Deep Magic (8 page)

“Ye have the right of it. Rhys does not know where I am.”

“No doubt he’s worried about you.”

“And angry at me besides. Neither emotion, I fear, is anything new.”

Marcus filed that information away. “I suppose that means he also doesn’t know about this sword you wish me to make.”

“Nay. He does not.”

He paced to his anvil. “A magical sword. Tell me, exactly how am I to provide you with that? And why?”

She turned away, studying his rack of tools. Half of them were missing, scattered about the smithy. She hefted a wooden mallet that he seldom used, testing its weight. “How else might a small band of Druids face the threat of a Dark sorcerer, except with magic?”

“You speak of Legate Strabo. I’ve met the man. He is not at all magical.”

“Forgive me for speaking plainly, but ye are hardly an expert in matters of magic. Rhys hid his power from ye for years.”

Marcus felt his face heat as his old anger flared. He did not like remembering what a fool he’d been. “Let’s not mince words, then. Tell me everything. Describe this sword you wish me to forge, what magic you mean to bind to it, and, most importantly, why Rhys and Cyric disapprove.”

“ ’Tis not so much a matter of disapproval,” Gwen said quickly. “ ’Tis only that if I’d told Rhys of my plans, he would have insisted I bring the matter before the Elders. Mared, Avalon’s healer, and Padrig, my uncle, would never support any plan I put forth.”

“Why not?”

Gwen grimaced. “They do not trust me.”

“And why is that?”

She weighed the mallet first in one hand, then in the other, as if weighing the possible answers she could give. He wondered how much of what she told him was the truth.

“Cyric has chosen me to be Guardian after his passing,” she said finally. “But Mared does not believe I have the constancy for the role. She and Padrig believe the role of Guardian should pass to Rhys. Indeed …” Her voice faltered. “Even I believe it.”

The self-doubt that flitted across her face made something in Marcus’s chest catch. “Rhys doesn’t believe that, I’m sure. He’s told me your magic is stronger than his.”

“That may be true,” she said, “or not. Rhys does not embrace his full power.”

“How can you say that? The man can change into a bird! If there’s a power beyond that, I don’t want to know about it.”

The mallet slipped through Gwen’s fingers and fell to the floor with a thud. She gripped the upper bar of the tool rack.
“What
did ye say?”

Marcus regarded her with some amazement. “You didn’t know?”

“Did he … did he tell ye he could shift?”

“Hardly. Breena and I saw him change quite by accident. It was in the wood behind the barley fields, last year, when you were … in danger. Rhys flew from Avalon to Isca as a merlin, searching for Clara.”

“After I begged him to try to shift,” Gwen whispered. “He did it. But he never told me. He only warned me …” Her expression hardened.

“Warned you about what?”

She shook her head, her brow creasing. Her upper teeth caught her bottom lip and she bit down on the tender skin, hard.

Marcus’s groin tightened. Hastily, he looked away.

Bending, Gwen retrieved the dropped mallet and replaced it on the rack. She let out a slow, tightly controlled breath as she exchanged it for a smaller iron hammer.

“Were ye disgusted? When ye saw the change?” Her tone was carefully bland. Marcus did not miss the raw pain beneath. She was not, he thought, speaking of Rhys.

“No,” he said, because it was the truth. He’d been shocked when Gwen had shifted in his arms. And yes, terrified—at least for an instant, before he’d become unbearably aroused. But disgusted? He almost laughed. No, not disgusted.

But he could hardly tell Gwen that just the memory of watching her shift from wolf to woman left his cock hard and his stones aching. She bit her lip again. Lust struck like hammer against anvil. His body vibrated with the sheer force of it.

She met his gaze. His throat tightened as her pupils went dark, the gray circle of her iris thinning to a slender ring. The gray was lightest near her pupils, and deepened to charcoal at the outer ring.

The hot thread of emotions drew taut between them. Her fingers twisted together. She felt the attraction between them, as he did. He was sure of it. Gods help him.

For a long moment, they just stared at each other. His brain had gone blank. He didn’t dare touch her, but he didn’t—
couldn’t
—hide his desire for her. Her eyes flicked downward, then widened. He could tell she thought she should look away. But she didn’t.

A sense of unreality settled around him. He wanted her. What was he thinking? This was no tavern girl, no marriageable neighbor. She was Rhys’s
sister.
Promised to another man. A Druidess. A shape-shifter. A
wolf.

None of it mattered. He wanted her, with a lust so fierce it sucked the air from his lungs.

She finally snatched her gaze from his body, her breathing rapid and shallow. Taking a step backward, she looked about—most likely for anything other than his …
regard
for her, he thought wryly. And so it was with a sense of burgeoning inevitability that he watched her become aware of the high shelf above his worktable. Her gaze touched on each animal figurine in turn, until it came to rest on the wolf.

“What—” She swallowed visibly. As if in a trance, she took the few steps needed to bring her within reach of the display. She surprised him by touching not the wolf, but a fat sheep.

“What charming figures. Did ye make them?”

“Yes.”

“They seem so … frivolous. So unlike ye.”

He grimaced. “Am I so deadly dull, then?”

“Nay! I did not mean it that way. I only meant it seems odd that a man who forges weapons also crafts such whimsical ornaments.”

“I started when Breena was small, when the old smith was still alive. I made most of these figures for her.”

Gwen’s gaze darted to the wolf.

“But not all.” Deliberately, he reached past her and picked it up. “This one, I made for myself.”

She bit her lip again. He nearly groaned out loud. “Is … is it … me?” she asked.

“It might be. Then again, it could be my ancestors’
lare.”

“I do not know that word.”

“The
lares
are Roman guardian spirits. My full name is Marcus Ulpius Aquila. In Rome, the second of a man’s three names comes to him from his ancestors. Mine is especially ancient. Ulpius. In the oldest language of Latium, it means wolf.”

“The
wolf
is the guardian of your clan?” Her shock was palpable.

“Yes.” Marcus ran his thumb over the curve of the silver wolf’s back, then set the figure on the worktable between a sheet of papyrus and an open wax tablet. “But you’re right—I would be lying if I said I was thinking of my forefathers when I fashioned this figurine. I thought only of you. As I have every night since I carried you out of that cave.”

Distress flashed in her eyes. Distress, and something more. His body tightened. He felt a predator’s energy gather inside him, as if the spirit of the wolf his forefathers had worshipped had come to life in his belly.

“I have thought of ye as well,” she said in a rush. “I’ve long wanted to thank ye for saving me. When I woke from Blodwen’s spell, ye seemed like a dream scattered by the dawn.”

“No. No dream.”

“I also wondered … what was it like for ye, watching me change? Ye are the only one who has ever seen it. I cannot help thinking it was horrible.”

“I won’t insult you by pretending it wasn’t a shock. But horrible? No. That’s not the word I would use.”

Her laugh was bitter. “What, then? Repulsive? Perverted? An abomination?”

He caught her arm and waited until she looked at him. “It was none of those things.” His voice sounded raw to his own ears. “Startling, yes, even though Rhys had told me you were trapped in the form of a wolf.”

His gaze drifted to her lower lip, red and a little swollen where she’d bitten it.
Gods.
Her eyes were so innocent, so uncertain. And he was so hard. How could she not know how her nearness affected him?

His fingers pressed more deeply into her upper arm. He had to be hurting her, but she didn’t try to pull away. “The experience was far from repulsive, I assure you.”

The doubt and shame didn’t leave her eyes. He was gripped by a visceral need to banish it. And so he lowered his head, intending to kiss her, just to prove his words were true.

He moved swiftly, sensing that if she guessed what he planned, she’d push him away. When his lips met hers, she stiffened in surprise, drinking in his breath with a soft gasp. On the next heartbeat, her body went soft.

Marcus’s head spun, as if he’d drunk a pitcher of unwatered wine, too quickly. He watched as if outside himself as his lips brushed over hers. Fire burned in his veins; a savageness almost wholly unknown to him screamed at him to take her, mark her as
his,
whether she was willing to accept such intimacy or not. But violence was not his way. In truth, he abhorred it. His muscles went rigid as he fought to stay in control. She belonged to another man—he shouldn’t even have touched her. But now that he had, he couldn’t bring himself to let her go.

He kissed her again, suckling and nipping her lower lip. She tasted of wild things—heather and honey, and the wind on the moor. He cupped her cheek; he marveled at the softness of her skin under his callused fingers. His tongue teased the ragged terrain of her lower lip. He ran a hand over her hair, wishing fervently it weren’t bound in a braid. He wanted it loose and flowing.

She trembled under his touch. Not from fear. Or anger. He was certain of that much, at least. The knowledge emboldened him. He pushed aside all thoughts of her betrothed. If the man hadn’t been able to keep her by his side, he did not deserve her.

He pressed his thumb to her chin, parting her lips so he could slip inside the slick hot mystery that was her mouth. She made a sound in the back of her throat as his tongue touched hers. Not a protest. Not exactly, anyway.

She tensed, her palm flattening against his chest. He thought she would push him away—he’d even begun to withdraw. Then her fingers fisted in the loose fabric of his shirt. A small, helpless moan sounded in the back of her throat.

He resisted the fierce urge to press her against the edge of the worktable and grind his lower body into the soft cradle of her thighs. Instead, he held himself still while she hesitantly returned his kisses. They were sweetly innocent gems, uncertain and untutored. Elation filled him. She had not yet given herself to her intended. He was all but sure of it.

His shaking hand moved to her shoulder, then skimmed down her arm and settled on her waist. All the while, he feasted on her lips and rained kisses on her cheeks and eyelids. He nuzzled her jaw, suckled the spot just below her ear.

She slid her arms around his neck.
Gods, yes.

“Marcus …”

The breathy, sensual quality she brought to his name fired a streak of desire directly to his loins. Lust dazed his mind. He calculated the distance and direction to his bed. No more than a half-dozen steps to the left. He would lay her on the mattress. Cover her body with his. Plunge into her sweet, wild heat.

She seemed to sense—and approve—his fevered decision. Her kisses grew frantic, ardent. She pressed her body against his. His tongue swept along her jaw, lapped and nibbled at the corner of her mouth. A low, growling vibration sounded in her throat.

Without warning, pain exploded in his lip.

He jerked back. “Ow!”

Gwen inhaled sharply, her eyes flicked to his mouth, then widened in horror. She looked as though she would be ill.
“Great Mother …
Oh, Marcus, I am sorry! I did not mean …”

He touched his mouth. His fingers came away smeared with blood. His blood.

She’d bitten him.

By Pollux. She’d bitten him, as a she-wolf might nip its mate. His rod hardened unmercifully. He should have been appalled. He was not. He was unbearably, insanely aroused.

Hades.
What would she be like in his bed? Would loving her kill him? For an instant, he was willing to risk it.

Then sanity slammed into his brain like a load of bricks falling from the top of a scaffold. Watching a wolf turn into a woman—that experience had driven him out of his mind with lust. But taking a woman to bed, only to have her morph into a snarling, vicious beast …

That
prospect would give any man pause.

He’d survived an encounter with Gwen as a wolf once—when she’d been weak and wounded. At full strength, he had no doubt the wolf could rip out his throat.

Abruptly, he turned and paced a few steps away. Ran his hand over his head, then glanced back at her. The self-hatred in her eyes had returned—it made him feel like the worst of louts. She thought she’d repulsed him. Not true. His phallus was throbbing and his stones were so tight they were probably blue. He was struck with an absurd urge to laugh.

He cursed under his breath instead. “Forgive me. I should not have … accosted you. You’re Rhys’s sister. He’d kill me if he were here.”

It was the wrong thing to say. She stiffened, her fingers curling into small fists. “Rhys does not command me.”

“No. I doubt any man could.”

Then why was he struck with an irrational urge to order her behind the screen and into his bed? He shook his head slightly and cast about for something safe—or at least something
safer
—to say. He could think of nothing, except, maybe, yesterday’s rain.

“Tell me more about this sword you require,” he said at last, plunging headlong into the next dangerous topic. “You don’t want a
gladius,
I’m sure. Do you mean for me to forge a Celt sword?”

“I … hardly know. I know nothing of swords. There are no weapons on Avalon—Cyric does not allow it. The sword I need … I held it in a dream. I fought Strabo’s magic. The blade shone like polished silver.”

“Chalybs
shines, just as you’ve described.” He paused, thinking on her words. “Why do you believe you were fighting Strabo’s magic in your dream? It might have been a meaningless nightmare.”