Dragon Knight-Commander (A Cullen Rutherford Shapeshifter Romance)

Chapter 4

The stars were out. No cloud cover, certainly no light pollution and the moon a crescent sliver in the endless black. I pulled my cloak around me, took the blanket from my bed and walked through the great hall and up towards the battlements. I passed many soldiers, maids and warriors that I now counted as friends. The inhabitants of Skyhold tended to burn the midnight oil.

I coped with my new life here by allowing myself only a set amount of time each day in my rooms to think about the past, my predicament and how to get home. Outside of that time I blocked out rogue thoughts that flit through my head. A memory of something from my past life, like a conversation with my best friend or my mother's cooking, had the power to produce an instant flow of tears and I was attempting to project an image of quiet confidence. Josephine had done a makeover on me. Like Maxwell, I was also a 'Herald of Andraste'. End of story. If I ever met this dead prophet Andraste, I'd be having a few words.

I was on my way to carry out a little plan I'd thought of during my allotted thinking time. At their highest point on the east side of the battlements, there would be nothing to disrupt my view of the entire night sky. Tonight I planned to stargaze. Up on the wall, I walked around the corner and saw Cullen bent over a trough of water, scooping up the liquid into a bottle a little at a time. Every so often he would glance up towards the moon, let the ripples on the surface settle and then carry on.

I retreated back behind the corner. Our acquaintance was very strained and becoming more so, not less. I barely saw him, but if our paths were about to cross at Skyhold it was not unknown for him to turn on his heel and take another route. He subtly moved at dinner if I sat near him and he frowned a lot. I only noticed this because I was so aware of him as a man. I had been at Skyhold for two months and daydreaming about the handsome Commander had become a popular pastime for me. 

Cullen treated me with a mixture of suspicion and respect. Sort of the two combined. Suspicion, because I was excluded from top level talks and he discouraged any personal interaction between us even though he was pleasant enough to everyone else. The respect meant I had become a key part of his war strategy, he included me in every mission against darkspawn and he had his sergeants train me with his troops as a warrior. I didn't mind the relentless physical activity. It stopped me from thinking about home or the sheer terror of what I was now doing as a day job. But the fact that he couldn't stand me and made it so obvious, didn't help with the homesickness.

Most days I travelled out on missions with the Inquisitor to subdue demons and darkspawn and on our return Cullen would invite me to the War Table to report and discuss tactics. Although Cullen listened to me, he did it under lowered brows and with as little eye contact as possible. The only time he would address me, he called me 'The Right Hand' which had become my moniker just as Maxwell was called 'The Inquisitor'. When he'd finished listening, he barked out his command, 'To work,' and dismissed me from his presence. In the 21st century that would make him a jerk. Everyone in Thedas seemed to think his behaviour was acceptable.

Out there, on the battlement, I didn't want to irritate him any more than I had already, so I decided to wait until he'd finished fishing or whatever the hell he was doing.

He suddenly straightened up and in three long strides dragged me out of the shadows with a dagger pressed at my throat. He had my back pulled up against his armoured body. I struggled but his grip kept me still. When he realised it was me he growled, 'You spy on me.' He let me go abruptly and held his hands back as if he'd touched something unpleasant.

I bristled, feeling a little guilty because he was half right. 'I haven't come to look at you. It's the first night without cloud cover. I want to look at the constellations here, see if I can recognise any - because that could help me pin down where I am in relation to where I came from. I saw you and was waiting till you left. What are you fishing for?' I walked over to the shallow water trough and looked into it, only to see bright stars and the scythe-shaped moon reflected back at me. 'Moonbeams and starlight?'