Page 30 of I Married A Lizardman

My chuckle died in my throat, and my stomach flip-flopped when he gave me a heated once over, noticing at last my sexy burgundy bikini. My mate had a very healthy sexual appetite. If not for all the people around, including the kids, I suspected we would have set the river to boiling with our burning passion.

Olix made that rattling hissing sound that had become an auditory aphrodisiac for me, making my nipples instantly hard and causing moisture to pool between my thighs. His nostrils flared, and a smug smile stretched his lips. The fiend knew how he was affecting me. He leaned forward, his scaly lips brushing against my ear.

“Later,” Olix whispered in a deep voice filled with promise.

Feeling weak in the knees, I let him take my hand and lead me to the clearest blue water I’d ever seen. To my surprise, it was freshwater. Then again, I should have guessed since this was in fact an artificial beach.

Most of our group was already frolicking in the waves. My worries to have so many of the little ones swimming around evaporated in a blink. They might as well have been fish. They zipped through the water at incredible speeds before jumping out to make little acrobatics before diving back down. I could have stared at them for hours.

The water was so clear, I could see them swimming underneath, their arms stretched in front, their legs together moving like a mermaid’s tail. Sometimes, they would flap their arms to get a boost. They moved with incredible grace.

“How long can you hold your breath?” I asked as we entered the water, surprised by the extensive period of time some of the children remained under.

“We have gills,” Olix said, brushing his quills to the side to show a bunch of scales beneath the opening of his ear parting to reveal the gills.

“Oh wow! I’m every shade of jealous right now!” I said, dipping down to my neck into the cool water.

Olix laughed. “Still, we can’t stay indefinitely underwater. After more than thirty-minutes, we could drown. We avoid staying under for more than fifteen to twenty minutes.”

“I guess I’ll have to buy myself one of those organic breathing masks so that I can keep up,” I replied teasingly.

“Sounds like a plan,” Olix said.

We started swimming, my husband observing me at first to see how I was faring. Once reassured I could hold my own, he began playing with me, literally swimming circles around me. He always looked so grumpy, seeing this playful side of him tickled me pink.

When he realized how much I envied the kids’ acrobatics, Olix had me clinging to him, my body as flat along his as possible, so that we could do them together. Granted, we couldn’t do anything as crazy as the kids did that way, but it was still insanely thrilling. I held my breath while he raced underwater at dizzying speed before jumping out and trying to remain airborne for as long as possible before we fell back in.

After a few rounds that way, Olix made me remain as straight as possible then, holding my feet, he pushed me forward while swimming hard so that we could gain momentum. At the last minute, I curved upward so that he could propel me out of the water like a cannon shot. Each time, I shot out at least three meters above water, did a few flips, before diving back in—sometimes awkwardly splashing on the surface. But I had no time for the slight pain and embarrassment.

I’d never had so much fun.

We eventually took a breather while the adults launched a game for the children. Sadly, I could only partially see from the surface. It didn’t take me long to realize that this was in fact fishing training weaved into a game. They released hundreds of small spheres in the water that immediately scattered, some individually, others in groups of varying sizes. All of them moved at the same speed and according to the same patterns as a school of fish avoiding a predator. Swimming in pairs, each child holding one end of a narrow, rectangular net, they would try to capture as many of the spheres as possible, which would simply stick to the net.

After all this exertion, bellies clamoring for food finally drove us back to the village. Walking hand in hand with my husband while the raucous children ran past us, I realized what a paradise I had landed in. These people, their way of life, the future they were building for themselves was worth fighting for. And I would fight alongside them, with everything in me.

Chapter 12

Olix

The next couple of days proved challenging to keep away from my mate. Now that we had truly begun communicating and bonding, I wanted to learn more about her, her people, and of course explore our intimacy. But too much work remained to be done, and time wasn’t on my side.

In a few days, a quarter of the clan would leave with me on a great hunt. We had many arrows, traps, and darts to prepare. At the same time, we had nets to mend and fishing cages to prepare for the other quarter of our clan that would set sail for fish and shellfish. For the few of the Hunters and Fishers who also crafted for the market, that didn’t leave them much time to make a few additional goods before our departure. Based on the hunting plan I had laid out, our chances of returning early enough to craft some more before the public market were slim to none.

Still, I stole what time I could to spend it with my mate. Susan hadn’t minded me working in a corner of her shed while making darts and coating them in a soporific agent. Luped had been around, building beautiful and strong shelves for my mate that were now all filled with racks of dirt trays she called seedlings. Another set of shelves filled with a different type of dirt that she sprayed daily with water was supposed to eventually grow meat-like mushrooms.

That day, my sister installed strong hooks on beams lining the ceiling. To my shock, my mate mixed some weird thing that resembled dried mold to wet woodchips, then filled long plastic bags with them, tying both ends before asking me to hang them to the hook for her as they were heavy. They were actually quite light for me, but it pleased me to show my strength. The following day, she poked a bunch of holes in the bags. Nothing leaked. When I questioned her about it, she said loads of oyster mushrooms would come out of those holes. It sounded as crazy to me as her meat mushrooms. But what did I know about farming?

It shamed me to admit that Susan spending the majority of her time inside that shed, doing her seedlings and those mushroom bags was a relief. The people had begun to relax that her farming wasn’t being rubbed in our faces… yet. The play days and the evenings in the Great Hall, mingling with everyone was allowing them to get to know her better.

However, the inevitable happened.

On the sixth day, Susan spent quite a bit of time assembling a strange contraption… outside. As soon as she finished, she placed it near the start of the plot of land she’d requested to farm. Her moving onto assembling another machine, this one a bit bigger, only gave me a small reprieve. I replayed in my mind all the arguments she had convinced me with and that had mollified my clan into accepting what she would do. But my stomach increasingly knotted as time ticked by. Susan was my mate, our Clan Mistress. And in a few minutes, she would start digging through dirt, like an animal… like a slave.

Maybe Mother had been right in suggesting zero tolerance. Maybe it wasn’t too late to tell my mate I had changed my mind. Could she not keep her farming to what she was doing here, indoors? Luped would be happy to build her more sheds so that she could grow as many things as she wanted without rolling in dirt.

With these thoughts increasingly taking root, I was reflecting on ways of broaching the subject with Susan when Zoltar’s voice startled me. By the look on his face, I knew bad news had come. No words were needed for me to know I had to follow him. I gestured for him to wait a minute and warned my mate I would be leaving her side.

“Okay,” she said, frowning slightly while observing me.

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