“I do not, but Havoc does.”
“Havoc?” My pulse jumped.
“The Dragon I’m with.”
No way it was my dream Dragon. “Isobel has a Dragon?”
“She has several at the moment. But not this one. He was imprisoned, but he escaped with me.”
Escaped? “You got away?”
He removed one hand to stroke my hair, his chaotic eyes drifting over my features as though he sought to memorize them. “Yes. Rafael set Havoc free, and we managed to escape.”
Rafael set them free—was that why I’d dreamed of him as a captive? But now Marcus was on the run… my mind raced. “Where are you now?”
“A realm called Tantora. However, I don’t know where we are in it, so that won’t help you find us. We are trying to locate a Watcher who can help us get away from here.”
“I might be able to do that,” I said, looking around. “Is this where you are right now?”
His brows lowered. “What do you mean? You can’t Jump to somewhere you have never been.”
“If I have a good enough image, I can. I’ve done it. And the Phoenixes do it, too.”
He froze, and then his fingers closed around my arms, and he pulled me to face him. His eyes flashed white. “This may be a living dream, Riley, but it’s still a dream. Nothing you see here is real.”
“This tree isn’t real? That trunk—it looks like an old woman’s face—“
His fingers tightened, and he shook me, just a little. “No, Riley. It’s too freking dangerous for you to do this. We’ll find the Watcher and get out of here on our own.”
“Fucking.”
“What?”
“It’s too fucking dangerous. And it isn’t. I will practice until I can do this, Marcus. If you show me where you are—”
He pushed me away from him, hard enough that I staggered. “No, Riley,” he repeated, and as he glared at me, I realized I could see the pond right through him. He was trying to wake himself up.
No, dammit. I flung myself at him, reaching up to sink my fingers into his hair. “You stay with me, damn it. Or I will try to Jump to you right now!”
“What? No!” He grabbed my arms again. “Don’t you dare!”
My dream, my rules—I stripped away every stitch I was wearing, and suddenly, he was holding a naked me in his grasp.
Lightning hit the pond. It crackled all around us, and my hair rose as though it were animated. Marcus’s did as well, and when I looked up, his eyes had gone completely silver. They flickered like the lightning around us.
I took one of his big hands, peeled it off my shoulder, and placed it over my breast.
He groaned, a deep, visceral thing, and black scales chased across his cheeks. I skated one hand up beneath his cloak, and he thrust almost desperately into my hand.
I couldn’t breathe, but I managed to gasp, “I want you, Marcus.”
“No.” But it was only a whisper, and his cloak vanished, leaving him gloriously exposed to the fine raindrops. They cascaded off contours that took the last air from me.
His own breath caught as I pushed my breast more firmly into his grasp. He tweaked the eager tip, and I gasped as sensation shot through to my core. Once, twice, three times, and then the hand dropped along my ribs and belly, over the curve of my hip to the juncture of my thighs. His big finger, with its warrior calluses, slipped into my silken folds. And began to stroke.
My head fell back. He took note of my every gasp and moan, and within moments he’d found the rhythm and motion. Warrior he may be, but he had an artist’s soul—he explored my body as though he worshiped every curve.
When the clever fingers of his other hand danced through the cluster of fine hairs along my spine, it drove me wild. I threw a leg up, trying to climb him and pushing his fingers deeper into me. But it wasn’t them I so desperately craved. I wrapped my fingers around what I sought.