_She needs a man to keep her alive in a world full of monsters. He'll do._ Ever since the world fell apart, I've been like a princess trapped in a tower, looking down at our chaotic new reality from an upstairs window and never allowed to risk the dangers outside. Then my father dies, and there's no one left to keep me safe from selfish, violent men no longer restrained by social boundaries. I need someone, and the leader of the local gang is my best choice. Rough and intimidating, he's no prince. But Levi agrees to keep me safe, and I do my best to keep him happy. Maybe I want more than a transactional relationship, but the world after Impact doesn't allow for romantic daydreams. Life is now a gritty fairy tale without a happily ever after.

She needs to escape her stepmother, and the only prince available is him. Ever since my father died and my sister left, I've been trapped in a life of drudgery with a stepfamily as wicked as the storybooks say. Life after the apocalypse offers few choices, and I only have three. I can stay and be miserable. I can die in the wilderness. Or I can marry him. Mason is the closest thing this village has to a prince. He's odd and antisocial and doesn't say a lot, but he's got a good home and a dependable income. Plus, he treats me better than my stepfamily. Neither one of us has any experience with relationships, but maybe we can muddle along together better than we have alone. If happy endings in this world are impossible, then this marriage of convenience will have to do.

He might be a wolf in disguise. Ever since the world fell apart a year ago, I've been doing whatever I can to survive, serving food at a trading post in the flooded hills of eastern Virginia and sometimes taking men to my room upstairs. They have to pay, of course. Cade stops by every few weeks. He's gruff and quiet and not looking for friends, but he always treats me okay. I don't mind having him as a customer. I actually start to like him, which is the last thing I expect in the hellish place the world has become. But Cade isn't the harmless loner he's been pretending to be, and his secrets could drag me into danger. I thought he was just a regular guy, but all this time he's been hiding a wolf.

He's more a beast than a man, and she's trapped with him through a post-apocalyptic winter. After getting caught in a violent snowstorm, I take shelter in the only place available, an old hotel high on a mountain. It should have been abandoned, but it's not. Finn lives there like a bad-tempered bear in a den, growling at the world, using his engineering skills to make a life alone possible, and allowing no company except his pack of guard dogs. He doesn't want me in his hotel, but I have no choice if I want to survive through this endless, frozen winter. So we make a deal. I'll cook and clean for him, if he'll provide shelter and feed me and Ajax, my pet racoon. And also Romulus and Remus, my two crow friends. And maybe too the flock of geese I adopt. And the baby deer I rescue. I'm not asking much. After all, I don't have to like this grumpy, reclusive beast of a man, but I can use him to help me and my animals survive. When the snow finally melts, I'll come down off the mountain, and I'll never have to see him again.