Free Halcyon Rising by Diana Bold

— she knew she had somehow slipped from his memories into his dreams. He was having a nightmare about the terrible slaughter, and she’d managed to join him there.
    Unable to resist the urge to offer him comfort, she went to his side, taking his arm and trying to lead him away from the battle.
    He resisted, holding out his bloodstained hands. “I cannot wash the blood away. I will never be able to wash it away.”
    “Come with me. I’ll help you.”
    He lifted his anguished green gaze. “You are not supposed to be here. Is it not enough that you fill my waking mind? Must you invade my dreams as well?”
    She blinked away a sudden rush of tears, both saddened and thrilled by his words. This thing between them was more powerful than she’d ever imagined, yet she could see no happy ending for them, only sorrow and regret.
    “I’ve come to ease your pain. I only want to help you the way you helped me.”
    “I do not even know your name,” he answered, though he allowed her to turn him away from the battle.
    “My name is Rhoswen.” The reality of the dream made her heedless of the need for caution. Her name seemed important to him, and deep down she had to admit she’d been dying to hear the sound of it on his lips.
    “Rhoswen,” he breathed, reverence filling his tone. “’Tis a beautiful name.”
    With the smooth switch of time and place that characterized dreams, she suddenly appeared in the shower of her apartment back in Halcyon. Sebastian stood beside her, gloriously naked, the steaming water pouring over his broad chest and shoulders.
    Magnificent.
    She gently reached out and took his hands, washing his bloody knuckles with a bar of lavender-scented soap. “It wasn’t your fault. You tried to save your friends. You fought fiercely.”
    “They haunt me. I should have been lost, rather than my kinsmen.” The crimson stain flowed off his fingertips and down the drain, disappearing in a thin red stream. He glanced down at her, his dark lashes sparkling with water, his emerald eyes filled with the yearning need he usually kept buried so deep.
    “Poor man. You’ve been so alone, haven’t you?”
    As she admired his superb physique, she realized once again that this was just a dream. It wasn’t real. Perhaps she could ease him just a little bit. What could it hurt? In his dream she could touch him the way she’d not yet had the courage to do in real life.
    Before her thoughts could go any further, he muttered her name and enveloped her in his arms, crushing her against his chest. Their bare skin connected with wet heat as his lips found hers. She gasped as he kissed her hungrily, his tongue a sweet, plundering flame.
    Trevelan’s kisses had never felt this way; she’d never even imagined such seething heat and desire.
    Swept up, she gasped into his mouth as his broad palm covered her breast, teasing and kneading her aching nipple. Magical hands. A true sorcerer in the art of love.
    The hot water poured over them, creating a cloud of steam. His large, throbbing erection leapt against her belly, and her womb twinged emptily, as though to protest the fact that he wasn’t buried deep inside her. She clung to his broad shoulders, afraid her legs wouldn’t hold her.
    With a moan, he broke the kiss and leaned back against the glass wall, watching her through hot, hooded eyes. “Touch me, Rhoswen. Please, touch me.”
    Unable to resist, she finally gave in to the urge to caress his beautiful body. Biting her lip, she reached out and trailed her fingertips across his shoulders and then down his muscled, quivering abdomen. At last she brushed her thumb across the tip of his heavy shaft, biting her lip in sheer pleasure when she realized how much control she had over him. He was at her mercy, in her thrall.
    Desire overwhelmed her, shattering the tenuous thread of connection between them.
    Back in her own mind once again, she hugged her knees to her chest, trembling all over, unsure which parts of the dream