Two years after the world fell apart, I'm entirely alone, a twenty-four-year-old woman scrounging for food and barely surviving. My only choice left is to hook up with a group of roaming scavengers. They're not good people, but it's safer with them than on my own. Deck immediately makes himself my silent protector. He never speaks, but he doesn't have to. He keeps me alive, and I try to communicate with him. We eventually learn to trust each other. The world after Impact is rawer and bleaker than what it used to be, and we've lost most of what made life worth living. But maybe we haven't lost everything. Maybe love still lurks in the ruins. Protected is a standalone post-apocalyptic romance set in the near future after a global catastrophe and is part of the larger Kindled series world.