Free Deep Magic by Joy Nash

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