"The amount of blood I require depends on how much I use my powers and what I do with them. During a regular day, I will require little, a few sips in the mornings will allow me to survive the day, a little more to handle small uses of my magic throughout the day. And whole persons worth for what would be needed for the battle that is coming." He detected no lies in her words a little disturbed by the casual way she described exsanguinating some poor individual for power's sake.
Though given the caliber of individuals he had run into in such a short time in this new world, he couldn't fault her for having a little defense.
But if he was going to be feeding Sabine her breakfast lunch and dinner for the foreseeable future then he would like to get a better idea of who he was getting into bed with.
"While I am not opposed to the idea of losing a little blood for a better chance at victory, I would like to examine your memories to better know who we will be watching our backs in the fight ahead and if you choose to beyond that."
After he finished his ultimatum he lowered Sabine to the ground realizing with a start that for all of her fifteen-foot length the woman barely came up to his sternum.
"I don't mind if you take a look, but I will ask you to please be a little open-minded.... for... for a time after my mother was killed I was not a pleasant person to be around, dangerous even." Sabine began her answer with eyes shyly hid behind iridescent eyelashes that matched her short poorly cropped hair, with hands clasped tightly together that pushed her modest cleavage together in what would have been an enticing sight for Cade but was marred greatly by her emaciated body.
Her starved state allowed him to count her ribs on her torso and he could see the bones of her narrow hips that poked above her ragged skirt.
As he glanced down the tail she was supporting herself on, he could just see the ribs along its length, the small scales along its sides up to the three-foot blade she had at the tip of it.
An uncertain look passed across her face at the end of Sabine's statement about some of her trials.
"Let me have a look and then we will say who will or won't be pleasant company, ok?" He said not unkindly to the seemingly shy snake woman.
Nodding to his request Sabine looked Cade in the eye with a pensive expression clearly worried at what he might find.
"I will be back in a few seconds my Mina," Cade said as he placed a chaste kiss on his mate's lips.
The chaste kiss wasn't enough for her as she pulled Cades face back down to her level and proceeded to maul his mouth till they were both breathless.
"Return soon my Cade, I have need of a quickie once you are back."
A pleased smile was plastered on Mina's face as they both smiled at the request.
"Looks like I have some business to attend to once we are done. Let's make this quick shall we." He said to Sabine with a smile and outstretched hand.
His smile grew and he had to stifle a laugh at the basilisk woman's expression of thinly veiled interest.
Blinking and with a shudder that didn't come from the moist cool air coming from the river, Sabine composed herself and placed her hand in his.
"Yes, Cade let's make this quick, and by the way what is a quickie?" She finished her question with a cute quizzical expression.
"Let's get this done and Mina can tell you that when she is ready. Sound good? Let's begin."
After losing his battle with his mirth with a full belly laugh, he answered Sabine's question.
He had a suspicion that he might gain another mate if Mina's words and actions toward the slim but beautiful snake-woman were anything to go by.
He couldn't say he would mind getting to know the shy but sweet Sabine after he got her back to a healthy weight, and from her temperament so far he didn't think he would find anything too damning in her memories but better safe than sorry.
With that thought in mind and a smile to Sabine that elicited a small blush, he dove again into the snake woman's mind.
Falling tears and promises made
Cade dropped into Sabine's mindscape with a grin, walking up to the snake woman's mental shield, as the slithering carpet of vipers that parted before him.
His grin grew into a soft smile as he laid eyes on the beautiful Sabine who slithered toward him on top of her mental defense.
Taking a moment to actually look at her he was enamored by her looks, "she is much better looking when she was properly fed." He mused in his head.
"Why yes I am my.... thank you Cade I am glad to hear you like what you see." Her stuttering reply took him by surprise, he was sure the words hadn't been spoken aloud, but the blushing Sabine had clearly heard his thoughts.
"I hope you like what you see in my memories, I do hope to get to enjoy the blood coursing through your veins and the body that contains it." He again was blown over by the now furiously blushing Sabine, who wouldn't meet his eyes at the moment.
"Let's take a look then we can decide if we are going to be swapping fluids," he replied, a small blush starting in his face, his little fienemy putting his two cents in as his pants began to get tight at the thought of Sabine enjoying his body in any way, shape, or form.
"I think I would enjoy swapping fluids with you Cade if your Dresk would allow it," Sabine replied still not meeting his eyes.
"We will cross that bridge when we get to it, but first let get you vetted." He said before he chuckled at the curious expression on Sabine's face as she mouthed "vetted".
After he cleared his throat and adjusted himself he dove into Sabine's memories.
As Cade flew through Sabine's memories he grew to respect the small woman.
She had not lied when she said she had been killing the slavers for years.
Quite a few of them had succumbed to her paralysis venom like Mina, only to be drained and left for dead or she had put that long blade at the end of her tail to good use and removed heads and limbs.
One raping asshole got the ultimate comeuppance as he overpowered her and instead of using his head and finishing the fight with the dangerous woman, he tried to use his dick and was relieved of it.
"That was the one who came closest to ending me." Sabine said as she appeared next to him as he viewed the memory.
"And are you ok?" He asked concerned for the seemingly dainty woman, who he had just watched decapitate a human man who was at least a head taller and much more muscular than Cade, even with his body improvements.
"That happened years ago, I haven't allowed any more close calls like that one since," Sabine said in her breathy voice.
Cade had a moment of weakness as he imagined the slight woman moaning his name in the same breathy tones.
A truly furious blush grew to encompass Sabine's whole torso at his stray thought.
Furious at himself for the thought, Cade cleared his thoughts of sexual thoughts and reminded himself the woman next to him was a stranger, anything more would wait until he was sure of her.
Sabine's blush evaporated as the nasty thoughts about her coming from him disappeared from one moment to the next.
"I'm sorry if I overstepped Cade," Sabine said as she looked down, her heart racing in her chest.
Cade noticed her posture and was on guard as he saw the same downcast eyes in a few of Sabine's memories before she tore into her opponents.
Dipping a mental thread into her actual brain, he was surprised to find not murderous intent but sorrow and a bone-deep hurt that stemmed from her almost need for him and Mina to accept her.
"It's ok Sabine no overstepping here, I...." Cade trailed off for a moment as he tried to figure out how to put into words, that didn't make him look like a letch, that he wanted the slim woman next to him.
"I just want to get to know you and the person you are before we do anything more. Does that sound ok?" He asked hesitantly.
"I am willing to try if you are Cade," she said as her melancholy fell away to be replaced by a hopeful expression.
"We can continue then," Cade said and resumed
his trip through Sabine's past.
Coming upon a particularly powerful memory, Cade was surprised as he took in a preteen Sabine being shoved into a crevice in a riverbank by a much larger 30-foot lamia.
"Stay here and conceal yourself as I taught you, I will try to make it back to you my "bean" but know that your mother loves you always."
The larger lamia came up to his nose and was visibly exhausted by what Cade assumed was her and Sabine's race to escape their pursuers.
He both saw and heard them closing in, the stop the larger lamia made only closing the distance of the pursuit.
The larger lamia pushed her daughter deeper into the crevice hiding her as well as was possible as she turned to lead their pursuers away.
"Her name was Xandia, and she was the best mother a girl could ask for."
The memory froze as the unemaciated version of Sabine again came into view, and a light rainfall began.
"She taught me so much in such a little time, trying to prepare me for what lay ahead, but the greed of others forced our time too short. They would rather profit from her body then leave us in peace."
Sudden winds and lightning followed quickly by the deafening clap of thunder came after Sabine's statement adding weight to her rage-filled words.
"I hope this colors your judgment of my actions from before, I am not ashamed to admit I paid those creatures back as often and as cruelly as possible."
Sabine's passionate statement set Cade back on his heels at its vehemence.
The short sweet Sabine at that moment, even as sorrowful rage-fueled tears flowed down her ethereal face, was a war goddess who would have her pound of flesh, relishing in the kill and enjoying her preys lamentations.
"I am not sorry for my rage, my mother and our nest treated our men with dignity, not harming those who loved us, fought with us, and ultimately died with us. I was to be the next matriarch of our nest as my mother before me, special even among our kind for that I am and the power I command. If my mother was still among the living I would be close to her size, the starvation and constant running for my life have diminished who I could have been. I want to fight with and for you m... Cade, I will fight at your back and I wish to follow you for as long as you will have me. The loneliness of living alone and forgotten is something I wish could end and in you and your dresk I see that opportunity. PLEASE!....please take me with you...I don't want to be alone anymore."
At the end of her speech, Sabine was wrung out, all emotion gone except for the haunted look in her eyes as she looked upon her mother's resolute face in her memories.
Cade had no idea how to continue, frozen by indecision. One thing he could do was hold the emotionally distraught Sabine.
As his arms encircled the small woman, her body began to shake with hiccupping sobs. Her mother's name on her lips repeated continually through her grief, he could understand that at least.
As he lifted her in his arms she encircled his waist with her tail, the long blade at the end of her tail draped over his left shoulder left to hang as he held her sobbing human half to his right to drain her sorrow on his strong shoulder, as he rubbed her back and shed a few tears of his own remembering his own loss.
Unwilling to continue the memory vetting, to put this woman through more trauma, he made a decision, pulling Sabine into his neck he placed a kiss to the top of her head.
"They will pay, then they will die, this I promise you my little snake. But first, let's get you in fighting shape so they will know who is responsible for ending their wretched lives."
He said though his tight throat, rage and sorrow warring within him.
If nothing he could give this woman closure, and anything else he could offer would be for hers to take.
Sabine's hiccupping sobs continued as she turned to look him in the eye, "and can I stay after, I want to stay with you, be with you and Mina in any way I can, just...please let me stay."
Sabine finished her plea to stay with Mina and Cade in a hushed voice only barely heard above the downpour that was her sorrow at being reminded of her isolation from any and all others.
"You may stay with us my little snake," he said simply before he hugged the still crying Sabine to him with a fierceness that surprised even him.
"Thank you, thank you so much, I will make sure you never regret this." Her heartfelt reply started softly but grew in intensity as her coils around his midsection tightened until he couldn't breathe, but that was ok with him what's a little asphyxiation between friends, maybe even more.
"How about we give Mina the good news, and then we can go and beat some catharsis out of some slavers." He said with a humored grimace as his lungs struggled to get the words past the crushing grip of Sabine's coils.
Giving a tinkling laugh that raised more than his spirits Sabine answered simply "yes please."
Now there are two of them
Coming out of Sabine's mindscape, Cade took in the still beautiful if slightly less alluring Sabine as she tearfully looked up into his eyes absolute adoration written upon her face.
He smiled back at her but was not ready for the full-body hug that he received as she threw her whole 15-foot length at him coiling around him from chest to waist.
"HE SAID I COULD STAY!! She cried cheerfully to Mina, a huge grin splitting her face.
"Picking up strays now my love?" Mina asked with a wry grin.
"Can we keep her?" Cade asked his mate, knowing she would get the reference, as he embraced the young basilisk woman in return.
Mina exploded in laughter at his childish tone, and at the memory of Candice bringing home a stray kitten when she was five.
"We can certainly use the help my Cade, and Sabine, we will be having a talk about your place in our family." She said with little humor, her face slipping into what Cade guessed was her matronly guise.
Gone was the open loving woman, in her place was his Dresk who knew how to run kingdoms, her will unquestionable, her orders absolute.
To be honest it turned him on more than he wanted to admit.
Sabine's reaction was the polar opposite.
Scrambling down from her more than familiar position on him she gave him more than a few rug... scale burns as she quickly disengaged from their embrace.
Settling on the ground next to Cade, Sabine adopted a demure attitude as she answered Mina in a formal tone that belied her age and one that he was surprised to see come from the exuberant woman.
"Yes my Dresk, whenever you are ready I will make myself available."
Sabine finished her statement with a formal bow to Mina.
"Well we need to be moving on, slavers to kill, people to save and all that," he said as he clapped his hands, snapping the women out of the formal moment.
"Yes we do my Cade, but I hope you have not forgotten my quickie. I would have your seed in me as we leave this pit stop." Mina said, her eyes holding Sabine's as she licked her lips and a purr emanated from her chest.
Sabine for her part said nothing, but her discomfort was evident as a blush erupted from her lightly bronzed face.
Cade's attention was drawn to her as the blush reached from her iridescent hair to the tops of her breasts wrapped in their tight but ragged binding.
Atomic Mage Page 15
