"I'm not much for small talk," I refocused on Erik, "Shall we skip straight to the important bits."
Erik looked slightly concerned.
"He's not lying," Ethan chimed in, "He prefers action."
"Alright," Erik nodded gesturing toward the door, "We'll get a move on then."
I fell in step next to him as he walked.
"We marked five wyverns thirty miles to the south," he started to explain, "My men have managed to kill two of them, but that still leaves at least three more." he paused, "That we know of. There could be more out there. The two we killed were male. They only nest once every twenty years or so but the females don't leave the nests unless they're forced to."
"That's a loose schedule," I commented.
"They're long lived creatures," he looked at me funny, "I thought you would know more about them then I do."
"Do you know about apes, and chimps?" I snarled, "They're just like you humans aren't they?"
I regretted the angry outburst as soon as it left my mouth. My hand went straight to my forehead as I calmed myself quickly. I ran my hand down over my face slowly.
"I'm sorry about that," I sighed, "I'm short tempered, and I don't like being compared to something that tried to kill me."
"We can't tell at a glance if they're male or female," Erik was kind enough to ignore my outburst, "But the two dead were definitely male. A lack of females doesn't bode well, and we haven't seen an alpha male or female yet."
This caught my interest. He noticed me looking his direction with a raised brow.
"Wyverns don't play well with others," he continued with a little depth, "This many getting along means that there is an alpha pair. An alpha pair means there could be up a hundred of them supplying for the central nest. The vast majority are male." that interested me too, getting another slightly raised brow, "Only one in twenty are female. Each female can control four or five males alone, but that's a best case scenario. If there is an alpha female, and an alpha male then the number of males each female can control will jump to fifteen to twenty each with the alpha female commanding all the females, and the only breeding male in the group."
"That would be the alpha male," I nodded to confirm I was following.
"The alpha female can control up to thirty females," he continued, "They nest about a mile apart."
"Worst case scenario there's thirty females controlling twenty males each," I stopped when Erik stopped.
"Two or three males we could handle," Erik turned to face us, "But there are never just males. Male wyverns only planet hop when they're following a female."
"Best case scenario there's only one female," I looked slightly up at the man, "And a few desperate males trying to establish a nest."
"Females only gather when there's an alpha pair," He sighed, "If there is an alpha pair even a creature like you won't be enough to bridge the power gap."
"So why call me instead of the military?" I asked the question that had been burning on Ethan's mind.
"Calen here said you'd be willing to negotiate," Erik gestured toward Calen, "The military charges a flat rate. A hundred high quality cores per wyvern, and they keep the wyvern core."
"So you called me because I might be cheaper?" I gave him an exasperated look.
Erik shrugged with a sly smirk. I disliked that he wanted to me simply because I was cheaper.
"Have you surveilled the location yet?" I asked.
"Our drones haven't gotten that far," he admitted, "They can't exactly take a hit from a beast that size, or make evasive maneuvers."
"You want me to be the drone?" I raised my eyebrow at him.
This angered me a bit, but I didn't act on it this time. I opened a portal to right next to my two bonded. I'd been regenerating mana since I got here. I would need to take from the cores within me again for this though. Savannah, and Jax walked through the portal quickly so I could allow it to close.
It nearly exhausted my mana reserve. I would have to draw on the dragon cores to remain in human form for a little while. Erik went on high alert. His hand gripped his weapon tightly. He was a swordsman from the look of it.
My muscles tensed. It was a bad idea for the him to draw that weapon.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you," Savannah had her armor in one of those storage cases.
It was obvious she wasn't looking for a fight, but I didn't need to look at her to know that.
"Take a look at him," Savannah directed his attention back to me.
I'd grown a good two feet, and my body had become much more bestial in nature. Just the idea of him threatening one of my bonded was enough to make me want to go postal. Erik looked at me with a worried expression as lightning sparked within my scales. I was using a good amount of the mana within the dragon cores to restore my own mana supply. I was so angry that the memory feedback flashed at the back of my mind.
Completely ignored in my agitation. I was kind of glad that I could ignore just about everything whenever I was angry.
"He doesn't take kindly to people who threaten his friends," Savannah continued talking.
Erik took the hint, and slowly removed his hand from the hilt of the blade. I returned to completely human slowly as his hand relaxed down to his side. He'd forgotten that I wasn't human, or he'd underestimated the kind of power I could unleash. I noticed the others on the street now. I rolled my shoulders as I tried to relax.
"We were planning on coming here to begin with," Jax cut in, "We didn't trust Calen's ancient portal projector so we asked Wyatt to create a stable portal for us."