“Be quiet!” Kylara stepped quickly from the collapsed dress at her feet, all too aware of the livid bruises that stood out on her fair skin. One more reason to wear the new gown. She shrugged into the loose linen robe she had discarded earlier. While sleeveless, its folds almost covered the big bruise on her right arm. She could always blame that on a natural accident. Not that she cared a whistle what T’bor thought but it made for less recrimination. And he never knew what he did when he was well wined-up.

“No good will come of it,” Rannelly was moaning as she gathered up the red gown and began to shuffle across to her cubby. “You’re weyrfolk now. No good comes of weyrfolk mixing with holders. Stick to your own. You’re somebody here…”

“Shut up, you old fool. The whole point of being Weyrwoman is I can do what I please. I’m not my mother. I don’t need your advice.”

“Aye, and I know it,” the old nurse said with such sharp bitterness that Kylara stared after her.

There, she’d frowned unattractively. She must remember not to screw her brows that way; it made wrinkles. Kylara ran her hands down her sides, testing the smooth curves sensuously, drawing one hand across her flat belly. Flat even after five brats. Well, there’d be no more. She had the way of it now. Just a few moments longer between at the proper time and…

She pirouetted, laughing, throwing her arms up to the ceiling in a tendon-snapping stretch and hissing as the bruised deltoid muscle pained her.

Meron need not…She smiled languorously. Meron did need to, because she needed it.

He is not a dragonrider, said Prideth, rousing from sleep. There was no censure in the golden dragon’s tone; it was a statement of fact. Mainly the fact that Prideth was bored with excursions which landed her in Holds rather than Weyrs. When Kylara’s fancy took them visiting other dragons, Prideth was more than agreeable. But a Hold, with only the terrified incoherencies of a watch-wher for company, was another matter.

“No, he’s not a dragonrider,” Kylara agreed emphatically, a smile of remembered pleasure touching her full red lips. It gave her a soft, mysterious, alluring look, she thought, bending to the mirror. But the surface was mottled and the close inspection made her skin appear diseased.

I itch, Prideth said, and Kylara could hear the dragon moving. The ground under her feet echoed the effect.

Kylara laughed indulgently and, with a final swirl and a grimace at the imperfect mirror, she went out to ease Prideth. If only she could find a real man who could understand and adore her the way the dragon did. If, for instance, F’lar…