18.3

I wasn't certain Jax had talked to the man. Now that I knew he had, and that they hadn't come to a conclusion I was semi satisfied. I would prefer for Jax to have settled things completely. This was the best we were going to get on short notice. It didn't take me long to get back to the outpost.

I glided down to the clearing I'd made outside the outpost. There was a number of small game paths that were opening up around the front of the outpost. I was largely ignored by the majority of the lizardmen there. They had their origin beasts there pulling large sleds. Loaded with local beast corpses.

They'd built a station for dressing the corpses. Wrapped the majority of the meat in large leaves. Lungs, hearts, livers, and kidneys all got their own basket. Stomach, and intestines were cleaned, and dried over a large fire pit. The lizardmen enjoyed eating them as if they were some sort of chips.

My wings slowly folded as I observed the whole situation. They were burying whatever they got out of the stomach in deep holes. I smirked slightly. Safe to say I could go on a killing spree, and sell the bodies here pretty easily. I flicked my tail up to my back.

Savannah stepped onto the offered tail, and was lowered to the ground gently. Ethan just jumped off willingly. Jax slid down my scales. I'd been monitoring Jax's emotional state the whole flight. He was still confused, and upset, but our own bond had steadied.

Maybe even grown stronger. I stretched slowly after they were off my back. Giving off little pops as I stretched my back as far as possible. My wings stayed close to my body. I smiled as I relaxed out of the stretch slowly.

I decided just to open up the portal here. It took me a few minutes to gather enough mana. My bonded sensed what I was about to do, and stayed close while I was working on the spell. This gathering of mana drew the lizardmen's attention to me. They moved away from me as far as they could as I was forming the portal.

I snapped the portal open, and rushed through the open portal. My bonded rushed through behind me. I held the portal open until they were all through safely. Then let it collapse. I felt the lack of mana right away.

That deep exhaustion, and the slight burn. I'd forgotten to ask Regala about that again. I flicked my tail casually as I rushed down the tunnel to the outside. Roaring to call Aurora back to me. Her answering roar didn't take long.

As an after thought I lit up the tunnel behind me so that Savannah, and Jax could see properly. Aurora flew straight toward me. Flaring her wings as she landed on the walkway up to the cave mouth. She brought the egg up quickly, and passed it off to me. Shaking herself like a wet dog afterward.

Clearly very happy to be free of the burden. I swallowed the egg down to the incubation pouch, and nuzzled her gently. She drank in the attention. I realized what I'd just done while she was still overjoyed by the attention I'd given her. I hadn't meant to act loving toward her.

It just felt way too natural. I pushed past her to walk down the path toward the village. I was a little rough after that gentle nuzzle, but I didn't want her getting the wrong impression. She was still too young for me in my head. I knew she was physically close to my bodies age.

Mentally she was still way behind me. I couldn't just let her act all seductive, and fall right into it. I needed to stand tall, and keep myself from thinking with my family jewels. I chuckled when I remembered how worried I was about not having these kind of feelings toward anything. I'd thought there was no romance in my future.

Now I was trying to rein in my hormones whenever she flirted even a little. I understood that part of that was because of my older mentality. The rest was because of my own body maturing. I guess I was at the horny teenager stage physically. That meant that Aurora was going to get to this stage as well.

That was a terrifying thought. How bad would she get? I didn't know if she'd be more subtle like human women or if she came after me more directly. I shivered at that last thought. It both terrified, and excited me.

I found myself in the village by the time I shook that line of thought. It really was a dangerous thought. I couldn't dismiss it completely as much as I wanted, and didn't want to. I had to be ready if she decided to be more aggressive. My resolve had to hold should anything like that happen.

Discomfort from Ethan's side of the bond made me look back over my shoulder to him as I wondered what exactly was wrong. The sight of his beet red face reminded me what I'd just been thinking about, and I was reminded just how much of my mind he could see. We both decided to pretend that some naughty images hadn't just passed through my mind, and that we wouldn't say anything about it to anyone.

"What's wrong?" Savannah whispered to Ethan, but he just shook his head refusing to answer.

I nodded solemnly. Agreeing with his silence. Aurora caught my eye a second later. A small smirk playing at the edges of her scaley lips. Then it hit me.

That scaley vixen knew exactly what her advances were doing to me! And I liked it! I actually hoped she'd keep throwing me those suggestive glances. I was really glad that I couldn't blush like a human right now. She exhales a plume of light particles that looked like unnaturally white smoke before taking her attention off of me.