Free Big Flight by Zenina Masters Page A

one.
     
    “Do you have the family donations?” The transporter smiled hopefully.
    “They weren’t donations so much as shed feathers, but yeah, here they are.” Molly held out the offerings. Her parents’ feathers were huge and dark next to her rose-tinted white wing feather.
    “Right. So, vulture feathers?” He looked at the donations cautiously.
    “Condor, but part of the vulture family. I am just plain old king vulture.”
    “Oh. Okay. Let me write that down.” He swallowed nervously and flicked a glance toward her.
    She couldn’t understand his flap until she glanced down and saw that her top two buttons had come undone. The sapphire-blue lace of her bra was peeking out. She sat back and did one button up again.
    Her transporter blushed and busied his gaze with the paperwork.
    She registered a means of payment for the services and objects she would be needing at the Crossroads. A manicure was definitely in order.
    “And you want space at one of the bed and breakfasts?”
    “Yes, please. This is a new start, so I had better plan for how I want it to go. I will start it comfortable and taken care of, even if I have to pay.”
    He blinked. “That is a very grim view of your future.”
    “My parents won’t help me find a mate because I am a different breed of vulture than they are. The Mayan worship of my kind doesn’t matter; a history of respect in the wild doesn’t matter. My kind eat first at every carcass. That doesn’t matter.”
    His earlier interest faded rapidly. “Vulture. Right. Well, we are all set. The transport window will be here in three hours. You have time to get a coffee downstairs if you like.”
    She nodded. “Yes, just be here when I come back. Three hours?”
    “Be here in two and a half.”
    Molly nodded, picked up her purse and left her bag in the transporter’s office. She trotted downstairs and got a latte, sitting on a comfortable chair in the corner and watching the clock.
    She was sure that this was the right thing to do.
    When she was eight, her family had gathered around, her younger sisters watching with wide eyes because their turn would come soon enough. They had stood out in the backyard and Molly’s first change had washed through her. She had moved the blanket off her body with her head and stepped out, flapping to gain the first of the roosting posts.
    The shock and horror in her parents’ eyes had seared her, and she had shifted back to human as quickly as she could. She begged her parents to make her like them, but the die was cast, she was similar but different. She had broken the family history for breeding true, and to her surprise, her parents blamed her for it.
    The rest of her life consisted of being hidden from the other condor families as well as the other avian. She had asked her parents to find her a mate when she was a teen, but they told her it wasn’t done in today’s day and age. When Celeste wanted a mate, she had one in four months. Sissy had bagged one in two.
    Oddly enough, she had not been invited to any of the dinners where her sisters met their matches. The hurt had grown until it was all that she could think of whenever she saw her family, their name or the teahouse.
    They could have asked her to go at any time, but she was useful and you never discarded something useful.
    With her time up, she grabbed her purse and headed back to the transporter office. It was time to seek out her own destiny, even if she had to go three districts from her own to find a transporter who would do it.
    He was ready for her, so she grabbed her bag and stepped into the circle on his floor. There was a flash, and she was on her way to the Crossroads, the first step in a new life.
     

Chapter Two
     
     
    Damon Suel finished his report for the Shifter Council, and he rubbed his face.
    His sister poked her head around the corner. “Are you ready for the party?”
    He snorted. “No, and damned no. Why does Aunt Lea insist on them?”
    “Because she is