HELDAI have learned the difference between being chosen and being summoned.

For years, I told myself there was none.

The body doesn’t argue with survival. It adapts. It accepts what is required of it and locks the rest away. Back then, when I was brought into the den with iron around my wrists and a number instead of a name, learning that truth kept me breathing.

Slaves did not get preferences. We got assignments.

Bodie was one of mine.

That was how it began.

He never called for me the way ...