Dragon Knight-Commander (A Cullen Rutherford Shapeshifter Romance)

Chapter 19

'Cullen, I have questions.'

I always had questions, but I'd come to know that in this place, the answers only led to vaster, stranger questions. Or questions earned me a look from the person I was talking to that was a sharp assessment of my sanity - as if I'd asked something nonsensical like why a centipede has a hundred legs. No answer to that. They just did. So sometimes it was easier to think 'ho hum' and resist asking 'why', when, say, Leliana talked about Grey Wardens being stuffed with magic red rocks which turned them into monsters. Go with the flow.

But I had questions specifically about him. I'd heard he grew up in Feralden, became a Templar at a young age and that path led him to the Inquisition. I now knew a princess had fallen in love with him along the way, he was a dragon and a titled Lord from Eden.

None of that mattered deep down - he was just Cullen. But every moment spent in his company made me never want to leave his company and to make the right choice about leaving or going I needed to get some fundamentals. For instance, had he ever eaten someone as a dragon, what were my in-laws like and were we going to be on the run from some vengeful Snow Queen for the rest of our days? Or did we have shared values like, say, not eating people? And could I actually cope with seeing him in dragon form on a regular basis? And did his dragon eat people?

Nerves tightened my stomach as we made our way hand in hand up the hill, away from camp in the dark.

'Fire away,' he said. He flashed me his signature bad-boy dragon grin.

'Actually, I have a ton of questions,' I said.

'I have questions too,' he said, still grinning. He pulled me into his warm body and lifted my chin with his hand. 'And they all start with "will you" and end with "wed me".'

My stomach flipped and tingled but I persevered. 'I need to know more about you.'

His eyes flashed. 'Aye, love. I forget. I can see your beautiful heart. You can't see mine.' He put his head to one side, 'Or can you, angel-touched? You can see the change in my eyes, you have no hair - are all your kind hairless in Inger Land?'

'No. Just since I arrived in Thedas. Is that a fallen thing?'

'No. It's an elf thing. Elves have only the hair on their head which they keep long like you, but you have no other elf characteristics and you look human. However, if you were human...'

'I would have body hair,' I finished for him.

I closed my eyes. Great. So I was now a card-carrying elf without the ears. Time to go home. Then I opened them and saw him gazing down at me like all his Christmases had come at once and changed my mind again.

He pulled out a glass vial of clear liquid from his large tote bag. 'I get it, kitten. Your heart must know me better before you let me claim you. I have packed this potion.' He replaced it in the bag. 'Encourage me the moment we land to take it. I think better around you when I'm bound. Promise me. I meant to discuss all matter of things with you yesterday but circumstances took over. Make me take it. There is much I wish to share with you. There is much I wish you would share with me.'

He strode ahead, pulling me behind him. At the apex of the hill, he changed out of his breeches and muscle top and stuffed his clothes in the bag. He'd also brought some furs and a skin of water.

I took a deep breath and tried to ignore that he was very naked. 'So. What's the best way of doing this? Shall I climb on your back once you're a dragon?'

He looked deeply shocked and then confused. 'On my back? I thought in my hand, where I can see you are okay.'

I pinched my lips together then said, 'Whatever normally works, I'm game.' No, I was terrified.

He threw back his head and laughed. 'My brave, brave kitten.' He placed a hand on my chest.' I can hear your heart, always. When you lie to me, it hammers away. You have nothing to fear. I haven't carried anyone before, but I don't foresee any problems.'

'You haven't flown anyone before?' My voice came out rather high-pitched. 'Why not?'

He gave me a look like he was assessing my sanity then said, 'No one ever wanted to.'

I started questioning my own sanity. I coughed. 'So. I should just put the furs in your...' foot  'hand, hop on and you'll remember I'm there? At all times?'

He stepped closer and drifted his knuckles around my face, along my cheek, down to my chin, up over my lips. 'There is hardly a time, love, when I am not thinking of you.' His eyes darkened.

I saw where this was going and he was naked so I stepped back and said, 'Will you understand what I say if I speak to you?'

He gave me a look like he was assessing my sanity then said, 'Of course.'

'Great. Let's do this.'

I could hear my own heart hammering as he transformed. Sinewy, alien limbs grew from his body; the scales rippled out like a shoal of golden fish startled by a predator. Everything increased in size until you expected it to stop then it became bigger and bigger. Something in my DNA must have been jumping up and down, warning me to run, because it took all my willpower to stay on the hilltop beside him. Finally, like a ginormous wet dog, he shook his body and its muscles out and stood before me: a dragon.

I froze. Everything suddenly seemed like a very bad idea: Flying in a foot, having a relationship with someone who could fly me in their foot and hurling myself into a void inside a mountain. The details about getting home were so sketchy. It was all bonkers. A last straw threatened to break my resolve. Besides, the Inquisition needed me. They were going up against the biggest demon threat they'd ever faced and I was choosing to abandon them. These people were my friends. Perhaps Cullen could go and fetch Elena back here instead. My heart sank. My sister was stubborn. If there was a void to hurl herself into, Elena would do just that.

The dragon, sorry, Cullen, unfurled a foot the size of a room, held it cupped with the toes and claws pointing upwards. The surface of his foot was brown and leathery. I craned my neck up to look at his face. At least he didn't have reptilian, lizard-shaped eyes. They were oval, liquified gold and predatory.

He turned his head fully towards me, bent his neck and winked.

'Ho hum,' I thought, 'Go with the flow.' I climbed up into the palm of his foot. His toes closed around me into a fist. Then he took off.