Dragon Bites

by Badger, Nancy Lee

  When the boats sent by the major landed at Charleston’s wharf, his men tossed their wares aboard. He’d sent one man to the other nearby taverns to spread the word. More men arrived loaded with crates of winter vegetables and bags of apples. A stiff breeze whipped across the bay, a subtle reminder of December’s possible inclement weather. Shaw forced himself not to turn to see if she watched him leave.

  ***

  Christmas day passed in quiet, a solemn day made more so as the troops at Fort Moultrie packed up supplies and armaments. Major Anderson spread the word that they would abandon the fort, and move everything to the partially completed Fort Sumter.

  Shaw worried for their safety. The newer fort, still under construction, held little in the way of supplies. Food rations consisted of whatever they would take with them. He feared many meals of potato soup filled his future.

  He missed Dru, and prayed she enjoyed the peace of the holiest of days. Had she received his tiny gift? His silly gesture? He’d gathered seashells and placed them inside a canning jar. Finding a piece of pale blue ribbon that matched her eyes had been difficult, but he could not let her think he’d forgotten her.

  How could I?

  No woman had ever made him feel this way. Happy and in pain at the same time. Maybe the impractical gift would brighten her day. The corners of Shaw’s mouth pulled uncontrollably into a grin. Major Anderson marched to his side.

  “Plans go well I assume, from the smirk on your face.”

  Shaw inhaled sharply and turned to face his commanding officer. “Yes, sir. We have nearly finished filling the boats. The men have orders to be up before dawn.”

  “Make sure we spike the cannons before we leave.”

  “Sir?”

  “We cannot leave weapons for the enemy. They would use them against us.”

  “Understood.” Shaw sighed. War loomed. Back in Charleston, townspeople he drank with would just as soon shoot him in the head, now.

  “Set fire to the wooden gun carriages once most of the boats have departed. No sense signaling, and bringing attention to our transfer to Fort Sumter.”

  ***

  After a sleepless Christmas night, a cold, dreary morning found Shaw dressed and out among the men. Men whose faces wore frowns of despair. They had disabled the cannons. Torches stood ready to lay waste to the remainder of the camp. Shaw saluted his superior when the major silently joined him at the dock.

  “Lieutenant, are all the men aboard ship?”

  “Aye, sir, except for a dozen standing ready to torch the carriages.”

  “Send a couple of those men to chop down the flagpole.”

  “Sir?”

  “If a secession government plans to occupy this fort, they damn well will not hoist their secessionist excrement on my flagpole.”

  ***

  Dru caressed the glass jar that she had received yesterday. An old fisherman had arrived at the kitchen door with a parcel from Shaw. Even with the unexpected jar of pretty seashells, the dreary day passed slowly. Today, news of the secession, as well as talk about the abandonment of Fort Moultrie, passed between the patrons.

  Dru wanted to take flight and find Shaw. Was he alright? Where could he and his fellow soldiers have gone? Would she ever see him again?

  She missed his kisses, but wanted him to stay safe. Her heartbeat pounded in her human chest when she dreamed of him. Her body softened when she remembered his taste, his smell, and the feel of his naked chest as he rose over her.

  Why had Mistress Cumberland interrupted them? Her body had made ready for his, welcoming him. Frustration filled her nights since he kissed her cheek and returned to Sullivan Island.

  Now? He’d left Fort Moultrie for places unknown.

  Maggie muttered something.

  Dru refilled the pitchers, then tossed pieces of Maggie’s fried chicken on a platter. The aroma made Dru’s stomach growl. “Maggie, speak up. I cannot offer my opinion if I do not know the question.”

  “I am complaining, that be all. I would rather be abed. My head aches and I feel the cold, today.”

  Dru smiled. The weather had turned blustery, but warmer than the winters she spent in Scotland. “Why not take to yer bed? I can handle the few men who have not the sense to keep to their homes this day.”

  “Ah, you are a lovely lass. What would Mistress Cumberland say?”

  “She’s off to church then to her daughter’s home for dinner.”

  Maggie removed a large tray of biscuits from the oven, then wiped her hands on her apron. She sighed as she kissed Dru on the cheek, then trudged up the back stairs. The peck on the cheek, so similar to Shaw’s kiss, did not ignite her senses the way they sparked to life when Shaw drew near.

  Dru hefted the pitcher of cider, foregoing the ale. Men had no need to get in their cups tonight. Cradling a basket filled with Maggie’s biscuits, she pushed through the door separating the hot kitchen from the much cooler dining hall.

  As she walked among the tables, a half a dozen men nodded. She filled their tankards and offered biscuits. Her heightened dragon hearing caught their conversation. The tone sounded tinged with anger, while some chuckled.

  “Aye, they turned tail and ran,” one man said.

  “The fort is burning. Nobody’s home, I hear.”

  “Are you talking ‘bout the soldiers from Fort Moultrie?” Dru asked, biting her bottom lip for her impertinence.

  “We are, woman. The soldier boys are cowards.” Laughter filled the dining hall.

  Dru forced a smile, though inside she worried about Shaw. The fort was aflame? Where was he?

  “Where have they gone, do ye suppose?” she asked, pouring more cider to delay her return to the kitchen. She would rather take flight, follow Shaw’s scent, and carry him to safety. Maybe, all the way back to Scotland.

  “I have no idea,” one man said, before downing his cider.

  “I know.”

  All heads turned toward a spry old fisherman who had settled by the front window. Dru recognized him as the kind man who’d delivered Shaw’s gift. He sat alone with a cup of tea.

  “What do you know, Joseph?” A large dockworker stood and tossed the man a hot biscuit. Joseph caught it on the fly without moving more than one arm.

  “I’ve me sources, boys.” Joseph smiled.

  Dru walked over to his table and poured him a tankard of cider. She would not return to the kitchen, even to reheat his tea, until she heard what he knew about the soldiers.

  “They moved camp, ‘tis all.”

  “Moved where?” asked another patron. Everyone went quiet, as if Joseph was a storyteller, guiding the story to its mysterious conclusion.

  “Fort Sumter, in the bay.”

  CHAPTER 8

  All them Federal soldiers jumped ship and landed at Fort Sumter. I swear on a stack a bibles that’s where they went, and in haste.”

  “What? You’re daft, old man.”

  “I agree with Lawrence, Joseph. That old pile of rocks isn’t complete. It cannot be defended.”

  “It is a better defensive post than Moultrie, and a danger to all of Charleston. I bet it has dozens of cannons planted in the unfinished walls facing this very building.”

  The pitcher shattered on the tavern’s wide plank floor. All eyes turned on Dru. She shook uncontrollably. Nerves and anger warred inside her shifter body. How could these men laugh and joke while others prepared to fight? Perhaps die?

  “Are you okay, lass?” Joseph appeared at her elbow.

  “I am fine, sir. It slipped. Sit yerself back down and I’ll bring you some of Maggie’s famous southern fried chicken.” Dru rushed to the kitchen, all the while worrying about Shaw.

  ***

  “The secessionist’s rag-tag troops captured Fort Pinckney last night,” Major Anderson said.

  A rumble of unease drifted through the crowd. Several men strained to gaze over the battlements toward the fort on a small island off the coast of Charleston.

  “The southern militia
’s blatant seizure of United States property is only the first. War is coming, and we must be prepared. No one is to leave the fort. No fishing except from the rocks. No use of boats for any reason. Do not call out or respond to any passing boaters.”

  Shaw groaned. How could he visit Dru? He’d planned to leave tonight to let her know he now lived at Fort Sumter. His body ached, and his palms grew sweaty each time her image filled his head. Sometimes, when the breeze, filled with the tang of the sea, wafted over his face he thought of her. When he drank his ale amid his fellow soldiers, he listened for her laughter.

  “Your orders, sir?” Shaw asked.

  “Keep sentries posted, have the guns ready, and continue building up the walls. Oh, and don’t eat all the rations. Relief supplies will not arrive for quite some time. We had no need for any shipments, with Charleston so close.”

  “You have sent word north?”

  “I am sure the president is aware of our situation. Dismiss your men, Lieutenant.”

  Shaw gave the orders and turned away from his commander. He headed toward Fort Sumter’s battlement, the section facing Charleston’s wharves. As the day passed, he returned every couple of hours to the same spot, the closest point between him and Dru. The yearning for her had turned into a raw, burning need to taste her again. How cruel to find a woman like Dru and then be denied her love.

  Love?

  She liked him, obviously, and had welcomed him into her bed. But, had she fallen in love with him? He had no idea if she was an innocent maid, or a woman who invited all the tavern customers to her room. She had certainly pointed him toward a convenient exit when a knock on the door interrupted their lovemaking.

  Shaw rubbed his bruised backside at the memory. He pulled his focus away from Charleston and headed to the mess hall.

  After a dinner of watered-down potato soup and stale bread, Shaw walked the southern wall and stared out over a sandbar covered with birds. He had to squint, since the sky darkened quickly in December. He kept walking until he spied the lights of Charleston. Shadows enveloped him, as his thoughts grew as dark as the night. Shaw reached in his uniform’s pocket, pulled out an apple, then tossed it high in the air. It disappeared.

  Squinting through the darkness above him, Shaw saw an ominous shape that hovered, then grew closer. He turned, and ran.

  ***

  I scared him, thought Dru as she gathered her wings and dove toward the surface of the water, well below the battlements. Chomping on the apple, she dipped and rose again, scaring several seabirds on their way back to their nesting grounds. The look of fear that had marred Shaw’s handsome features concerned her, but beneath it he looked hale and hardy.

  She came to Fort Sumter in order to see if the alarming news she had overheard at the inn proved true. Finding Fort Moultrie smoking and deserted, how else could she discover what had happened?

  She flapped her wings then caught a chilly updraft. Shaw looked well, though a bit befuddled. What went through his head while he stood alone, his attention locked on Charleston? His gaze hadn’t wavered. How else had she slipped in and stolen the fruit? Then, he screamed.

  At me.

  His obvious terror reminded Dru why she had kept her existence secret her entire life. Scottish mythology was ripe with nonsensical stories. Yet, the truth loomed. She and her kind existed, and were very much alive. Could Shaw Stenhouse accept the truth of her genetic makeup?

  ***

  Shaw clutched a hand over his mouth, and quieted another scream. Unworthy of a military soldier, you fool.

  Safe below the upper wall, he leaned against the huge, bottle-shaped Rodman gun, but his heart rate refused to slow. He felt nauseated.

  “Must be the potato soup.” Shaw laughed, then burped. What had he spied flying above him? Shaw gave his head a shake, closed his eyes, then sat on the cannon’s low base. Several soldiers walked by in the gathering darkness, and nodded. They should have saluted, but he wasn’t in the mood to pull rank.

  Everyone around the fort acted nervous. Everything had changed when the major ordered them to abandon Fort Moultrie.

  A queasy stomach, shaken nerves, and an apple-stealing creature of smoke filled him with a sense of foreboding. Not his idea of a nice evening. He’d rather stroll along the waterside with Miss Dru Little.

  Had she appreciated his gift? He’d happened across a local fisherman rowing home past the fort. He had paid him to deliver his gift. Placing the bauble and coin in a stranger’s hands required a leap of faith. Had he gone to see Dru, or had he kept all for himself?

  “If the kind-faced angler rowed straight home with his fish and Dru’s gift, would she think I’d forgotten her on the holiest day of the year?”

  “Have faith,” someone whispered on the wind.

  In his desperation, his mind played tricks on him. He couldn’t stop thinking of Dru’s kisses and how they warmed him from the inside out. Shaw’s body stirred as he recalled her dewy skin and bright blue eyes and how she had stared at his erection.

  Shaw hardened, painfully, and squirmed.

  Delving inside her sweetness wasn’t his intention that day, but he’d wanted nothing more once she’d pulled him inside her bedchamber and started to disrobe. “Too bad her employer knocked on the door.”

  He laughed at the memory and how his erection had quickly turned flaccid. Then, he’d jumped out her window. Luckily, the sacks of potatoes had broken his fall.

  ***

  No note, no word. Dru had heard nothing from Shaw since she received his Christmas present. Even his gift had arrived in the hands of a stranger. Spying on him as he walked the battlements tortured her with the yearning to taste his mouth again. Did he miss her?

  She had lived a long time, mainly around the islands off the coast of western Scotland. Familiar with war, and soldiers, Dru knew communication was possible. Why, then, had he forsaken her? She had taken to the air with a mixture of curiosity and unrequited lust for a soldier with long, dark hair. His Scottish roots were easy to see in his build and manner, though not in his American twang.

  Dru knew little about the man besides what he'd revealed. Born in New York State to Scottish parents, he’d earned a commission in the army and was unmarried.

  During lonely nights, after their intimate kisses, she’d toyed with the idea that he wanted a wife. Would she consider becoming a human male’s mate?

  The concept seemed strange yet she had heard of many of her fellow Scottish dragons who had given up the freedom of the air, to take on the mantle of an earthbound human. Dru loved to fly. Crossing the Atlantic Ocean had turned into a painful trial, but she had accomplished the journey alone, and had hoped she’d put an ocean between her and the horrid creature she named The Black Dragon.

  Unfortunately, the bastard’s familiar scent popped up in the strangest places. Near the bookbinder’s shop, and on the sea breeze that blew in from Charleston Harbor. From the corner of her eye, when flying high over the land, she once thought she'd spotted another dragon. She prayed her eyes had deceived her. She loved Charleston, her adopted home in America and didn’t want to leave. Besides, she loved Shaw.

  I love Shaw Stenhouse.

  The truth hit her in the snout. Smoke trickled from her nose, as her wings beat to take her higher into the night. The air, crisp with the threat of sleet, filled her lungs, but did nothing to calm her thoughts.

  War would decimate Charleston. If she believed the men at the inn, the war would certainly grow in intensity. What would happen to Shaw?

  ***

  Months of unease passed in a country on the brink of war. April’s spring flowers bloomed while food supplies dwindled. Day after day, Shaw rose before the sun and put his men to work. He ate very little from the diminishing rations, and dreamed of Dru. The southerners who voted to secede from the Union, had elected Jefferson Davis as president of the confederate states.

  “I know Davis, and the news is not good. As a former soldier, senator, and Secretary of War, he has the know
ledge that might prolong this conflict,” Major Anderson said. News rarely made its way to the soldiers hunkered down at Fort Sumter, but several fishermen had taken pity on them.

  “I hear tell he will rally his forces and sweep across the nation. I fear we are a convenient target.”

  “I agree, Lieutenant. Here we sit, perched on a big rock within cannon range of secessionists. Only time will tell. Are the big guns ready?”

  “Most are in position.” Shaw paused. “Food is running low, sir.”

  Cannon fire had turned away the supply ship, The Star of the West, last January. His commander nodded and strode away toward his war office, which was in the section housing the officer’s quarters.

  Shaw returned to his duties by way of the nearest stair tower, while the image of Dru hovered in his head like a specter. He exited the covered stairway onto the left flank gun ports, behind the enlisted men’s barracks.

  Staring out over the small expanse of water, he focused on the buildings in the distance. Past Castle Pinckney and across Charleston Harbor, lived the woman who constantly filled his thoughts with a longing so intense, it drove all rational thoughts away. His body shook with lust.

  Lust?

  Or, with love for a woman who had captured his heart and turned him on his head?

  Will I ever see Dru again?

  CHAPTER 9

  Dru’s stomach growled. The night was warm with the promise of spring and Dru was ravenous. Earthy scents of seaside gardens filled with honeysuckle in bloom filled her snout, but she wanted meat. Night after night, after she dined on seabirds. Not even Maggie’s fried chicken could keep her from returning to the fort, hoping to catch a glimpse of Shaw. Most nights, she returned to her bed, unfulfilled.

  Word had circulated about the eighty-five federal soldiers stationed at Fort Sumter. Most of the regiment kept out of sight, behind the cannon ports or barracks. A few ventured out to fish from the granite rocks strewn along the fort’s base or on the short wharf.