Laura caught Flora in the doorway and kept a hand on the thrall's waist. Neither woman moved to step apart. The rower cracked her knuckles before she gave an order, and Flora learned early what that meant. Every task between them became a test of who would yield.

Flora's soft voice trembled with the quiet desperation to belong, her curvaceous body and jagged scar both drawing her toward the safety of being marked and owned. Yet Laura's terror of loss held the claim at bay, even as the length of cord waited on the bench. Ownership would cost them both the independence they still claimed. The winter solstice was coming either way.