Read In Bed!

Until one day, as Mira sat in the warming garden where the flowers had just begun to show their heads, two men arrived. One as fair as sunshine, the other dark as shadows. They reached the gate at the same time, one from each direction. From her seat on the stone bench, Mira could see them both, but at first neither looked at her.

“Gerard,” said the dark-haired man.

“Alain,” greeted the fair-haired man.

Mira got to her feet. Both had put their hands to their belts, one to pull a dagger and the other a short sword. Neither moved after that, each watching the other, until the dark-haired man gave a slight nod and stepped aside just enough to let the one called Gerard pass. Both of them came through the gate, and both stopped when they saw her.

“Madame,” said Gerard with a half-bow. “We seek the lady Mira.”

“Many have sought her,” Mira said. “What makes the two of you any different than the hundred others?”

Alain stood an inch or so shorter than Gerard but still towered tall over Mira. He held out his hand for hers, and she took it at once. “I’ve heard she’s been gifted by the dark fairy.”

“Everyone knows that.” Mira tugged away her hand, still tingling from his touch.

“Ah,” said Alain with a half-bow nearly identical to the one Gerard had already bestowed. “But not everyone else has received the same gift.”

Mira looked at them, one to the other. “And you have?”

“Lady,” answered Gerard. “We both have.”

* * *

Most of the other men had arrived intent on seducing her at once. Some had been kind, a few considerate, but none of them had wasted their time with conversation. Alain and Gerard, however, followed Mira into the large dining hall where they set about laying a fire in the long-neglected hearth.

“Wine, lady?” Gerard’s question seemed more command than request, and Mira found herself scurrying to the sideboard in search of a bottle.

Alain watched her, his gaze like sapphires. “Where are your servants, lady?”

“Gone,” Mira said as she poured three glasses of almost sour wine. “My father can’t afford to pay them any longer, and they fear the dark fairy’s taint. My good mother has taken to her bed. And my father has gone mad.”

She expected the blunt statement to take the men aback, but neither looked surprised. She brought the glasses, one for Alain and one for Gerard, and both took them. Gerard drank his off at once with a grimace, but Alain waited for Mira to sip before he drank.

Gerard gave a low grunt and put his cup on the long wooden dining table that had hosted so many guests over the years. “Come here.”

Mira did at once, though she stopped far enough away from him that he would have to reach to grab her, if that was his intent. Gerard didn’t reach for her. He studied her.

“You are beautiful,” he said. “The fairy didn’t give you that.”

Mira shook her head. “No, sir, I don’t believe so.”

She looked at him. His pale hair fell to his shoulders, loose. He had the sharp features of a hawk and the body of a warrior beneath his simple, solid clothes. She shivered, thinking of his muscular arms around her, of his thick legs pushing hers apart. He would not be gentle, she saw this already, and her pulse beat faster between her legs.

“Would you have me?” he asked her, his voice low and rough.

Mira’s mouth parted, and she looked toward Alain, who had not yet put down his glass. “What of your
companion, sir?”

Gerard laughed. “What of him?”

“You both arrived at the same time. You both want the same thing. How am I to know which of you can provide me with what you need, if I don’t sample you both?”

From another woman these words would have made her a doxy, but Mira had long ceased caring. The dark fairy had gifted her with desire, and it built and built inside her every day without cease. Her mother was trying to sleep away her life and her father was gone insane because of it. She would fuck a thousand men if it meant she’d find the one to complete her.

Gerard gave Alain a challenging look. “Would that you had traveled a mile faster, brother of my heart. You might have been the one to fill this lady’s bucket.”

Alain put a hand over his heart and bowed his head to Gerard. “Would that you had traveled but a mile slower, oh my brother. For then, indeed, I might have been the first to reach her.”

Mira looked at them. They had history, of that there was no question. “You are brothers?”

Without looking away from Alain, Gerard said, “we have different parents.”

Without looking away from Gerard, Alain replied, “We have fought at each other’s side and won. We’ve shared much, Gerard and I.”

They both looked at her, but it was Gerard this time who held out his hand. “Lady. Take me to your room, and I will give you what the dark fairy promised would save you and your family.”