Welcome Welcome! Here we are at Chapter SEVEN! Holy crap... 0.0

ROIGHT! Please let me know if you are enjoying this!

This chapter took me a while, because I had absolutely NO idea what to do for a while, plus I've been piled upon by film work, writing chapters of my novel and drawing excessively. So here I (FINALLY) have the next chapter for you lovelies! ^_^

MAUHAHAAAAH

DISCLAIMER::::::: I DO own this fanfic idea, HOWEVER I do not, I REPEAT, do NOT own the idea/rights to DragonHeart 1 and 2 nor do I own the characters. The only characters I own are Daray and Becca ^_^

Chapter 7: Lycanthropy

"Dammit… whatever I do I just can't do anything right can I?" Becca huffed while she tried to pull the snapped arrow from her shoulder. The shaft had broken when she had gone tumbling backwards back at the monastery, once some stupid boy decided to thwack her with the flying weapon. Though he had missed her head, thankfully, he had provided a problem for Becca. Despite being able to heal ridiculously fast, the skin and muscle couldn't tie back together because of the wooden arrow in its way, therefore it was starting to mesh with the arrow as much as it was with skin.

She huffed again, "I'll have a new body part if I don't get that out soon!" snarling angrily she tried to reach it again with her teeth. In any other circumstance she would have transformed and yanked it out with her hands, but she didn't want to risk speeding up the healing by changing her form. So Becca was stuck spinning in a circle trying to get her teeth around the splintered end of the arrow. But the stupid thing was just far enough that she was having difficulty reaching it with only her head.

'You look utterly ridiculous you know,' laughed Draco.

Becca snarled angrily, "Shut up! Why are you in my head anyways?" she barked in frustration.

'Because, I'm here to help you,' he said calmly.

"HAH! Then help me get this out!" she roared.

She could sense a small smirk, it wasn't a visible kind of smirk but more of the idea of a grin. 'No, I think you can handle it yourself. Think of my being here as more of… moral support,'

The wolf narrowed her eyes, "More like my own personal, bothersome voice in my head. People would say I was becoming a schizophrenic," she laughed madly. Finally getting her teeth around the shaft. Nearly howling with joy, Becca began to tug, the joy turning to intense agony as she wrenched the wood from her shoulder. Clenching her teeth she pulled harder, nearly shrieking when pain lanced through her body like veins of lighting.

"Ow, ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. OW!" she yelped when the arrowhead pulled past muscle, blood vessels, and fur, making an awful slicking, squelching, slopping sound as it exited her body. "I freaking HATE arrows!" barked the wolf, tossing the bloody stick on the ground and glaring at it with hatred in her blue eyes. Then she trotted off into the forest, her skin itching while the long open wounds stitched themselves back together.

She could hear a gentle laugh from Draco, and she frowned, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, laugh all you want. I'm hungry…"

'Oh? I actually don't think I've ever seen you hunt,' he said curiously, 'is it like how I hunt?'

Now it was Becca's turn to smirk, "Hah! No way, dragons may be great hunters, and I don't mean to toot my own horn but wolves are very complex with hunting plans. Even when alone we scheme and plan our paths carefully, so that it will be the best possible outcome for us," she explained, feeling like a teacher for some odd reason.

"I'm not meaning to show you up or anything like that you know, it's just the way we are. And werewolves are probably the most tactical," she perked her ears as she listened for paw steps or noises of other prey that she could catch.

Draco chuckled, 'No actually I find it quite interesting, when I was with you and Bowen I didn't get to learn much about you or werewolves,"

The wolf sniffed carefully at a set of tracks that were several hours old, "Actually the proper term for werewolf is Lycanthrope. It's a derivative of the Greek term Lykànthropos, it's the power of a human undergoing a transformation into a werewolf or a wolf-like creature," Becca yapped in her head, her tail swishing back and forth calmly as she spoke.

'You sure have studied up on this…' commented the dragon, making Becca twitch her wiskers.

"Well if I want to know about myself then I should right? Anyways, I'm a little different seeing as I can shift at will and that I am more wolf-like than human when in this form. Though being bitten turned me, I don't think of it as a curse. To me it was a way to live, since I was dying when I was turned," crouching low she began to stalk a particularly large hare she had scented a few seconds ago. The wolf crept up on the unsuspecting prey, her stormy eyes filled with hunger.

'Is it painful? When you transform?'

Becca flicked her ear, "Not really, it was at first but now I'm so used to the feeling of my body shifting that it doesn't hurt as much," she froze, muscles tensed like a coiled spring. "And I don't drink blood like some myths, I can live forever though I can die from silver, decapitation, celery, and perhaps wolfsbane,"

A questioning thought came from Draco, 'Why was celery on that list? It's just a plant…'

"IT'S THE DEVIL! CELERY IS AN UNHOLY VEGETABLE AND DESERVES TO GO DIE IN A PUMPKIN PATCH FULL OF MUD AND ROTTEN FRUIT! LIKE CENTIPEDES…." She raged, just as she emerged from the bushes and spotted the hare nibbling on a patch of grass. Becca leapt forward, a blur of honey-brown fur, and snatched the animal in her mouth, killing it with a swift bite to the neck. As the body went limp in her jaws, Becca shook it to make sure the back was snapped, "And besides… it's just a repellant, it can't KILL me,"

'I see… this is all very interesting. I would much like to see you hunt larger prey,' he mused, like a scholar who studies a cat. 'You didn't tell me much about yourself when we were traveling together, and I don't think I've ever seen you hunt,'

Becca grinned while she trotted off to find a quiet place to eat her snack, "Well for one, I'm always hungry, add that to your list of things you know about me," she smirked and lay down in a sandy hollow surrounded by birch and pine trees. Discarding the brownish fur of her prey with her long red tongue, the wolf began ripping the carcass apart with her fangs and swallowing the meat whole.

'You eat like an animal,' he pointed out.

She scoffed, "Bowen said the same thing when he watched me eat a deer back then… how funny," she finished the hare in less than ten minutes, when there was nothing but bones and bloodied fur left she dug a deep hole and buried the leftovers out of respect. "Dang… I'm still hungry…" she glanced around.

Then a peculiar, yet familiar scent caught her nose and she stopped, standing in the hollow like a statue. Her ears pricked forward and her tail fluffed out like a bush, hackles raised and the fur on her spine prickled as if an electric current were passing through her.

'What is it? What's wrong?'

A deep growl resonated from her throat, "I thought you'd be able to tell me… but I don't like this atmosphere… everything is… too quiet…" and she was right, the birds weren't singing, there weren't any rustlings of smaller animals in the brush, not even a breeze stirred the deathly still trees. It was an unnatural silence.

Why do I feel so on edge? She thought warily as she picked her way forward to a small incline, something's wrong… her hackles raised as she reached the crest of the rise and saw a wide open space and a small road stretching along below her. Keeping to the trees she crouched when she saw five dark figures on horseback just underneath her hill. They were speaking in such hushed voices that it was obvious they weren't just hunters or travelers out for a lovely stroll in the forest. Inching forward and down the steep decline, she kept to the shadows of the undergrowth so they wouldn't see her, incase they were some of the men who attacked her before.

Draco's consciousness did not fade as she approached them, 'Be careful…' he said quietly.

"Sure thing bud, I'm just going to try and hear what they're saying," when she got to the ground level she could see that one of the men was Geoff, he was not mounted and was standing and talking with Daray. Relief flooded over her and she was about to jump out and surprise him when a thread of their conversation caught in her ears.

"—You knew she was a demon! Why didn't you tell me this Geoff?"Daray sounded furious Geoff just shrugged and smiled.

"She is an old friend, that is why I want to find her as soon as we can and get this whole mess straightened out," he explained, "And she isn't a demon! She might have demonic skills and probably a demonic tongue when it comes to speech, but she is not evil,"

Daray laughed darkly, the laugh annoying Becca to the core, "Not evil? What girl transforms into a wolf the size of a draft horse? That is a monster wearing a child's skin!" he crossed his arms and scuffed his boot on the ground in agitation, "Plus she's friends with that beast that follows you around all the time, you should just forget about the both of them,"

Geoff's hand gripped the pommel of his sword, "Don't you dare talk about Drake like that," he said dangerously, a tone of voice Becca had never heard him use before, one that scared her half to death. "He saved my life, and I can't be alive without him, Becca and Drake are my oldest friends and I will not have you tarnishing them with foul words," the boy stormed off to another end of the procession, fuming angrily.

Well said Curly! She snorted quietly to herself, remaining hidden from view.

Three men approached Daray once Geoff was gone, he leaned towards them and whispered, "Make sure you find that dog before he and his pet do, I want her body at my feet by morning,"

One of the men frowned, "Sir, why are you trying to hunt down a wolf? That's practically impossible in these woods,"

Daray grabbed the man by the collar of his tunic, "Because you moron! That animal isn't worthy of living, after what she did to my family…" letting him go Daray dismissed the frightened man and sauntered towards his horse, mounting up he led the company down the west side of the road, heading deeper into the forest. Becca growled inwardly as she watched them go, furious at Daray for talking about her and Drake in such a manner.

I swear, that guy is bad news… I don't like him one bit, the werewolf shook herself and stretched out of her cramped position, her tail arching above her back while she did. He doesn't like me or Drake, and why did he say that I did something to his family? I've never met the guy before in my whole life until now! Becca frowned as she rose out of the bushes and onto the road, her large bulk frightening away a small bird nearby. I'm going to get to the bottom of this, whatever it takes…

She dashed forward, following the trail westward but keeping back enough so that she would not be noticed if Daray had set sentries behind him. If it was her they wanted, well, they would have to watch their backs, literally.

and so our story is at a standstill D8

What the heck is Daray's PROBLEM here? He's a snarky b***eep now isn't he? Oh well, we must now await the writing of another chapter my lovelies! THANK YOU FOR READING! 8D Please leave a comment and a cookie before you leave ^_^ (if you have no cookies, hugs are WONDERFUL...!)