Into the Fire: The Complete Series

By Mia West

The blacksmith who hid his desire. The soldier who never knew…until now.

 

When Rome falls, Marc treks home across the desolation to find everything changed, including his boyhood friend Wolf.

 

Gone is the big, clumsy lad. In his place at the forge stands a man as skilled as he is shy.

 

And surely not interested in feeding the spark he's just lit in Marc's belly.

 

One that feels unnervingly like hope.

 

+

 

When Marcus left to fight, Wolf had a secret. One that burned so hot he shoved it down deep.

 

Now Marc's back, hardened by war and survival into something only fire could mend.

 

Wolf knows fire. And every day in Marc's presence tempts him to use it.

 

But with the world in chaos, can he risk incinerating them both?

 

This complete series collection includes all 9 original novellas, plus 2 exclusive short stories – approx. 175,000 words total.

 

"Outstanding series – humor with a huge amount of heart and an author who writes intelligently and compassionately and always, always allows her MCs to come across as strong, capable and loving men – I can't ask for anything more." – Karen, Goodreads

 

"I would happily read and read and read about Marc and Wolf forever. If you like m/m romances and historical romances you will love these books." – Jo, Goodreads

 

"This is my all-time favorite love story. Hands down." – Mary, Goodreads

 

 

Tropes: friends to lovers, reunited, found family, older heroes, opposites attract

 

 

Content Notes: This series includes depictions of violence, death, injury & illness, surgery & rehabilitation, ableism, adoption, childbirth, homophobia, and bondage.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mia West
• Release date: Mar 13, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393676942

Mia West

Mia West writes epic romance, two heroes at a time. Her story universe features warriors and blacksmiths, rescue swimmers and hockey players, treasure hunters and time travelers, and quite a few shifters. Her favorite hero: a grumpy f*cker who'll do anything for the man he loves. Most days, you can find Mia on AO3, where her universe is growing in real time, including bonus stories and works in progress.

Book preview

Part 1: THRUST

For survivors everywhere, everywhen

Chapter 1

Gaul/Germania frontier, former Roman Empire

476 CE

––––––––

Marcus walked the last few miles barefoot.

The four-month journey had finally claimed his shoes somewhere around the last dead man. As his luck would have it, the corpse had had no shoes either. It hadn’t had much of anything recognizably human, except for the wedge-shaped hole in its skull, evidence of the axe that had killed it. Marc hoped the blow had killed. If not, the wolves likely had.

The fucking wolves. He shifted his pack and kept walking. He no longer slept at night, bedding down during the safer midday hours instead. He had seen them, their eyes silver with moonlight, on more than one night-misted stretch of road. He walked those hours with sword drawn.

Now, as the rising sun threw orange streaks across the sky, his fingers had cramped into claws. His sword hung from them, bobbing like a limp cock.

He was close, and the prospect of a night without his sword in hand quickened his weary step. The thought of seeing old Matthias again stoked a small, bright fire in his throat.

Marc knew now that Matthias hadn’t been all that old back then. He’d probably seen about thirty-five years when he’d taken in the ten-year-old Marcus. Now that Marc had lived thirty-seven of his own years, with the battle marks and sore joints to measure them by, he wondered what had possessed Matthias, who could have taken a wife instead, to volunteer to foster the by-blow of a former camp follower. Matthias had probably saved Marc’s life—not that he’d appreciated that at the time.

Marc sheathed his sword and cringed at the memory of the brat he’d become when his mother died. He’d terrorized the garrison’s cooks with rats, spattered mud on the laundresses’ clean linens, slipped burrs under the horses’ saddle blankets. Whippings hadn’t helped. Marc hadn’t cared. Just when he had figured (hoped) the garrison’s commander would toss him out to live wild in the forest, Matthias had spoken for him.

Marc eyed the hills along the road, beginning to recognize the approach to the garrison. It would be empty of troops now, with the army disbanded and the officers called back to Rome earlier that year. Who knew how the place had fared? A few strongholds along the way had still seemed organized, but most had been looted by scavengers.

On the day Matthias claimed him, Marc had been tied to a post, a last resort. The blacksmith had passed him on his way to the stables. Marc had seen him a few times, but Matthias chose to live on the edge of the forest some distance from the garrison instead of inside its spiked walls, so Marc had forgotten how big the smith was. When Matthias stood over him that morning, Marc realized he’d never truly appreciated the bulk of the smith’s bull-like shoulders, the direct glare of his single eye. From the wide leather belt at his hips hung his farrier’s tools, a hammer and tongs with handles polished by the smith’s massive grip.

What did you do? the smith had rumbled in Latin.

Which time? Marc had blurted, half resentful, half terrified.

The smith had stared at him long enough that Marc had readied himself for the blow his insolent response deserved. But then the smith’s bearded lips had drawn wide into an unexpected smile, and he’d laughed.

He’d roared. Matthias had never merely laughed, now that Marc thought about it.

That morning, Marc had grinned in reflex. Then the smith had cuffed him on the head, knocking him sideways onto the dirt.

Stay put, Matthias had said and walked away.

An hour later, a soldier had untied him from the post and dragged him by one ear to the commander’s quarters. Marc hardly had a chance to goggle at the plush fabrics and polished metal of the room. When he’d crossed the threshold, the smith had turned from the commander’s desk and watched him cross the space. Five minutes after that, Marc had left the garrison for good, Matthias’s meaty hand on the back of his neck like a living yoke.

Now, nearing the bend that would bring the garrison into view, Marc drew his sword again. The air was cool and quiet, sending an involuntary shiver over his skin. He should have heard the sounds of everyday work, smelled smoke from the kitchen chimneys. Instead, a breeze rattled the dried seed pods of the weeds along the road. The sound wasn’t even answered by birds overhead.

The garrison sat gutted. He could tell as soon as he rounded the bend, spotting the uneven line of the log walls, blackened by fire. Whatever peace Rome had managed here was gone. He veered into the forest.

Some parts of the path had grown over. He picked his way northeast around the garrison by memory. The stream still ran, which heartened him. He followed it as quickly as his road-weary legs could manage.

Close. He was close.

And Matthias—?

Marc picked up his pace. Don’t think. Just walk.

And then the stream emerged from the forest. The hut stood in the middle of its cleared pasture. Enough space for a milk cow. No cow grazed, but smoke rose from the smithy and a hammer rang across the meadow. Marc drove his sword into the earth and leaned on it until his legs felt solid under him.

He hadn’t admitted until then what he had dreaded most: that Matthias wouldn’t be there. That he had left with the troops. That he had laid his old bones down and died.

But he hadn’t. That hammer—his hammer. Its rhythm tolled in Marc’s chest, unmistakable.

He held on to his gear until he reached the hut. On the hard-packed dirt of the chicken yard, he dropped his pack, his shield, his sword. The hens scattered to one edge of the fenced yard, squawking. Marc grinned at them. Run while you can, he said. I’m wringing one of your necks tonight.

They seemed to shudder at his words, scuffling as far away as they could. Marc turned from them to go find Matthias. Just as he registered that the noises from the workshop had stopped, he found himself face to face with a smith.

That was all Marc could decide, based solely on the man’s sweat-soaked leather apron, the hammer he held, and the soot darkening his bare hands and forearms. He was a big man, taller than Marc and broader, with great bunching knots of muscle in his shoulders and arms. Despite the chill in the air, perspiration slicked the smith’s skin and hair. His beard, braided under his chin, looked like a sheaf of wheat at harvest. His eyes—he had both, the final blow—glared at Marc like two angry lapis beads, but lighter. The color confounded him.

The smith’s great braced boots unfixed themselves from the ground, and he stalked toward Marc.

Who— Marc managed before the smith bared his teeth. The hammer swept up in a sudden arc, as if it weighed nothing.

Marc flinched, only partly in a useful direction. He drew his muscles taut, his mind wiped blank by the instinct driving his body to throw itself aside, to reach for his sword.

He almost made it before the sun exploded from his left ear.

Chapter 2

The bandit slumped to the ground, his mouth agape. Wolfram stood over the man’s stinking body, shaking like a damned lamb. He prodded the body with his toe. It remained limp.

Wolf choked up on the hammer and left the yard to check the rest of the property. Finding no one else, he returned to drag the bandit’s body away. He kicked aside the heap of gear the intruder had shed at the corner of the yard. The chickens shied at his approach, flustered by the violence. He would need to collect eggs soon; they were bound to have dropped a few on the ground when the stranger fell. Wolf settled his hammer in its loop on his belt and bent to grab the bandit’s ankles.

The corpse groaned.

Wolf flinched. Shit.

The man—that’s what he was now, damn it, still a man—made a noise like a pig snuffling, then groaned again.

Wolf fell back a step, his fingers on the head of his hammer. He imagined drawing it from its loop, lifting it high and letting gravity do the deed.

But then he heard old Matthias’s voice, gruff as the grind of old coals. Kill it or mend it.

He had said that to Wolf on his first hunt. They hadn’t hunted often; Matthias had kept chickens and a cow, and fished the deeper pools of the stream. But a few times a year, he had taken Wolf out to snag a deer. Matthias hadn’t wanted Wolf to nurse three different deer back to health—had rolled his eye at the second and shouted at the third. The point of the order had been to make Wolf execute a killing blow to begin with. Nursing something took time that Wolf didn’t have and food Matthias didn’t want to spend on a half-killed wild animal that should have been dinner itself. Matthias had been dismayed, and Wolf no small bit ashamed, to discover that the boy became attached to each injured animal while tending its wounds and feeding it by hand. Eventually, Matthias had stopped taking Wolf out to hunt.

But the directive had stuck. Kill it or mend it. In the months since the troops had abandoned the garrison, Wolf had finally heeded it. He had made that killing strike four times. Three with his hammer, after bandits emptied the smithy and hut of potential weapons. The hammer was a terrible weapon—he had to get too close to use it—but he didn’t have a choice. It was either the hammer or lose the only home he’d known since becoming Matthias’s apprentice almost twenty years before.

Never mind that looters had destroyed the garrison, or that they had frightened off the few who had chosen to live outside those walls. Never mind that Wolf’s parents had died and his brother moved his family away and Anna was gone. Never mind that he made and remade nails and hooks and chain links with no trade in sight. This was his home.

And now he had a guest.

Damned hammer.

Wolf knelt next to the man, who had begun to moan and writhe. Blood colored Wolf’s fingers when he pressed them to the swelling behind the man’s ear. He pressed again. The man moaned more loudly, but when Wolf palpated the scalp under the long, shaggy hair, he found the man’s skull intact. He would have a lump the size of his fist, most likely, but his brains wouldn’t leak out.

Wolf sat back on his heels. Where to put him? Thieves had stolen the cow a month before, so the byre sat free. Wolf could pad the ground inside with dry grass. It would soak up blood and piss and shit for the man as it had for the cow. And the gate would keep out the wolves. Most likely. Of course, the man’s clothes would come to be a mess. Wolf would have to strip them and find a blanket to throw over him. But first things first: the byre.

Wolf swept it clean and cut armfuls of grass from the meadow. When it formed a soft layer a hand deep, he checked the latch on the gate. Deciding it would hold, he returned to the fallen man.

He didn’t look intimidating now. He looked ragged, his dark hair and beard unkempt, his skin aged by the sun. He wasn’t filthy, exactly, but his clothes bore the sweat and grass stains of extended outdoor wear. Under his shirt and breeches, his body looked strong, a tall frame honed by physical work and deprivation. He had stood half a head shorter than Wolf before the blow. Wolf hadn’t had time to notice that the man had dropped his sword and shield several feet away. He’d seen a stranger, someone set on theft or violence or both. Didn’t matter now.

Wolf knelt again. He worked at the leather laces of the man’s shirt for a minute before giving up on the hard little knot. Pulling his knife from his boot, Wolf sliced the man’s shirt up the front, sawing through the greasy fabric and spreading it like two halves of a fish.

His knife slipped from his fingers.

The man wore a pendant around his neck on a dark leather cord. Not a decorative pendant, but a simple object. One that Wolf knew well. His fingers shook as he lifted it from the man’s chest: an iron nail, black with age, and plain except for the distinctive twist to the shaft. Three complete turns, exactly as Wolf made nails.

As Matthias had taught him to make them.

Wolf laid the nail gently on the man’s chest and looked at his face again.

Was it him? He’d had dark hair but no beard yet. He’d stood about the same height, Wolf a couple inches shorter. Wolf had looked up to this man in every way, having fourteen years to this one’s seventeen when he’d left to join the army. Before that, Wolf had followed him around, drawn to his confidence, his recklessness, his physical ease. His name had been Marcus, but he’d let Wolf call him Marc. He had given Wolf the nickname Pup.

Wolf scanned the hard, straight lines of the eyebrows and nose. How had he not seen it? Remembering something, he pulled the man’s lip up to expose one canine tooth.

Broken, as it had been then. It had made his grin dangerous.

This was Marc. He’d come home.

And Wolf had almost killed him.

As gently as he could, he felt the swelling behind Marc’s ear again. It had grown and felt hot to his fingertips, but the bleeding on the surface had stopped. Slipping his arms under Marc’s shoulders and knees, Wolf rose. Marc’s weight felt substantial. Good, he might heal more quickly. Leaving the chicken yard, Wolf carried Marc into the hut.

Setting him down on the rug next to the bed, Wolf filled the cookpot with water. While it heated, he hung up his apron and washed the soot and grass chaff from his arms. After sharpening his knife, he sawed at Marc’s hair and beard until what remained lay close to his skin. He threw the hair on the fire, grimacing at the stink as it burned. Grabbing a cloth from a shelf, he carried the steaming pot of water to the rug.

Marc lay unconscious, moaning and twitching. Wolf rolled him onto his side and washed the head wound. Marc grunted at the contact. Wolf dipped the cloth and wrung it out until Marc’s scalp was clean of blood. The hammer had hit the knob of bone just behind the ear. The skin there had bruised to the color of blackberries. Luckily, the position of the swelling meant that Marc would be able to lie on his back while he healed. And how strange that would be. Even as boys, when Marc had lain in the tall grass by the stream or on a rock on the neighboring hill, he had never truly been still. Where Wolf had been content to lie in the sun and count dragonflies, Marc had never stayed in one place for long. Wolf wondered what kind of patient the man would make.

A frustrated one, he guessed.

Rolling Marc onto his back again, Wolf refreshed the water and then washed Marc’s face. Days of grime came away, revealing the handsome features Wolf had known, perhaps a bit fiercer with age. Deep lines around Marc’s eyes and mouth said he spent a lot of time either squinting or smiling. Which would it be?

As he untied the laces of Marc’s breeches, Wolf tried not to think about the damage he might have done to the man’s brain. He tugged the breeches down Marc’s body and tossed them aside. Easing off the remains of the shirt, he discarded it too. He should probably burn them as well.

Exposed, Marc’s body looked as Wolf had expected it to, though not quite as he remembered it. As a boy, Marc had been brown as an acorn year-round, some alloy of his parents’ coloring and his tendency to escape the smithy to spend his day out of doors. His upper body still showed the sun of the summer just past. His hips and legs were paler now, the muscle under his skin hard and compact. He had almost no hair on his body. He carried little fat. He’d probably never had much, but Wolf figured the trek home had eaten its share. Sinews rose to the surface, tight and twisting, as Marc shifted on the rug, restless.

Wolf smoothed the wet cloth down Marc’s neck and arms. His chest felt warm through the thin fabric. Wolf laid his bare hand briefly to Marc’s breastbone to feel the solid beat of his heart against his palm.

Wolf washed Marc’s belly lightly—it looked almost too vulnerable—then applied more pressure at his hips and thighs. Scrubbing in circles, Wolf caught himself humming a song he and Marc had sung as boys, a raucous ode to a very friendly milkmaid. Who knew where they’d heard it first, but it had been salty enough that one verse in Matthias’s presence had once earned Marc a wallop to the head and a warning to watch his tongue.

Wolf hummed as he worked his way down Marc’s legs. His feet had taken a beating—Wolf would do them last. Levering Marc to one side, then the other, Wolf scrubbed his back and buttocks. When Marc lay flat again, his cock was half-hard.

Wolf looked away, feeling strangely...shy? He’d seen Marc’s cock plenty of times as a boy, had mentally measured his own against it, finding to his relief and pride that he hadn’t come up short, so to speak. But they were men now with men’s pricks, and they were different.

When Wolf was hard, his was the ruddy color of weak wine. It was also, he guessed, thicker than Marc’s. The cock twitching between Marc’s legs was a darkish brown, like wet tree bark. The hair around it grew close to his skin, in a way completely different from Wolf’s, which was thick enough to bury his fingertips in. Carefully, Wolf lifted Marc’s cock and drew the wet cloth from root to head.

Marc’s flat belly tensed. His cock jumped in Wolf’s palm.

Wolf laid Marc’s prick up against his abdomen and washed the underside, then lifted the dark sac below. It lay heavy on his fingers as he cleaned its wrinkled skin. In the short time it took Wolf to tend to it and to the creases of groin underneath, Marc’s cock emerged fully from its foreskin.

Wolf’s was thicker.

Marc’s was longer.

Wolf’s hands shook as he rinsed the cloth and squeezed out the water. He knelt for a long moment, his chest feeling oddly tight. Then, before he could think better of it, he took Marc’s prick in his hand and gripped it.

It pulsed under his fingers, causing the skin to slide over its hard core. Marc grunted and his body flexed without warning, shoving his length up through Wolf’s grip. A drop of clear fluid dripped from Marc’s slit onto Wolf’s fingers. He let go and gave Marc a quick swipe with the cloth to clean him again. Then he moved down Marc’s legs and, with the ghostly heat of the man’s cock still on his hand, Wolf tended to Marc’s road-roughened feet.

He hummed.

Chapter 3

The milkmaid was teasing him.

She’d been making excellent progress down Marc’s body, sometimes with soft hands, sometimes a firmer touch, and humming. She hummed her own song, which surprised Marc. Old Matthias had cuffed him for it just last week, but here was the woman herself, singing about her lusty escapades, so it couldn’t be so bad for him to sing it.

She truly was a very nice milkmaid.

But she had gotten off-track. She’d built anticipation well, working over every part of him except the one (or two or three) that craved her. Then, glory to Rome, she’d gripped him in her warm hand. Tugging on udders must be rougher work than he’d ever given it credit for because her palms and fingers bore calluses. The hardened skin scraped his cock in a way that almost made him spend right then. He gritted his teeth and thought of old Matthias’s ugly one-eyed face and held off his release—just.

But then she’d taken away that warm, rough hand. Now she was washing his feet, of all stupid things. Couldn’t she see he was ready to lift the thatch with this pole she’d raised? And his feet were ticklish, damn it. The last thing he needed was to giggle like a girl in front of his first woman.

He jerked his foot away, but she grabbed his ankle.

Fuck, those hands. They were large, now that he thought about it. And strong, but she did wrangle dairy cows. And her voice was surprisingly deep as she hummed, tipping over from what he imagined in his inexperience to be an alluring, husky tone into a register almost...growling?

If his cock had been hard before, it now drew a strong pull of near-pain from his belly. His balls had drawn so tight they grated against each other like striking stones. His entire midsection might explode into flame if this tricky milkmaid didn’t douse it soon. He was beginning to doubt the maid part of her moniker.

Then she said his name. He stopped moving, all attention on her voice. She held one foot.

He waited.

She waited.

When she seemed satisfied she had his ear, she set down his foot and picked up the other. She said his name again, then once more. He tried to answer but his words clogged on his tongue. It didn’t matter—she seemed only to be testing his name. It fell over him in that low voice of hers.

Marcus. Marc.

What? he wanted to shout. Anything—ask anything. Just—

Marc.

Yes?

Do you remember wolf?

wolf

Images flooded his mind, of beasts on the road, moons for eyes.

Do you remember...Pup?

Marc’s mind stilled. Pup. Of course he remembered Pup. He’d just seen him yesterday, hadn’t he? They’d caught three trout, so Matthias had given him only half a beating for shirking his smithy work.

But wait. If he were completely honest, he had forgotten Pup, hadn’t thought of him one damn time since the milkmaid first touched him. And perhaps for a long while before that. Perhaps for years. How was that possible?

He’d just seen him.

Hadn’t he?

Pup had come around to admire Matthias’s work, as usual. He’d waited until the smith went to have a piss and then, with one eye over his shoulder, had stood before the anvil and lifted the hammer, testing its balance in his big hand.

Pup was overgrown, from his hands to his shoulders, which were as wide as Marc’s, to his feet, perpetually bare—his farmer parents couldn’t keep them in shoes. Even at fourteen he had the start of a beard, which rankled Marc, whose own chin had only a few coarse hairs. Pup’s promised to be a full beard in a few years, if the thick growth of hair around his cock was any sign. And the cock itself—

Damn it. Why was the milkmaid asking him about Pup? He tried to reach for her tits but his arms felt dead. Had she lured him here to get those work-worn hands on Pup’s cock instead?

Had she seen them yesterday at the deep pool? Had she watched them strip to their skin? Had she hesitated as Marc had done when Pup had dropped his breeches and then tried to hide his cock behind one hand as he splashed into the water?

Even late at night, when Marc lay by the hearth, serenaded by Matthias’s snoring, and stroking himself to extended milkmaid fantasies, Marc had never grown to the size Pup had sported yesterday.

Marc was sure of it: the dairy wench was using him to get to Pup. And Marc might not have minded if she would actually use him.

He jerked his foot from her grasp, bringing a string of stern syllables from her treacherous lips. If she wanted a wolf pup, she could fucking catch one herself. Twisting away from her, he turned onto his side, intent on bringing himself off. But the roll of his body caused a blinding pain on the left side of his skull. He shouted, but the noise only made it worse. Subsiding into moans, Marc forgot about his aching prick and tried to clutch his head.

The big hands returned. They were gentle again, almost apologetic, as they rolled him onto his back. Before Marc could settle into the pain, the milkmaid shoved her arms under him, and his feet swung.

He was suspended.

He fought, panicked she would drop him, and then mortified she was strong enough to lift him. She wouldn’t want him after this. What woman would want a man she could carry around like a newborn calf?

Not the milkmaid. She set him down almost immediately. He lay now on some softer surface. Marc hated himself for thinking how good it felt. He’d been sleeping on the ground for years now, sometimes fully armored, ready to vault up at the first word of an opponent’s movement.

But how could he have served in the army? He was an unbedded boy with a sparser beard than Pup’s. Still, he remembered it, lying under starry skies and drenching ones, the earth under his back grassy, sandy, rocky, wet...

Lie still.

Marc did because the voice no longer belonged to the milkmaid. It was old Matthias whose hands pressed on his shoulders to pin him. Yes, that made better sense. It also made Marc want to weep with relief. Matthias was here after all. He had waited.

Matthias, Marc said, and this time his speech sounded right.

The old smith didn’t answer. Marc tried to turn his head. It felt as though it were squeezed in the smith’s great vise. He fought to free himself, but the vise held.

Be still, damn you.

Matthias.

Wolf.

No. Not the fucking wolves. Not when he was trapped.

Marc, came the deep voice, close to his ear. You’re safe.

Wolves, he moaned.

No, said the smith. Only me.

Marc’s eyes opened. Light stunned them shut until he could pry them open with more caution.

A face came into focus above him. Light hair, tied back. Full beard. Pale eyes, even in the dim of the hut.

Eyes. Two of them.

Not Matthias.

Marc tried to move his head, but the man held it in place.

Be still. You’re injured.

A hammer, swinging swiftly upward.

Marc heard himself gasp. He struggled.

The man held him still, big warm hands over his ears and temples, gripping Marc’s skull. His heart pounded in his head.

Marc.

How did this man know his name?

It’s me, said the man. It’s Wolf.

Marc stopped struggling. In an instant, he dropped back into his rightful place and time. He had made it home. He lay in old Matthias’s bed. And looming over him was the boy he’d called Pup because he’d resented Wolf’s size and Matthias’s increasingly frequent inclusion of him in the smithy work. Resented the praise the smith had reserved for the boy. Resented the growing belief that Matthias would soon release Marc, having found a better apprentice.

Marc stared at the man above him, surprised not to feel that old resentment, yet knowing why. He took a bracing breath. He’s dead, isn’t he?

Chapter 4

As much as he would have liked to spare Marc, Wolf knew he couldn’t lie. Yes.

Marc looked at him for a long moment, and then sighed. Let me go.

Wolf took his hands back and wiped them on his thighs.

You’re Wolf?

Yes.

He took you on?

Yes.

Do you greet everyone with that fucking hammer?

Anger and shame flared in Wolf’s gut. Since the garrison left, yes. He looked away from Marc, then back. I didn’t know it was you. You look different.

Marc laughed, then shut his eyes and groaned. After a few seconds and another deep breath, he looked at Wolf again. So do you.

Wolf supposed he did. He didn’t feel all that different, though. Marc’s dark, narrowed eyes made him feel green again, desperate to please. I’m sorry, he said. I thought you were a bandit. They run rife now.

Marc’s brow smoothed for the first time. They do. He turned his head on the mattress and winced. Water?

Wolf grabbed the pitcher and walked to the stream. Marc was back. He was home. This had been Marc’s home before it became his own. What did that mean now? Wolf dunked the pitcher into the stream.

At least he was awake. And he could speak. Wolf said a few contrite words to his gods, grateful he hadn’t broken Marc irreparably. The man might thrash him once he was well, but Wolf almost welcomed the prospect.

Cold water washed over his wrist. He carried the sloshing vessel back into the hut and poured a mug full. When Marc struggled to sit up, Wolf lifted him with a hand under one arm.

Marc turned a baleful look on him. You got big, didn’t you?

I suppose. Wolf handed the mug to him and held him up while he drank. Some of the water spilled down Marc’s chin, then down his bare chest to disappear under the wool blanket covering him. Wolf pulled his eyes away as Marc handed him the mug.

Thanks.

More?

Not yet.

Wolf set the mug next to the pitcher, on the floor by the bed.

Those my clothes?

Wolf followed Marc’s frown to the heap by the rug. He nodded.

Marc looked down at himself, turned his hands over, then realized for the first time that his rangy beard was gone. He slapped at his cheeks, then his scalp.

I needed to see your wound, Wolf said.

Marc’s fingers brushed over his hair. He frowned. He swayed.

Wolf caught him and lowered his torso to the mattress. Pulling his other shirt from its peg on the wall, he made a bolster of it and tucked it around Marc’s head. You shouldn’t move.

Marc looked at the rafters. His hand moved absently over his chest. He rubbed his fingers together. You bathed me?

Yes.

Marc chuckled to himself, rolling his eyes. Milkmaid, he muttered.

The song. You heard me?

I heard you. Marc’s eyes shifted to Wolf’s. Did I embarrass myself?

Did he know Wolf had touched him? You were unconscious.

Marc squinted at him. Not an answer.

I ruined your shirt, Wolf blurted. Why the hell had he said that?

Marc’s eyebrows rose at the non sequitur. How?

I had to cut it off you. He gestured to the shirt cushioning Marc’s head. You can have that one.

Marc’s gaze dropped to Wolf’s chest before meeting his eyes again. I may need to take it in. Then, for the first time, his lip lifted in a grin.

Wolf stared at the broken tooth flashing at him and felt heat creeping up his cheeks. He turned and picked up Marc’s clothes. Rest, he said, avoiding Marc’s face. I’ll take care of these. He fled the hut.

In the smithy, he fetched the jar of soap he used at day’s end and returned to the stream. He washed the shirt and breeches, then wrung them out and laid them over the chicken fence to dry. He’d save the shirt for scrap. At least Marc would get half his clothes back. Not that he would need breeches in bed. Wolf wondered how long Marc would need to rest there. Then he wondered how long Marc would rest there. Wolf suspected the two were different answers.

He picked up his apron and tool belt and returned to the smithy. The forge had cooled to a dark red glow. He stoked it, then took up his tongs and grasped the hook he’d been working. He could use it now, he realized, to hang Marc’s clothes on. Wolf lost himself in the forming of the hook, giving it a double twist on the shank and curling the very tip under. He quenched the piece in the water pail before studying it. Not too ornate but executed fairly well. Matthias would probably have approved it with a grunt, even though it would have taken him half the time to make.

Wolf stripped to the waist at the stream and scrubbed himself free of soot. In the hut, he checked on Marc, who slept, before taking up the cookpot and refilling it with fresh water. When he was a boy, his mother had made chicken broth as an all-purpose healing meal. In the yard, he scooped up a bird—an old girl who no longer laid many eggs—and after carrying her to the opposite side of the hut, wrung her neck and plucked her. He reserved the rich organs, tossing the offal to the crows. Back inside, he lifted the root cellar door and gathered a few vegetables, then settled at the table to chop. By the time Marc next stirred, small bubbles rose around the edges of the broth, the aromatic steam filling the hut.

Marc inhaled deeply. Smells good.

Wolf stirred the broth.

When did he die?

Wolf set aside the spoon and turned his chair toward the bed. Three summers ago.

How?

Quickly. He collapsed. Hit his head on the anvil, but I think he was already dead.

Marc nodded at the ceiling. When did he take you on?

Soon after you left with the army.

He always liked you more.

Wolf shifted on his seat. I was only more biddable.

And more interested in smithing, Marc said, his voice dry.

And that.

Did he make the right choice?

What do you mean?

Are you any good? There was challenge in Marc’s tone.

Wolf shrugged.

Modest?

There’s no trade, said Wolf. Without it, who’s to judge?

Marc rolled his eyes. I’m to judge. Show me something you’ve forged.

Wolf scanned the hut. Matthias had made most of the implements but a few were his own. He plucked the cooking spoon from its place by the fire and handed it to Marc.

He studied it, turning it over. Good lines, he said. Fine twist. A small line formed between his brows. Never did get the hang of that twist.

He used it—

—on everything, Marc finished and grinned again. I think Matthias had a bit of pride in his spine.

As he should have, said Wolf. He was the best smith around.

Marc looked up in surprise. How many others were there?

Not many, Wolf admitted. But sometimes he had to repair their work.

Marc relented with a nod. He did. I remember that. You’re right: he was good.

The best.

Marc grinned. The best.

Wolf dipped a spoon into the broth. When he turned back, Marc was watching him.

He never married?

No.

Did he have women?

A few. Wolf couldn’t help smiling. Once in a while a woman would show up with a meat pie, and he would send me to the smithy. I think he made me put those turns on the nails so he’d have a longer time with his women.

Marc laughed. Good for Matthias.

Good for me too, said Wolf. He usually shared the meat pie.

Marc smiled. Do you think he was lonely?

With me for company? Yes.

The dangerous grin came back.

Wolf found himself wondering how to make that happen more often.

Did he ever tell you about the disappearing woman?

Wolf settled back on the chair. Sometimes when he was drunk. He glanced at Marc. Said he had her chained to the bed—

—but when she came, she vanished.

Yes.

What do you make of that?

A dream.

Marc’s eyebrow quirked. He swore to me his shackles vanished with her.

Wolf walked to the bed. Reaching underneath, he pulled out a clanking set of manacles, connected by a chain.

He may have made new ones, Marc said.

Maybe so.

Marc’s broken tooth flashed. You ever use them?

No, but if you prove a difficult patient, I may chain you.

Marc’s eyes widened. Even in the low light of the hut, Wolf could see the man’s pupils grow. A hot sensation spread down Wolf’s belly. He tossed the shackles back under the bed. Then, not caring whether it was true or not, he said, Soup’s ready.

Marc ate slowly but steadily, and when he’d had enough of Wolf spooning broth into his mouth (I’m not an infant, damn it), he settled back onto the mattress. Wolf ate his own portion, then covered the pot and stowed it in the cellar. He poured them each a mug of ale and took his chair again, staring at the fire so that he wouldn’t stare at Marc.

I’m in your bed.

The words stoked the fire in Wolf’s belly. You’re hurt.

And if you’d recognized me first?

You’d still have the bed. Wolf said it without thinking, and knew it was true. But because Marc was a guest? Or because he was Marc?

Marc seemed to be pondering the same thing. Where did you sleep when Matthias lived?

In the smithy.

Truly?

Wolf shrugged. It was warm.

Tell me you use the bed now.

Usually. It’s too short. I need to build a longer one, but they took most of the tools.

Who?

Thieves.

How did you keep your hammer?

I sleep with it.

An expression crossed Marc’s face that, back when Wolf had had more contact with people, he might have interpreted as lust. Evidently, it had been a long time since he’d had normal interactions with people.

Where will you sleep tonight?

By the hearth, in case you need something.

Marc fell asleep soon after, waking when the moon was high with a request Wolf had anticipated. He helped the man to stand, then walked him to the edge of the yard. Holding him up under his armpits, Wolf stood behind him while he pissed. Marc’s ribs pushed against his fingers as he breathed. In the moonlight, the smooth planes of his back flexed as he tapped himself dry.

In the hut, Wolf settled Marc, then lay down along the hearth. He could sleep now—Marc shouldn’t need to rise before morning—but he found he couldn’t. You awake? he said softly.

Yes.

He’d forgotten that raspy quality Marc’s voice had. He shifted, trying to get comfortable. What was it like? The army.

Marc sniffed in the dark. Probably not much different from what you did here. Same tasks most days. A bit of excitement now and then.

A bit of excitement? Wolf said, dipping his voice in skepticism.

Marc chuckled. All right. More than a bit, with some terror thrown in.

Wolf waited.

Most of the time I served, we made forays over the border. Expanding the empire, village by village. Most yielded. Some fought. I don’t know how many remained compliant. Rome sent settlers in after us to integrate the new acquisitions, and our company moved on.

Acquisitions? Wolf felt himself frowning. People or land?

Both. Rome craved resources.

Wolf lay staring at the dark ceiling, aware suddenly that he and Marc might be the only people for miles. The thought gripped his chest in a cold fist that almost drove him to the bed.

Almost.

Did you ever see the ocean? he asked, thinking he might make do with Marc’s voice.

Once.

Did it go on forever, like they say?

I don’t know. I didn’t sail it. But it seemed to, from land.

What’d it look like?

Blue under the sun. Like cold iron in storm weather.

Mermaids?

Marc snorted, and Wolf felt embarrassed, until the other man said, If only. No. I waded in enough to wet my balls, but it was cold so that was as far as I went. I saw an animal on the beach that looked like a five-tipped star. That was as exotic as it got.

Wolf tried to imagine such a thing, but he was still caught up in how vast the sea must look, stretching beyond any meadow he could dream up. The thought made him want to huddle close to the ground, as the hens did before a thunderstorm. He belonged here. Like Matthias. And like the old smith, he would probably die here, at some moment between strikes.

I liked the sound it made.

Marc’s voice brought Wolf out of his thoughts. The star animal?

No, the sea. The water at the edge moves continuously onto shore, then away again. I’ve never slept better.

You should sleep now.

I should.

Marc lay quiet for a long time. Wolf kept still, but then the other man stirred on the bed. His voice came across the hut as if he looked directly at Wolf.

It’s good to see you, Pup. Even though you tried to kill me.

Fuck off, Wolf said before he could think twice.

Marc laughed, a burst that rang off the hut walls. Not before I finish that chicken soup, he said.

Wolf wondered how long he could stretch the broth before Marc noticed.

He fell asleep counting chickens.

Chapter 5

Six days and two more chickens later—he knew what Wolf was doing—Marc had had enough of his own smell.

It hadn’t bothered him on the road, but in the hut and under his wool blanket, it gathered, made musty by sweat, until he thought he would choke on it. He watched Wolf for signs that he smelled it too. When, after a week, the smith entered the hut and wrinkled his nose, Marc pushed himself up on one elbow.

Help me to the stream. I stink.

Wolf retrieved the soap jar and the extra shirt, and then helped Marc stand. To his dismay, they had hardly passed the chicken yard when he grew dizzy. He stopped, swaying on his feet. Before he knew what was happening, Wolf had lifted him under his shoulders and knees and was carrying him.

Put me down.

Wolf kept walking.

I can walk, you idiot.

Wolf grunted. If walking means falling on your face.

Set me down, you overgrown puppy.

Wolf dropped him.

Marc clutched his throbbing head. Fuck.

You finished?

He looked up to find Wolf glaring at him.

Wherever that expression had come from, Marc had a sudden, reckless desire to prod it out of hiding again.

Wolf knelt and lifted him. I’m not a puppy, he grumbled.

Noted.

When they reached the stream, he expected the smith to set him down on the bank. Instead, he kicked off his boots and stepped into the water. Then he sat down with Marc in front of him.

Marc turned to the bearded face very close to his. You’re joking.

Wolf turned him so that he sat on the pebbled stream bed between Wolf’s raised knees. The stones felt smooth under his ass. The smith hovered behind him.

Bracing him as if he were a babe.

The jar of soap came around in Wolf’s hand. Marc dug his fingers in and started scrubbing his chest. His elbows bumped Wolf’s knees. Marc worked down his arms, into his armpits. You’re not going to bathe?

I’m clean, came the rumbling reply.

He could almost feel the glare on the back of his neck. I don’t know, Marc said, trying to keep the smile out of his voice. I can smell you. He could, and it was a clean, honest sweat he was growing accustomed to, but it was fun to tease the man.

The smith was still for a moment, and then water sloshed as he stood. A shirt hit the bank, followed by breeches and a loop of leather cord. Wolf sat back down behind him, hissing at the cold water. His legs bracketed Marc again, bulky with muscle and covered with blond hair. Marc bit back a puppy comment. As furry as Wolf was, these weren’t the legs of a pup.

Under the guise of washing his ribs, Marc followed the underside of Wolf’s thigh to where it disappeared under the rippling surface of the stream. The smith’s feet braced against the banks. Tendons in his ankles flexed as he bathed behind Marc. His calves, even relaxed, looked powerful.

A great splash sounded behind Marc. He turned to see what had happened, and his hands grew still.

Marc had seen naked men. A man didn’t make a career campaigning without eventually seeing every bare angle of his fellow soldiers—at moments like this one, when bathing, or on hot nights when any scrap of gear prevented sleep.

Marc had seen broader men than Wolf, and taller (though not many), and men with less flesh between their skin and the muscle beneath. He had seen hairier men. He had seen longer beards. He had seen, he reminded himself, less manageable cocks.

Because a man also didn’t spend twenty years fighting without, at some point, managing a mate’s cock, whether he took it in hand to ease the boredom and loneliness between skirmishes, or took it inside him during the mad life-lust that overcame battle survivors. Marc had accepted cocks in both ways, and others, and had given his own. But that hadn’t prepared him for the jolt he got staring at the feast that was Wolf laid out behind him.

The smith reclined in the stream, eyes closed, letting the water run down over the crown of his head. He had untied his hair and now his big fingers worked in and out of it, scrubbing his scalp as the rest flowed with the current. The motion emphasized the power in his arms and shoulders, the breadth of which damn-near occupied the width of the stream bed. Wolf’s great ribcage huffed on short, sharp breaths. The thick blond hair on his chest lay wet against his skin. It thinned slightly above his navel, then grew thicker and darker as it neared his groin. Marc’s fingers itched to shove into that hair, to pull on it until Wolf growled, and then wrap his hand around the smith’s prick.

It lay sideways, its hooded head against Wolf’s raised thigh. Even at rest, it was a thick, blunt weapon, the kind of cock that Marc knew by instinct would grow in girth more than length. The skin of its shaft was a shade darker than the rest of Wolf’s skin—somewhat purple, probably from the chill of the spring-fed stream.

Marc turned back around. His own prick floated in the water, stiff and pointing downstream. He gave it a hard squeeze, a silent promise of a good tug later, when he wasn’t surrounded by the heft of his hairy Teutonic nursemaid.

That’s no nursemaid.

Marc groaned.

Another sloosh of water, and Wolf rose behind him. Two hands came up, fingers wide. You all right?

Marc looked at the meaty hands and ground his teeth together. Fine. This water’s fucking cold.

A low chuckle crept up Marc’s exposed back. Only women need hot water to bathe in.

You sound like Matthias.

You sound soft, Wolf teased.

To Marc’s combined chagrin and relief, he was now, his prick bobbing harmlessly between his legs.

The stones of the stream bed clacked against each other as Wolf shifted backward. Wash your head. Here, lie back. A firm grip on his shoulder and a broad palm under his head eased Marc down into the water. It rushed over his skin, around his neck, then down over his scalp. Wolf’s knees rose above Marc’s ears.

When the man’s fingertips began massaging Marc’s skull, he closed his eyes, letting himself drift on sensation. Wolf worked gently around the contusion behind his ear. The swelling was all but gone, leaving behind soreness and, as he’d discovered, some dizziness. He felt neither just now, though whether because of the cold flow of the stream, or Wolf’s ministrations, he couldn’t be sure. I could stay here all day, he thought, and then scoffed at himself. Lying around was making him soft.

Wolf raised him to sitting. With a hand under each of Marc’s arms, he stood him up.

Enough coddling. Marc stepped onto the bank, scooping up the shirt Wolf had brought for him. His vision wavered for a moment, but he didn’t fall. When he threw the shirt over his head, it hung on him like a half-erected campaign tent. Marc wasn’t a small man or a short one. Most other men had to tilt their heads up to meet his eyes. But he could have invited two of those men to share this shirt with him. Was he ever not going to feel like a child here? He rolled up the sleeves with impatient jerks at the fabric.

I sleep outside tonight, he said.

Wolves, his mind warned.

He ignored it, damn it.

You’re injured.

Marc turned to Wolf, who stepped from the water. Dripping. Flushed.

Damn it.

Thanks to you, he griped.

Wolf’s eyes dipped away and he bent to retrieve his own shirt. He donned it and emerged still frowning, ever the disapproving nurse.

I’m used to sleeping on the ground, said Marc, and in the open.

Wolf swiped his breeches from the grass. That’s not safe now.

Neither was the hut. I’m a light sleeper. I’ll be fine. Besides, he said dryly, the chickens will wake me at the first sign of trouble, if you’ve left any of them in the yard.

Wolf’s gaze flicked to Marc, defensive.

Speaking of, Marc said, stretching, I’m starving.

Wolf rolled his eyes. "If I have any chickens left, Caesar, you might eat."

He turned and stalked to the hut, long hair slapping his shirt, leaving Marc to hobble back on his own.

Chapter 6

Wolf gave up and slid down the wall to sit on the ground.

He had started his vigil standing in the doorway of the hut. Then he’d leaned his forearms against the lintel. When he’d begun to nod off, he’d stepped outside. He didn’t fit under the eave, so he’d stood a few feet away from the hut, in the dark, arms crossed against the autumn chill like an idiot. Eventually, he’d begun to rock on his feet, though, and had squatted against the outer wall of the hut. And now, the ground.

If Marc had noticed any of this, he hadn’t let on. But since Marc loved to tease him for doing idiotic things, Wolf figured the man must be asleep.

Wolf had tried again to make him take the bed. Then he’d offered to make a pallet on the floor. After all, it would be better to sleep within the sheltering walls than outside, exposed to weather and animals. To people.

But Marc had insisted on being outside. He missed the stars, he’d said.

No stars shone on this night. Heavy cloud rolled overhead, obliterating any light from stars or moon. Wolf could just make out Marc’s sleeping shape amid the rangy grass of the meadow. He tapped his hammer against the dirt. Foolish to sit there against the wall of the hut when his aim was to guard Marc. Wolf rose and gathered his bedding from the floor by the hearth. He crept toward Marc. When the man didn’t stir, Wolf laid out his blankets next to him.

He lay back with a soft grunt.