Q

Since the Final War, I’ve been doing just fine. I have a lovely cave, a darling vegetable patch, forest views . . . and if loneliness sometimes squeezes my aching heart, well, my books have always kept me company. That is, until a pack of hunters chase me from my home and right into the arms of several rather large, rather brutish ex-Army Rangers. And those brutes have the nerve to make me the rudest offer I’ve ever heard. Their protection—for my body.

It’s a ghost town, this place that haunts me, the one that made me. It’s clear to me that I’ll never outgrow Triple Falls or outlive the time I spent here. I can still feel them all, my boys of summer. Even when I'd sensed the danger, I gave in. I didn’t heed a single warning. I let my sickness and my love both rule and ruin me. I played my part, eyes wide open, tempting fate until it delivered. There was never going to be an escape. All of us are to blame for what happened. All of us are serving our own sentences.

Beau Eaton is the town prince, a handsome military hero with a tortured past. I’m the outcast bartender, a shy girl from the wrong side of the tracks. He’s 35 and all man, and I’m 22 and all...virgin. He’s also my fiancé. Correction: my fake fiancé. We start out as a bet. He doesn’t believe that anyone holds my last name against me. So he offers me his to prove a point.

The virus spread. Billions died. The Ending began. A group of orphaned misfits. The wildlands of the last frontier. Superhuman abilities, harrowing adventures, and heartbreaking secrets.