Rightfully Shared E-Book

Nova Edwins

• Herausgeber: Black Umbrella Publishing
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 75

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

Sean has been my best friend as long as I can remember—benefits included. Even the apocalypse does not change that. We used to roam night clubs; now we roam the wastelands, scavenging. I'd never leave Sean behind, but his leg is badly injured and he can barely keep up. Every day, life is getting more and more dangerous. And with less than one-third of the female population left, women are a rare commodity. We need help. If it was only me, I'd have the apocalypse version of a sugar daddy in no time—but I need someone willing to protect both me and Sean. And I will do whatever it takes to find him…   Dark sci-fi novella with wildly over-the-top action and an HEA. Contains a grunting alien with horns, a possessive human man, and a tiny dash of the apocalypse.

Leseprobe

RIGHTFULLY SHARED

NOVA EDWINS

A DARK SCI-FI ROMANCE NOVELLA

CONTENTS

Rightfully Shared

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

About Nova Edwins

RIGHTFULLY SHARED

Sean has been my best friend as long as I can remember—benefits included. Even the apocalypse does not change that. We used to roam night clubs; now we roam the wastelands, scavenging.

I’d never leave Sean behind, but his leg is badly injured and he can barely keep up. Every day, life is getting more and more dangerous. And with less than one-third of the female population left, women are a rare commodity.

We need help. If it was only me, I’d have the apocalypse version of a sugar daddy in no time—but I need someone willing to protect both me and Sean. And I will do whatever it takes to find him…

Dark sci-fi novella with wildly over-the-top action and an HEA. Contains a grunting alien with horns, a possessive human man, and a tiny dash of the apocalypse.

1

"You probably shouldn’t do this," Sean calls from the ground.

I just roll my eyes. "Yeah, well, somebody’s got to do it."

"We can try at the next store again. One with less rubble in front of the door."

I don’t need to look down to know how concerned he is. To be honest, I’m quite concerned myself. This mountain of trash and concrete looks anything but safe. Yet, that might be a good thing: it means that the pharmacy behind it is harder to reach. Maybe we’ll be lucky for once. 

I take another step, although the word step might be a bit optimistic for the sweeping motion I’m making with my foot. I’m crouching low on top of the rubble, carefully testing if it would support my weight and trying to find a way down on the other side. I’m crawling more than I’m walking, shifting my body carefully, avoiding sudden movements.

I cast a look over my shoulder and find Sean leaning heavily on the remnants of a burned-out car. My determination only grows. I have to get into this pharmacy. He needs antibiotics.

An operating table, a surgeon, and some nice anesthetics would be even better—but those days are long gone. None of these things have been around since the world ended six months ago.

And it’s been a shit show ever since.

Six months ago, I could barely light a match to enjoy my beloved scented candles before ordering food with my smartphone. Now I know how to build a freaking fire from scratch and—unfortunately—how to skin a dead animal.

It also turns out that I’m a surprisingly decent shot. I would’ve never known it if those fucking aliens hadn’t invaded our planet. Thanks to them, I picked up my first ever gun, after a life of being totally against firearms. Ironically enough, though, it wasn’t for fighting aliens that I needed the gun. It was for human men.

Sean seems to be one of only a handful of guys who hadn’t turned completely insane since the aliens landed. But then, he has always been one of my best friends, even before the lights went out—literally. There’s no electricity left. Not a single spark.

That’s how the aliens got to us. Well, that and the fact that they killed around 85 percent of the female population.

"Dammit, Delilah, talk to me," Sean demands.

"I can’t see anything yet. There’s nothing to talk about."

"I still want to hear your voice so that I know you’re okay."

"Okay." I bite my lip, my whole body tingling. I can still remember the times when Sean wanted to hear me moan and say filthy things. Now he needs to hear me to be sure that I’m still alive. I hate this new life. My old one was way better. At least I still have him.

After making sure that the rubble structure will hold my weight, I start climbing down on the other side.

Wiping my dirty hands on my equally dirty jeans, I look around. "No immediate danger."

"Be careful anyway."

I roll my eyes. It’s a gesture that would’ve earned me a spanking from Sean a couple of months back. Now we’re both too exhausted from the sheer amount of work it takes to stay alive.

"I’m always careful," I yell back.

"You’re also clumsy."

I have to bite my tongue, because I’m tired and hungry and cranky and about to say something that I know I would regret afterward. Everything in me wants to snap back that I’m not the one with the broken leg because I misjudged the integrity of a bridge and fell into a dried-out riverbed.

It’s bad, his leg. Sean’s trying to tell me otherwise, but I see him sweating and trying to avoid putting his weight on it. There are no hospitals left, and although we tried everything we could to set the broken bone, I’m quite sure it’s not healing properly.

"I’m going in."

"Don’t take too long."

I smile at his answer, because every now and again he can’t hide the dominant tone in his voice. It’s the same tone that made me drop my panties every time he ordered me to. Back in the old days—before the aliens and the end of the world—we were friends with benefits. Kinky benefits.

Sean was a lawyer, and I was in law school, so we were both too busy to meet new people and go on dates. Eventually we figured out how well our sexual preferences matched, and so we started this casual thing. One of us would pick up takeout, and we would meet, have some food, watch a show or a movie, and fuck our brains out afterward. We had a few rules to keep things from getting too complicated. But the result was that I’d spent the last two years fucking Sean and focusing on making it through law school while working part-time in retail. It was pure bliss.

In fact, the reason we ended up together during the apocalypse was that Sean had come over with sushi. He was spanking my ass when the power went out. That didn’t stop us, though, because we both thought it would come back on.

It didn’t.

Instead, the aliens unleashed some kind of virus, presumably to kill us all. It didn’t work out quite like they anticipated, though. Unless their goal was to keep all men alive and to turn all women into feral monsters.

Because that’s what happened.

I have to fight back tears, as usual, when the past comes to my mind. That’s why I barely think about "before."

As I make my way through the broken glass doors of the pharmacy, I shake my head to banish the image of my younger sister Amy slitting her own throat.

Since there was no electricity, no internet, not even radio communication after the apocalypse, we’re still not entirely sure what happened. I have only my own observations to rely on. But it seems to me that the aliens’ virus drove most of the women on Earth insane. It all happened quickly, the sickness progressing in less than 24 hours. First, my sister said that she was getting a cold. Then the cold turned out to be a fever, a very painful fever that did something to her head. And it wasn’t just her.

All the women I knew, and all the ones I met right after the attack, were incredibly aggressive and hostile. They tried to kill whoever they could, before turning the aggression against themselves. My sister used a broken bottle to kill herself, and my aunt jumped off the roof of the building she used to work in. I still have no idea what happened to my mom. When I arrived at her house, it was burned to ashes, four unidentifiable corpses lying on the ground where the kitchen used to be.

I also don’t know why I never showed any of the symptoms. Besides the emotional trauma, I’ve been completely fine. It’s scary, though: since the apocalypse, I’ve only met five other women so far. And they hadn’t met a lot of other women either. Which, incidentally, is why the first shot I ever fired from a gun was aimed at a human man.

Something about the apocalypse brought out the crazy in all of us. The men have teamed up in some kind of militias, trying to gather all the remaining females for an "attempt to repopulate the Earth." That’s what they call it. I call it gang rape.

So I stick to Sean and make sure to keep us both safe. He did a very good job of that before he broke his leg. Now, it’s my turn.

Glass crunches under the sole of my sneaker and I hold my breath to listen. It’s utterly silent. Not even birds are chirping anymore. Just to be sure, I take the knife from its sheath on my belt. I take another step.

I can see that the shelves have been raided a long time ago. But I refuse to give up. Sneaking forward, I spot a bottle of aspirin, a box of tampons, and some bandages. I put all of it into my backpack and continue my search.

Frustration gnaws at my stomach, making me clench my teeth. I need some fucking antibiotics for Sean. I can’t lose him, too.