had dwindled as fast as her father’s fortune. The men who now waited at the gate were those a little needier, a little less affluent. Men to whom a pretty wife who’d lain with a hundred men and a bit of a fortune were better than a farm-roughened wife and no fortune at all. Mira took them as she’d done the ones in fine leather and velvet, and like their richer predecessors, none left her complete. One by one, the men left her chamber, grumbling that there could be no man who would finish her.
“Daughter, don’t kill yourself to find the one,” Mira’s mother urged, voice slurred, dress askew. “A fortune can be rewon.”
“Tell that to my father,” Mira said from her place in front of the mirror, where she searched her mismatched eyes for any sign of something different. Something new. “He’s the one killing himself, sitting in the counting room enumerating his coins and gnashing his teeth at each one he must relinquish.”
She turned to her mother. “Both of you believe you can do nothing to change the dark fairy’s curse, but I know I can.”
Again, she looked at her face. She’d become a woman, with a woman’s secret smile. She touched her bare breasts, the tight pink nipples. The floss between her thighs. The box that would bring her pleasure if only she could find the right key to unlock it.
“And I want to,” she said.
Winter eased into spring with little fanfare. Mira’s parents had done little to fight the fairy’s curse. It pained her to see her beloved mother and father give themselves so quickly to despair, and she was determined not to let them wither away. The line of men waiting to sample her beauty had dwindled to nothing, no more than one or two a sevenday.
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 hundreds of 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, from 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 offered glasses, one to Alain and one to Gerard, and both took them. Gerard drank his 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 I 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 had 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.”
Mira, having no reason to decline, took his hand and led him to the stairs. Halfway up, she looked back. Alain stared after them, but only she saw him press his lips to the tips of his fingers.
Gerard wasted no time with pretty words. He took Mira in his arms the moment the bedchamber door closed behind them. His breath smelled of wine, a heady aroma more tantalizing than the taste of it had been. His mouth took hers without preamble, nudging open her lips to allow his tongue to slide inside. Mira gasped into his kiss, and his arms tightened around her.
“She truly did gift you with desire,” Gerard murmured, tracing the line of her jaw with his mouth. Into her ear, he whispered, “You create it and feel it, both. Do you not?”
“Yes.” Mira shivered as his large hands roamed her body and cupped her buttocks through the simple linen dress she wore. Without maidservants to wash her clothes and help her dress, she’d gone without a shift or girdle beneath, and it was almost as if she wore nothing at all. “Yes, sir, I feel it.”
“You want me to touch you, as the other men have touched you?”
Mira