Lina didn’t return to their room the next night.

She couldn’t.

Her legs still ached. Her lips were bruised. Her body hummed with the ghosts of their touch. But worse than the soreness was the ache behind her ribs—the sudden realization that she didn’t know who she was anymore when they weren’t touching her.

She hadn’t been meant to feel anything.

She was supposed to be a maid. A girl with a mop and a schedule and a quiet place to sleep.

Instead, she was a woman who ...