“Fine. I spent my evening schlepping supplies while you were on an amorous adventure with the Millbrook Inn’s prettiest serving wench.”
Flames seared Shaw’s cheeks. How much should he reveal of his so-called adventure? When would he see Miss Little again? He knew where she worked, so a second, more pleasant meeting should prove easy enough.
Why in blazes had he shared their nighttime rendezvous with others? He should have related the event in the alley without naming the victim so no other soldier would seek out her kisses. Jealousy rose, unwanted, and he must have frowned, because the corporal gave him a quizzical stare.
“Let me just share this. I tossed a few ruffians on their arse when they got a bit too friendly with a local.”
“Aiding the enemy, sir?”
“Enemy? We are federal soldiers. Though the politicians grumble and wail about the southern states wanting to secede, we are still one country. Besides, things might blow over. If not, we will most likely return to the north. In the meantime, our duty is to protect the harbor from invading forces.”
The corporal shrugged and set a man to rowing the small vessel across the harbor to Fort Moultrie. Shaw’s attention locked on the lights of Charleston, fading into the distance. The boat’s gentle bobbing lulled him into the peaceful twilight between wakefulness and dreams.
Dru’s face floated before him. She licked her berry-red lips, and winked. In shadow, her blue eyes shimmered with desire. Her brown hair floated behind her, curling at the ends. Her welcoming gaze stirred a fire in his loins that echoed in his heart. His fingers yearned to throw off his gloves and cup her small, perfect breasts.
When a large fish jumped beside the boat, splashing him, Shaw snapped back to reality. The sudden dousing of cold seawater woke him from a most enjoyable dream. The corporal laughed as Shaw wiped the salty spray from his cheek and prayed his men could not see the aching bulge between his legs.
CHAPTER 2
The next seven days passed as slow on a cold morning as the time it took to pour molasses. A salt-laden breeze filled Dru’s nostrils as rivulets of smoke escaped her snout. She sailed among the clouds, oblivious to the cold snap hovering over her adopted city, until tears welled in her eyes. Feathered eyelids lowered, sheltering her gaze as she searched the water below. Muscles snapped and wrenched as she drew her bony knees inward, gathering them close to her belly’s radiant heat.
Dru reveled in her life as a healthy, young Scottish dragon. Lips and nostrils of serpent skin opened wider, filling with the abundant taste and scent of aquatic life, mudflats, and winter. She loved days like today, along the South Carolina coast.
Curling her talons, salt-covered scales crackled. She gathered her leathery wings to her back and dropped lower. Dru flew close to the battlements, intent on swallowing a pelican or other fat seabird. The trick was to elude detection by the birds as well as the men inside the stone fortress under construction.
The walls of Fort Sumter had risen slowly over the past year. When she walked along the Charleston pier, she could now make out its five-sided silhouette. The tall stone walls and inner bailey reminded her of castles in the Scottish Highlands.
She missed Scotland, but she had come to realize she had no future among the craggy islands and moors. Having left her homeland, the loneliness she found in Charleston threatened to unhinge her mind, and throw her into the dark depths of despair.
Oh, she enjoyed working with Maggie and serving the myriad of men who came into the dining hall, but her life lacked male companionship.
Today, at least, she found pleasure in spying on the men stationed at the uncompleted fort. A dragon’s eyes could peer through the thickest sea fog or blackest night. For safety’s sake, she knew she ought to fly at night in search of food, but she loved to fly with the sun on her back. During the day or early evening, she finished her chores and escaped into the sky.
The harbor sailors and merchants appeared small as ants. As she flew high above the new fort, laborers worked tirelessly on the man-made rocky island in an ingenious, well-planned operation.
From behind a cloud, she spat seashells at the workers. A foolish, childish game and she knew it, but it served to pass the time. Hadn’t she done the same thing to the Selkies along the coasts of Ireland and Scotland? The difference between playing with the mythical creatures on the other side of the ocean? Dru never had to hide.
The situation here in Charleston proved different. Forced to hide from the humans, Dru knew keeping her existence secret took precedence.
Blazes!
The sun would rise in less than thirty minutes. She could not allow anyone to catch a glimpse of her true form. Her dragon existence gave her so much more, including the freedom to fly above the earth, and the ease in which she caught her food. Her physically superior makeup was unstoppable.
Powerful.
Lonely.
Dru shook off the pity party, swooped to a sandbar covered with waterfowl, plucked a slow bird, and broke her fast. With her hunger abated a bit, she licked her chops, flapped her great wings, and headed to shore.
The bird did little to satisfy her hunger. Maggie’s delicious southern fried chicken had spoiled her taste buds. Maggie promised to teach her how to make the succulent meal that made their tavern famous.
Returning to the clouds, she gave one last look toward the retreating battlements. Like a grand Scottish castle overlooking a strategic headland, Fort Sumter appeared destined to turn into a great fortress. The thick walls and armory would protect Charleston from any invaders. She’d seen the cannons off-loading on the dock beside the fort’s main gate.
Time to get back, she sighed to the wind.
Anticipation of serving the men who lived at the smaller Charleston-area forts made her scaled lips twitch. Men from Fort Moultrie, one such nearby fort, frequented the small tavern where she had taken a room. Speaking with the well-dressed federal soldiers helped her shed her shyness.
She had slowly grown accustomed to living among humans. However, she had no idea how she’d react if a certain handsome lieutenant walked in.
The one she’d kissed like a wanton woman.
Dru had quickly grown comfortable with the human body she’d borrowed from a young woman who had the unfortunate destiny to accidently die. The poor girl’s bad luck turned into a fortunate find.
For me.
Once Dru had set her mind on crossing the ocean, the American coastline—Charleston Harbor, in particular—had looked like as good a place as any in which to settle. For that bit of magic, she required a human body to fulfill the shift. The dead woman's stature, coloring, and age matched Dru’s idea of the human existence she coveted. She slipped into her life and incorporated the woman’s memories. She found her way to the Milltown Restaurant on Kings Street where Dru lived modestly, worked hard, and earned a living.
I don’t necessarily call it living.
Not with loneliness making the days pass slowly. Nights spent in her human form were cold and forever long. The roving eyes of men deep in their cups had kept her to herself most nights. She’d never been kissed by a human male until last week when Shaw Stenhouse took her in his arms.
Blazes!
The lieutenant’s kisses shocked her at first touch, when he feathered soft, warm lips against hers. How odd. She’d expected a man to feel hard and cold, not like silk and filled with passion so sweet it made her nearly swoon.
Dragons do not swoon.
But, a dragon had not kissed Shaw back. A young woman had wrapped her hands around his neck and pulled him down to her hungry mouth. Dru was that woman. The exquisite taste and tingly sensation even now filled her cold-blooded body with a heat not born of dragon flames.
If she hadn’t left Scotland and found a new home in America, she would never have met the attractive lieutenant. Odd that he could attract a dragon. His sparkling gray eyes seemed as drawn to her as she to him. He certainly filled out his uniform. She would swear on a mountain of ancient dragon
treasure that his interest prodded her belly through the crisp cloth of his breeches.
Dru had not wanted to leave her home across the sea. She had enjoyed life around the cave beneath the Isle of Skye, but hunters from the coastal Scottish clans had grown in number. They roamed over the land with their sharp-tipped arrows or bobbed too close to her home in their sea craft. Food sources had turned scarce.
They were not hunting her, but it was only a matter of time. The chance of discovery grew as the population on some of those forsaken islands grew. And the sheep! She found she disliked their wooly taste as much as seals. A new home suddenly proved imperative.
Life as a human had its high points. As a serving girl, Dru earned a few coins working at the Milltown Restaurant on lower King Street, near the docks. Her meager wages came with a cozy room in the attic that reminded her of her former Scottish cave.
Her room’s window opened onto a flat portion of the roof. Far from prying eyes, out of sight of the street or neighboring buildings, she freely took to the skies to catch her dinner.
Dru pulled her attention back to the present, and swooped down toward the rooftop near her tiny room. Her wings fluttered silently as she landed and instantly morphed into her human shape completely dressed for the day.
She inhaled deeply, and instantly regretted it. She scrunched her tiny human nose at the back alley’s sour odor, which sparked a memory of three human males cornering her there. She shivered, then rubbed her hands up and down her arms.
Her coworker, Maggie MacDonald, had asked her to fetch a sack of flour that fateful night. The gristmill’s slave had delivered the inn’s supplies that afternoon, but she and Maggie had been so busy in the tavern, she’d forgotten the task until darkness had fallen.
“Fried chicken don’t dip itself, lass,” Maggie had quipped. Dru had leapt at the chance to escape the confines of the hot kitchen. Unfortunately, she had stepped into mire stickier than a highland moor after a hard rain.
Blazes! A few drunken sailors nearly got the best of me.
Dru’s attention had wandered as it frequently did when she wanted nothing more than to fly among the clouds.
Or lie in bed with a man.
She’d watched mortals making love. The women appeared happy and content—at least the noisy ones. She remembered flying over the rooftops of Charleston when their screams and moans had piqued her curiosity. So, she did what any young dragon would do.
She spied on them.
Dru had peeked through bedroom windows of city townhouses and outlying plantations. To do so wasn’t the nicest thing she’d ever done, but how else could one learn? She was no virgin though her human host was. Distant memories of copulating in dragon form were fleeting.
Dru hadn’t sniffed another dragon for thousands of miles, unless you counted the underwater creature the Scots called the Loch Ness Monster. And Nessía was a female. She didn’t like to think of Nessía, a poor excuse for a dragon. She didn’t even have wings.
Her brother and sister dragons had scattered eons ago to eke out a living. To survive any way they could. Would she see any of them again? Dru smiled, until she remembered the night in the alley.
The bright note?
The handsome human soldier. Shaw promised to return in a week, and that meant today. What little they had shared had to sustain her until she saw him again. His kiss had filled her nights with heart stopping dreams. Shaw’s promise was the reason Dru looked forward to today.
The end of the longest week of my life.
Grabbing her apron from the peg on the wall, Dru slipped out of her bedroom. She skipped down two flights of stairs to the kitchen to face the day with smiles and happy thoughts, but came face to face with an employer sporting a disgruntled sneer.
CHAPTER 3
Surprised to find herself facing the woman who held her life inside her weathered palm, Dru’s chest filled with a sudden piercing dread. She backed up a step.
“Dru, dear, you are late again.”
“Beg pardon, Mistress Cumberland, I lost track of time.”
“Most likely you were sleeping off the day. Your hair is an unruly mess of brown curls.” The woman’s lips thinned and her gaze swept over Dru, searching for other flaws. “If you want to keep working here, you shall strive to arrive presentable and on time.”
“Understood,” Dru whispered. How could she have gauged her flight so poorly? She’d spent too much time thinking of Shaw and not enough time watching the rising sun. Dru dare not lose her job. The body and mind of the young girl she’d manifested into her current form only knew how to serve food and drink.
Rumors were spreading on an ill wind across the city. The possibility of war kept business owners from taking on new workers. If Mistress Cumberland let her go, how could she replace her perfect attic accommodations? Her nature needed the freedom to fly, and how would she find another flat roof large enough to hold up under the weight of a dragon?
Even a little one?
Smoothing her hair into a more serviceable bun, she tied on her apron as she waited for her employer to return to the dining room. Footsteps clicked along the wide plank floors and disappeared.
Maggie nodded to Dru.
Dru threw her a look of disgust softened by an apology. “Sorry I’m late. My mind wandered.”
“Ha! Ye were probably in yer little bed dreaming about a certain handsome lieutenant.” Maggie laughed, and returned to her cleaver and basket filled with chicken carcasses.
“Shush, Maggie. This week has dragged on so long, I feel I may go mad. What if he does not come?” Dru’s heart clenched deep inside her chest. How could a man’s simple kiss turn a mighty dragon into a simpering lass?
Because they had shared more than kisses.
“Hurry with those pitchers, Dru,” Mistress Cumberland called from the dining hall.
Dru jumped, surprised at her skittishness. Dru deemed her current employment important, but what more could she do than apologize? “What more does she want from me?”
Maggie turned, her cleaver held high in her tiny hand. Maggie’s brows arched as if she thought about her answer. Dru had never known Maggie to hold back.
“You have to understand, lass. Our employer is a widow running an inn and glorified tavern.”
“She calls it a dining hall.”
“Men come to eat and drink. Pretty tablecloths will never turn a sow’s ear into silk. Our employer is a woman in a man’s world. We are, as well.”
“Meaning what?”
“We are employed when most believe bad times are coming. She don’t hold slaves as other folks do, neither.”
Slavery fueled the big argument between the states. Newspapers recounted how it made American territories pick sides. A conflict brewed and Maggie worried it could easily escalate. Black people were of a different race, but no different from the humans she lived and worked around than her dragon was from other creatures her size. Many people of Charleston regarded slaves as less than human. What if the residents of Charleston discovered Dru’s true self?
Would they cast me out or throw me in chains?
Maggie wiped blood and chicken feathers from her hands, then rinsed them in a bucket. She picked up a basket of bread and strode toward the dining hall. “Best to do as she says. Yer lieutenant may appear at any time.”
Dru sighed when an image of the soldier’s striking face intruded on her thoughts. She managed to fill a pitcher with cider while her body hummed, the pleasure of their kiss making her want more. Wiping her sweaty palms on her apron, she bent over a bubbling pot. The pasty smell of porridge stopped her cold. As a born and bred carnivore, hiding her true nature took a toll at times.
She licked her lips at the basket of chicken. She couldn’t wait until Maggie rolled the pieces in flour and spices than fried the meat in hot oil. Dru longed to devour them.
Maggie strode back into the kitchen, an odd smile making her look ten years younger than her six decades. Dru’s defenses went on instant aler
t, readying for battle.
“What’s gotten into you? Has Mistress Cumberland suffered a sudden demise?”
The older woman sighed then nodded toward the dining room. “Soldiers from Fort Moultrie just walked in. Such a handsome lot, too.” Maggie’s eyes darkened. “ ‘Tis a pity their presence will stir others to eat elsewhere.”
“Are the locals hostile toward men doing their jobs? Don’t they realize the channel needs protecting?” Dru’s heart pounded, and her fingers tingled for a reason other than worry about a possible war. Had Shaw arrived with the men?
“Aye, he’s out there.”
“Who?”
“Yer fella. He’s straining his neck, glancing back here. I told him to be patient. His friends were making rude comments about you and him.” Maggie focused on Dru’s face. “Have you been doing something you shouldn’t?”
“Nay. Aye. I let him kiss me, ‘tis all.”
“Either his friends saw you two a’kissing, or he shared the news with them. Men are pigs. Be careful?”
“I will.”
Dru’s mouth watered at the mention of a favorite food source. She hadn’t tasted fresh pork on the hoof in several years. She rubbed her stomach and concentrated on the bubbling pot of porridge. A few quick stirs kept her fingers busy, and forced her feet not to run into the dining room and strangle the man. If Shaw had tattled to his friends, she might have to kill something.
Pig or human? She cared not. Not as long as she sank her fangs into meat. With a surge of anger, her fingernails elongated into talons and her teeth into fangs. Fire built down deep inside her lungs. She strained against her beastly nature to keep calm, tamping down the rage.
No sense divulging all my secrets to a roomful of soldiers.
How dare he spread tales of their intimate moment? Was she naive for assuming Shaw considered her special? Well, if he harbored the idea she might kiss him again anytime soon, Lieutenant Shaw Stenhouse had better brace for a rude awakening.
Southern Fried Dragon Page 2
