his throat without a second thought.

But he knew her name, by all that was holy in the Rodere, how did he know her name?

"Stay with me, baby. I'm not done yet."

Her eyes widened when they focused on him, for she saw that he had quickly, quietly disrobed and now stood nude before her at the foot of the bed. She could just make out the planes and contours of his heavily-muscled body in the faint light. His movements were like liquid and she found herself inexplicably captivated by the way his muscles flexed and relaxed as he moved. His arousal was thick, long, jutting out in front of him and the sight of it caused something deep in her belly to cramp with sudden longing.

Virona was pulling against the straps that bound her wrists without even knowing it, a token sign of resistance her mind was still making even when her body had already completely submitted to the whims of Riddick. Now he was on the bed with her, kneeling between her thighs, his body so near to hers that she could feel the heat radiating off of his skin. His palms caressed her hips almost tenderly as he eased himself forward, his cock sliding smoothly, slowly inside of her.

He stretched her nearly to the breaking point, and he had to bite back a curse as her tight sodden-silk depths clutched at him. Thrusting slowly, one of his palms eased forward to her mound, his large thumb rubbing over her clit in tight circles. Her hips bucked involuntarily up into him, and she let loose the curse he had been holding in.

"Oh fuck..."

His grin was wicked, satyrical as he steadily increased his pace, his cock sliding in and out of her forcefully now. She was panting again, but this time she was staring straight at him, and he knew that look he saw in her eyes. He'd seen it a hundred times before. Not breaking the rhythm of his strokes, he leaned back first to her ankles, ripping the straps that bound them apart. Then he leaned up her body, staring down at her as he undid the ones that held her wrists captive.

As soon as her limbs were free, both her legs and arms wrapped around his body, and she arched up into him with mindless need. He sunk fingers into her chin-length silky raven hair as his mouth lowered to her neck, tongue laving against her pulse, teeth nipping. Sliding the palm of his other hand down her inner thigh to the back of her knee, he gripped it, lifting her leg up into the air, spreading her open wider to his thrusting. His hips pounded into her roughly now, and her body eagerly welcomed his thrusts, hips raising to meet his.

Riddick reared back suddenly, pulling out of her and extricating himself from her limbs. Powerful hands gripped her hips as he turned her over onto her stomach. She raised up onto her hands and knees without any prodding, her hair sliding over her face and disclosing the Roman numeral four tattooed to the back of her neck. This was spared a curious glance by him before he knelt behind her, his hand guiding his cock back inside of her. He thrust himself forcefully into her, her body jerking with the rhythm of his hips, her pert ass grinding back against him.

Leaning over her, he slid his hands up her ribcage to her breasts and cupped them in his palms, fingers tweaking and pulling on her hard nipples. He was fucking her so hard now that the line between pleasure and pain had begun to blur delightfully, and this only excited her more. Riddick ran his hands over her ass again and again, squeezing it as he pounded her. He alternated between squeezing and spanking her ass, loving the way she gasped whenever his palm connected with her flesh.

His attention wandered to the thick band of silver she wore around her neck. His fingers slid around the piece of metal and he jerked it tight against her throat, causing her to throw her head back in an effort to relieve some of the pressure. He eased up on the collar some, but still kept it close against her neck, feeling himself rapidly approaching the moment of his climax.

Wanting to make her come again, his free hand slid around her hip to her clit, which was engorged, begging for release. As he began rubbing his skilled fingers over it he immediately felt her muscles tense and her pussy clench at him even tighter.

"That's it, kitten. Come for me."

Riddick's voice was husky, commanding, as he relentlessly stimulated her, watching her thrash against him. Virona's moan was long, punctuated by gasps as she climaxed, erupting around his cock, her body quaking.

"Mmmm yeah..."

He groaned as he felt her coming, her release triggering his own. Fingers tightening on the collar once again he stilled deep inside of her, his come filling her and a quiet growl rolled from his lips as his orgasm slowly faded.

They were both panting and their skin was slicked with sweat as he eased himself out of her, sitting back on his heels. She dropped forward limply, curling up on her side. He regarded her with an amused look, his eyebrow arched slightly.

"We still need to talk, Virona."