Megan stood up and allowed Shanea and Mirta to help her into the dress. She could easily do it herself and would have preferred to, but the two, along with a few others, had attached themselves to her like limpets and, honestly, they were far more capable of this sort of thing than she was. She nodded as Meredith came into the vanity room and smiled.

“You look like Athena, Meredith,” Megan said.

“Thank you.” Meredith Amado Tillou was a tall, exquisite brunette dressed, like Megan, in a dress that was backless with a high collar and cut low at the front. Hers was not cut quite as low as Megan’s and it lacked the slits on the side that teasingly revealed long legs. She was not going to the ball to be noticed. Quite the opposite. If she had a choice in her manner of dress it would be a full coverage dress and a hooded cloak.

Her expression was much the same as it had been for four years in Paul Bowman’s harem, blank. But the eyes were different. While in the harem she had participated in one of the two revolts against Paul’s bondage and, when unsuccessful, she had been brain locked and kept as an imbecilic brood mare for Paul’s “breeding group.” When Megan killed Paul it released the bond, and the memories of four years of unwilling bondage, of the things that had been done to her and of the things she did. Now she viewed the world through eyes that were as cold as an iceberg and for all the world as deadly.

As Megan had quickly learned, the mind that had been released was at least as good as her own. Behind that blank mask was a brain like a computer with a virtually perfect memory and a phenomenal ability to synthesize information, making connections where others did not see them. For all that she had, apparently, no ambitions for greater power. She had become Megan’s political aide and would be attending the ball in that position.