Southern Fried Dragon Read Free Page B

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