Chapter 50 Show Me A Riot

Chapter 50 Show Me A Riot
If Malik’s training was a cold interrogation, Ryker’s was a riot.

I found him in the Basalt Pits, the dark rock still radiating the day’s heat like a dying star. The air here was heavy with the scent of old sweat, burnt sugar, and the metallic tang of a predator. He was shirtless again, his bronzed skin slick with perspiration, his muscles jumping under the surface like trapped animals as he moved through a series of brutal, rhythmic strikes against a training dummy. He didn’t wait for a greeting; he threw a training dagger at my feet the moment my boots hit the sand.

“Pick it up, doll,” he growled, his storm-gray eyes dark with a restless, predatory energy. “The Saint had his turn with your head. Now I get your body.”

“Phrasing, Ryker,” I panted, bending to grab the dull iron blade. My muscles were already screaming from Malik’s mental gymnastics. Still, the sight of Ryker—all scars and sinew and dark intent—ignited a different kind of fire in me—a messy, dangerous fire that didn’t care about filing systems or boxes.

“I said what I meant,” he countered, lunging at me with a speed that defied his bulk.

I dodged, my reflexes sharper than they had been a week ago. The boxes I’d built with Malik helped; I wasn’t overthinking his moves, I was reacting to the stimuli. I was a pharmacist again, calculating the trajectory, the force, the reaction. But Ryker was a hunter, and he didn’t play by the rules of chemistry.

He caught me around the waist, lifting me off my feet and slamming me back against the basalt wall. The impact knocked the wind out of me, but before I could even gasp, his body was flush against mine, his weight pinning me to the jagged stone. The heat radiating off him was staggering, a furnace that threatened to melt the very leggings off my body.

“You’re still holding back,” he hissed, his mouth grazing the sensitive skin beneath my ear, his stubble a delicious friction. “You’re playing at being a soldier because Malik told you to, but you’re still a pharmacist inside. You’re waiting for permission to be dangerous. You’re waiting for the Architect to give you a gold star.”

“I don’t need permission from an over-muscled demon with a God complex,” I snapped, trying to bring my knee up to his groin.

He caught my leg with a rough laugh, hooking it over his hip and pressing himself deeper into the apex of my thighs. His eyes were blazing with a dangerous, hungry light. “That’s it. Give me that bratty spite. Use it. Turn the fear into fuel. You have a goddess’s power and a sinner’s heart, Amaya. Stop trying to bleach it out.”

He kissed me then—not a request, but a conquest. It tasted of salt, smoke, and an ancient, demanding hunger. I didn’t fight him; I leaned into it, my fingers digging into the hard planes of his back, my tongue meeting his in a desperate, frantic dance. The fire he’d been poking at for days finally exploded, consuming every box Malik had helped me build.

Ryker groaned, a low, guttural sound of victory, and his hands were everywhere—tearing at the hem of my charcoal top, tracing the curve of my spine, gripping my hips until I knew I’d have bruises. He lifted me higher, my legs wrapping instinctively around his waist, the friction of our training gear creating an unbearable heat.

“Here?” I gasped against his mouth, my head spinning. “The Pits? Anyone could walk in.”

“The world is ending, Amaya,” he rasped, his eyes locking onto mine with a terrifying clarity. “Juda is sharpening his knives, and the Council is counting your breaths. Do you really want to spend your last moments worried about the scenery? Or do you want to feel something real for once?”

He made short work of the leggings, his movements efficient and urgent. The touch of the cold basalt against my bare skin was a shock, but it was nothing compared to the sensation of him. He was a force of nature, a storm that didn’t know how to be gentle. And God help me, I didn’t want gentle. I wanted the burn. I wanted him to rip the ‘good girl’ right out of me.

When he entered me, it wasn’t a slow transition; it was a collision. I cried out, my nails raking down his shoulders, my body arching into his as the world dissolved into a kaleidoscope of friction and fire. Every thrust was a lesson in survival, a raw, primal declaration of existence in a world that wanted us dead. He wasn’t just taking me; he was claiming me, branding me with a darkness that felt more like home than the light ever had.

I was a catalyst. I was a prophecy. But in this moment, under the alien stars of Requiem, I was just a woman being undone by a demon who saw the ‘brat’ in me and loved it. I found the rhythm, my body responding with a desperate, hungry intelligence I didn’t know I possessed. I wasn’t the pharmacist anymore. I was the storm he’d promised I’d be.

We finished in a blur of sweat and jagged breaths, the silence of the Pits returning like a heavy blanket. Ryker held me for a long moment, his forehead resting against mine, his pulse finally slowing from a frantic drum to a steady thrum.

“There,” he whispered, his voice a low, intimate rasp. “Now you’ve tasted the fire. Don’t you dare let that golden pigeon tell you it’s a sin. A sin is living a life half-dead, doll.”

I looked at him, my vision still blurry, my body still vibrating from the aftershocks. “It’s not a sin, Ryker. It’s a riot.”

He smirked, the familiar, arrogant mask returning, but his eyes held a depth of possessive tenderness that made my heart ache. “Good doll. Now get dressed. We have a library to rob, and I suspect Chiro is getting lonely in the shadows.”