When She’s Common – Risdaverse Read Online Ruby Dixon

Categories Genre: Alien, Alpha Male, Fantasy/Sci-fi, Paranormal Tags Authors: Ruby Dixon Advertisement

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It's lonely for an extrovert on Risda III, the human refuge on the edge of the universe. Maeve craves company and friends, but she knows she can't keep harassing the locals for attention. What she needs is a pet to love on.What she gets is...a stowaway. Sorta. Zhur is actually a praxiian prince on the run, and the cat alien needs a place to hide out. Maybe not this place, though, because it smells and it has animals and all his bespoke clothes are missing. He needs to get out of here....Except he can't, because he's stranded without a credit to his name.They're going to have to work together to fix things. Luckily for Zhur, Maeve has a plan. Maeve always has a plan. Unluckily for Zhur, most of Maeve's plans are bad....and this latest plan ends up with them being married?!?

*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************

If I’ve missed anything, please let me know!

— Ruby

CHAPTER

ONE

MAEVE

In some ways, Risda III is the loneliest place in the universe.

It shouldn't be. I'm lucky in that my farm is right outside of Port, the small town established to help us human refugees with our farms. It's a short walk into town every morning, where I can go and talk to everyone and anyone I meet. I can stay all day long and hold conversations with any human that wanders in. After years of being held captive in an alien's zoo-like aquarium, being able to roam freely is a joy. Being around other humans is a joy.

But it's never enough.

I'm like a sponge soaking up water, but I'm soaking up people-ing instead. The loneliness that gnawed at me for years was held at bay with fear, with the worry of survival. Now that I'm safe, it's returned, and Port is the cruelest of teases.

Yes, Port is full of people.

People with places to be or things to do. No one wants to stop and talk to a lonely woman who really just wants to hang out and shoot the shit. The other women here are busy running their farms, or worse, they're skittish around other people and just want to be left alone. And I can take up a little of their time here and there, but everyone has stuff to do.

I visit with Bee, who has a full schedule of people to check in on, so it's a short visit.

I say hello to Lucy and we talk recipes, but she has to run a tray of muffins up to the Port Custodial Office and then she's meeting someone to talk about an addition to her house.

Marissa—or Miranda (she told me her name once and I'm too much of a coward to point out that I don't remember it and I can't ask again) runs the laundry for the workers expanding the spaceport and is too busy to talk for long, and all she wants to complain about is space lice, which...ew.

I stop by Simone's bread stand for a bit, buy a cookie, and try to chat, but I'm keeping her from her work. There's no book club today. There's no one in the general store and the bird guy behind the counter glares at me because I have a tendency to loiter and not buy. Ditto the alien guy at the cantina.

Even so, I manage to make a day of it on the regular, bouncing between conversations and greetings. It's feeding my hunger for company in drips and drabs. It's enough...at least until sundown.

Then I head home and sit in silence.

I hate nights. Hate them so much. The hours drag past with painful slowness, and every night I find myself wishing that the sun would come up again so I can leave. My home no longer feels like home, but a prison. Another aquarium I'm being kept in, a protected environment designed to keep me comfortable but not content.

There's no one to talk to at night. I've tried contacting other refugees to chitchat but they don't trust the communication lines in our houses. Like they're afraid that someone will listen in and realize where they are and snatch them again (valid). I could sink into television or radio if there were anything of the kind here, but all I seem to find are news reports filtering in from Homeworld and some horrible gladiator battles. The only book I've managed to borrow is a Nancy Drew hardback for kids, The Secret of the Old Clock. I've read it twice now and frankly, Scooby Doo has Nancy beat in the mystery-solving department.

I'm not sleeping, either. I've had insomnia ever since I was kidnapped from Earth, and it just makes the hours longer.

So I sit and wait for dawn. I play Solitaire with myself. I clean house. I scrub the baseboards with a toothbrush. I lie flat on my back and stare up at the ceiling, miserable and trapped until sunrise.

"It's awful," I tell Simone the next morning, when I'm the first one at the bread stand. I buy a biscuit (dry) and some sort of breakfast pastry (also dry, but I don't care). "I thought I'd be so happy to be here and free instead of in some glass cage like a pet lizard, but it's making me crazy. I need someone to talk to."

"You could get a husband," Simone says, laying out her baked goods. "Or a wife."

"I'm hearing your suggestion, and I appreciate it," I tell her tactfully. "But I don't like the idea of anyone controlling my life again." Just the thought of it makes me break out in panicky goosebumps, and I shove another mouthful of biscuit into my gob. "Don't suppose you need an assistant?" I ask, spewing crumbs.


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