When battle-scarred soldier Marcus returns home after Rome’s fall, the last thing he expects is to be felled by his childhood friend Wolf — now a towering blacksmith whose hammer blow sparks a love story spanning decades of devotion and desire.

From an abandoned frontier garrison to the windswept coast of northwestern Gaul, these two men forge a family and community together, proving that the strongest bonds aren’t created in a single flash of heat, but through the steady, tender work of a lifetime.

📖 Read it FREE on AO3

📚 Get it in ebook or print

Tropes

childhood friends to lovers, reunion romance, hurt/comfort, caretaking, size difference, gentle giant, soldier/blacksmith pairing, found family, decades-spanning love story, pining/yearning, lifelong devotion, protectiveness/possessiveness, adoption and fatherhood, community building, older characters/silver foxes, widower, life-threatening illness (cancer), marriage and commitment ceremony, MMM threesome (brief), happily ever after with grandchildren

Content Notes

depictions of violence; killing in self-defense; death; injury & illness; surgery & rehabilitation; ableism; adoption; childbirth; homophobia; bondage kink

Tags

m/m romance, post-Roman Empire, 5th-6th century CE, Gaul, historical fantasy, blacksmith hero, soldier hero, steam level: explicit, bondage kink, domestic life, emotional journey, family saga, adoption, raising children, aging together, survival and rebuilding, medieval setting, epic romance, Arthurian legend