CHAPTER SEVEN

"Dammit," Percy muttered, lifting his shirt and sticking his dark hand through the torn seam in the arm, where it had caught on a branch during their journey.

Orion chuckled and stuck another chuck of bread into his waiting mouth. His stomach had been growling since dusk, and it was well towards midnight at this point. He chewed and swallowed before responding to his Beta. "Maybe you should learn to control that beast." He nodded over at the chestnut mare that was nibbling on the undergrowth near his silver mount.

Percy sneered at his friend and pulled the torn shirt over his head. The white fabric stood out easily in the dark, especially with their enhanced eyesight. He ran a hand through the course, curly black hair that covered his head, and lifted his plate of cold beans into his lap. "Not my fault the horse is nervous."

"Really? You don't think your pissy dragon had anything to do with it?" Orion tossed Percy a loaf of bread from the saddlebag next to him which Percy snatched easily from the air.

Percy shook his head. "He's just on edge because he saw Laura talking to that other male before we left and we've been gone for so long. Plus, the full moon is so close. He wants me to just fly straight home and claim her already. Be done with it and announce to the world that she's mine, and kill any other male who would dare look at her." Orion was surprised at Percy's dragon's bad mood; the beast was normally calm and easygoing, at least compared to Orion. But another male sniffing around his future mate was enough to send any dragon toward the edge. Orion chewed his meal thoughtfully while he waited to see if his best friend and second-in-command would elaborate. His patience was rewarded.

"I just want it to be special, you know? When I ask her to be my mate. I don't want to just jump her and mark her like some primitive beast. He doesn't get that and sees every moment she's not claimed by me as a moment another male is going to snap her up. It's strange, we're usually so in tune. But these human customs are lost on him." Percy turned to a loaf of bread in his hands a few times before he took a bite. Orion couldn't empathize with his friend, though he wanted to. He'd never been at odds with his dragon, but mating did that to a person. He and his dragon were one soul, one body, one mind, and he couldn't imagine it any other way. Even with the full moon coming up, his beast waited patiently for his turn to be in complete control. Sure, he was more on edge than usual, but he wasn't at war with his human side.

"I'm sorry, man, but are you going to do it soon? Ask her, I mean?" Orion wondered as he reached up to push a chunk of his shaggy brown hair out of his face. He absently reminded himself to buy some twine or something tomorrow so he could tie it back. Percy finally looked up at Orion his silver eyes, the color of his dragon's scales, and nodded. A wide grin spread across his face which left his straight, white teeth to stand out against the dark brown of his skin.

"Yeah, soon," Percy grinned wider, "but that's all you're going to get out of me, Alpha."

"Fine, fine," Orion raised his large hands in surrender. He'd let Percy have his plans, Laura would say yes no matter what. He lifted a spoonful of cold beans to his mouth. They couldn't risk a fire, for fear of being detected. He was tired of eating cold beans and bread, he was tired of sleeping in the middle of the wilderness with no fire, and he was tired of traveling. Percy and Orion had been sent on a mission by Orion's father, the Alpha of the Western Clan. A mission that could have been accomplished by lower-ranking members of the clan, in Orion's opinion. He had better things to do than run around chasing ghosts. A couple of dragons had disappeared from the clan and Leo wanted to know where they went. Orion and Percy had somehow been recruited to figure it out. Orion figured they'd just given themselves over to the dragon, that happened sometimes. Some people's dragons were just too powerful for the human half and they took over. They couldn't live in tandem. Leo was convinced that something happened to them, but he hadn't seen them in the weeks before they'd disappeared. They'd been slowly going crazy, and clan members had been telling Leo that, but he wasn't convinced. So, Orion and Percy were traipsing all across the kingdoms to see if they had decided to join the humans. Leo and the other Alphas of the clans forebode interaction with the humans unless strictly necessary, such as for trading purposes. There was too much of a chance that the humans would discover what they were, and they could risk that.