A New Beginning In A Mana Apocalypse

I watched Annitte cautiously as she looked down at my unconscious wife. I caught myself at the thought. With that thought I finally realized exactly how much of a fool I was. Worse than any of the other women I had taken as wife, I knew absolutely nothing of this void woman, not even her personality or even if she would be a danger. I at least knew that much when I bonded Monica, she had been a lost puppy begging for attention. Yet the bond already made me feel the need to protect her despite not even knowing her name. My sister was right, I was a fool.

It was hard for me to realize, I had gotten used to the idea that the bond would make everything all better. That everything would work out once they were bonded to me. I remembered her thanking me before she pa.s.sed out, but that didn"t really tell me anything. Looking around at my wives and realized that the bond would protected me, but it wouldn"t necessarily protect them, or guarantee that they would all get along. The one thing I was sure was worse than having a p.i.s.sed off woman in my head, was having several p.i.s.sed off women in my head and that was exactly what was going to happen the moment any of them started fighting amongst themselves. Which was guaranteed to happen if I brought in more women as I had been.

I had agreed to the provisions my wives had set down, but I knew myself as someone more willing to ask forgiveness than permission. It was merely a matter of time before I added another without getting the consent from my wives, just because I knew they wouldn"t. But was that a good idea? Could I handle the trouble that would come with that?

I didn"t know, but I needed to give it some serious thought. I was the only one who could actually stop myself. I just hoped I hadn"t already made a huge mistake. I knew that there was one way to remove a wife from the marital bond, but it would tear me apart to kill her myself, and there was no one else I could order to do it, because the moment I felt her fear I would try and save her, and even if I couldn"t save her, I was sure that the lose would be horrific. I shivered at the thought, it sobered me up like nothing else ever had.

Annitte gave me a sad smile as I shifted my focus back to my wife and sister.

"It"s good you realized it now." she told me a very sad look crossing her face before she looking back down. "I just hope you take it to heart now, before you have to experience it." she told me.

"Is part of your gift? Mind reading?" I asked her dryly.

"No, thank heavens. I doubt I could find anything but p.o.r.n and bad puns in that perverted mind of yours." she retorted.

"How is she?" Monica asked interrupting my sister and I"s bickering.

"She is fine, she should wake up soon." Annitte said, and as if on cue her eyes opened to reveal eyes different that what I had seen earlier. Her left eye was a vortex of red and gold, her right eye a vortex of white and silver.

With her awakening came a intense wave of anger.

I stepped forward and placed my hand down on her chest holding her down as I stared into her eyes. As I looked down at her I tried to feel her through our bond, I realized that it wasn"t an all consuming anger, instead it came in waves, one after the other, on and on, and each wave seemed a bit different. I focused on the waves letting them roll from her into me, after a few more waves I realized that the waves of anger were indeed slightly different, there were two and they alternated. Both were anger, but a bit different like wrath, and fury. Almost like the waves of anger came from two different sources.

She didn"t try and fight me, and after a moment she recognized me, I felt the bond between us strain for a second, then she seemed to sigh in relief. "Thank the heavens." she murmured.

Through our bond I could feel the anger inside her retreat then disappear completely. As the anger receded her eyes changed back to the red with black iris I had seen before.

"My mate, if you keep your hand there I will think you want to mount me." the void woman commented shifting her gaze down to my hand which was practically groping her left breast.

She was still far too thin, but there was plenty of padding on top.

"I do not mind, if that is what you want, but do we have to let the others watch?" she asked.

I sighed then, after giving her plump breast a squeeze I released her and stood up.

Annitte was watching her looking completely intrigued.

I leaned back down and held out my hand for my wife to take.

Looking at it for a moment she reached out and took it. I lifted her slowly to her feet. I nearly used too much strength as she was incredibly light.

"It is good you woke up. My name is Daryl." I told her politely while giving her a smile.

She looked at me for a few moments then returned my smile. "Thank you for saving me Daryl. My name is, uhmmm, is, oh! Kayda, my name is Kayda!" she told me seeming fairly happy at the discovery.

My smile widened, her smile was infectious.

Then Kayda looked around at the other women surrounding her. "I am pretty hungry. Mate, did you bring these ones here for me to eat?" she asked.

"Huh?" I asked stupidly.

Kayda eyed each of my wives and Annitte for a moment. "I don"t think they will taste very good." she told me. "Humans, usually aren"t very tasty."

"That is good to hear." I replied. "But no, none of these girls are food. They are my wives, your sister wives. Except Annitte." I replied.

"She is food?" Kayda asked.

"No, well maybe if she misbehaves, but not right now." I replied then pulled out some packs of jerky from my s.p.a.ce pocket and handed them to her. "Try these for now."

Kayda ripped into the packet hungrily, packet and all.

I wasn"t sure if I should laugh or not.

"It doesn"t taste very good." Kayda told me as she spit out a piece of the packaging.

"I expect not." I replied then grabbed a packet, opened it for her then showed her the jerky inside.

She took a piece and ate it. "It still isn"t very good." she muttered.

Finally no one could help it anymore as everyone started to laugh.

Mary handed her a orange sized yellow strawberry looking fruit. "Try this, it is very filling and sweet." Mary suggested.

Kayda hesitated for a moment then took it reluctantly. She sniffed it and frowned in distaste then grimaced as she shoved the whole thing into her mouth chewed quickly then swallowed.

Once it was down she shuddered. "It is filling." she agreed after a moment then shuddered again. She moved over to me then grasped my head and pulled me down for a very pa.s.sionate deep kiss. I was a bit surprised by her forwardness but was quickly distracted by her aggressive tongue in my mouth. After a few moments of kissing she pulled away and heaved a sigh of relief. "Better." she murmured.

"Did she just use husband to rinse her mouth?" Calidia asked.

Kayda nodded. "Yep, bad taste all gone!" she said happily. "Still hungry though!" she added.

"Kayda." Annitte called out. "What was going on with your eyes?" she asked.

Kayda didn"t even glance at my sister as she kept her eyes on me with a hopeful expression.

"Mate, if she is anything like I am, then she is likely to prefer meat, the bloodier the better." Monica spoke up when it didn"t seem Kayda was going to respond to Annitte.

"Hey I am talking to you!" Annitte yelled obviously miffed that she was being ignored.

"Be quiet maybe food, I am hungry!" Kayda finally responded.

I bit my cheek to keep myself from laughing. "Alright, food first then questions. Tracy, do you know if your family has any meat in storage? Most of what I have is all jerky." I asked.

Tracy nodded. "I think so, I will go ask." she said then disappeared.

Kayda watched her leave a hungry look on her face, then before I even noticed her move she was gone, jogging after Tracy an eager look on her face.

"She is interesting." Megan commented.

"That is a nice way to put it." Heather responded.

"Seems she is more like the twisted mentality than I am." Monica added. "She is clearly intelligent, but her base needs take priority."

"Or she really is that hungry, did you see how thin she was?" Grace pointed out. "As much as I hate to say it the others in my storage were consumed, and she was only in there for hours, not days. She probably has an enormous metabolism."

I frowned then looked at Monica, "Are you against the fruit like she is?" I asked her.

Monica shrugged. "I can eat it, but I have no desire for it." she responded.

"Emy is working on a solution, there are some weaker beasts that multiply like insects in the Great Realm, they act as the main source of food for most of the beasts and twisted. She is going to grab a few and send them here for us to supplement the fruit, vegetables, and grain she can create. Though she will have to consume most of the ones she catches to supplement the nutrients she is losing growing food for us." Mary spoke up.

I nodded a bit relieved. "Thank you. I will find a way to reward her for her efforts later." I told Mary, "You too."

Mary smiled at me then shifted her attention to Tracy and Kayda who had reached Jessarn and his family.

"We need to know about her eyes." Annitte told me.

"Why?" I asked.

"There is something odd about them." she insisted.

I shook my head. "I would guess she has two things inside her that are at war with each other, that is the source of the eyes, and the anger." I told Annitte, "I can look into her later, after she has eaten. Actually we all should probably get something to eat." I added.

"We have eaten already." Megan told me. "We ate while you were a.s.sisting Emy. If you are hungry you should get something, we are fine."

I nodded then paused as I noticed Kayda racing back with an pig in her arms. It was an entire pig, killed, gutted, and cooked. As soon as she reached my side she plopped down on the ground and began to tear into the pig like nothing else in the world mattered. Truthfully it was kind of disturbing to watch. Yet none of us could look away as she literally stripped the bones of all the flesh. Then she cracked the bones for the marrow.

When she was done she looked down at the pig bones a unhappy look on her face.

"Still hungry?" Annitte asked amazed.

Kayda looked up at her and licked her lips like she was considering if she was worth eating.

"Kayda, I was joking earlier. Annitte is my sister, not food." I told my wife because I honestly felt I needed too.

Kayda sighed unhappily. "Yes, not food, I am still hungry." she told me.

I frowned then stepped forward and laid my hand on her shoulder and looked into her.

Inside her inner s.p.a.ce I spotted two cores just as I thought I would, one for each eye, one a vortex of white and silver, the other a vortex of gold and red. Besides the cores she had only two abilities,they were a body and mind ability and all of them were at the sixth level with six lights swirling around inside them like dancing fireflies. I was curious why she had so few abilities, but now wasn"t the time.

The two cores were obviously fighting with each other and seemed to be on the verge of tearing her apart. Her hunger was coming from her body ability trying to keep her alive by replenishing the calories it needed to regenerate her body.

"Mary, something with a really high calorie count, and lots of it." I told her a bit anxious about what I was seeing.

Mary nodded then closed her eyes.

Kayda leaned into me and shivered a bit. I wrapped my arms around her protectively. If all the manic twisted were like this it was no wonder they were crazy, the fact that she could control herself around me and everyone else spoke volumes about how strong her mentality was and what the bond had done to her.

I focused my mind on the two cores and could feel that whatever they were they absolutely hated each other. If something wasn"t done, her own cores were going to tear her apart from the inside.