New Allies

[Ryker]

To answer Yun’s question, Ryker was a deadpan professor, “I do. She has a thing for exotic pets,” he said as he leaned on his knees. He’d go for the throat when possible, but only after the flesh was lulled to his lap first. “It didn’t let you go, did it. Does it still hurt? When you’re alone, and its quiet and dark. Do you grow nervous? Afraid of what it will do?” he asked about the beast from the ball, but he may as well have implicated himself as her tormentor. Oriena’s message was delivered after all, and in response, he probed painfully deep. A surgeon dismantling his prey.

At Almaz, he found Oriena entertaining enough for a woman, but now, his disgust for her almost rivaled Yun Kao, but where Yun would get it as a lesson to stay content in her place of smallness, Oriena would get it because Ryker wanted to burn the fucking smile from her face.