Chapter 1 #2
You'd catch them at the gas station on Highway 441, those massive vehicles guzzling fuel, or at Walmart loading up shopping carts like they were prepping for the apocalypse.
Always polite. Quiet, even. They'd offer a nod if you made eye contact, but they never lingered, never made small talk.
Just handled their business and disappeared back into the mountains. Honestly? The best kind of neighbor.
I settled back into my chair, letting the manufactured drama wash over me.
On screen, a parade of sequined gowns and spray tans competed for the affections of a man whose defining characteristic seemed to be excellent dental work.
It was absurd—watching grown adults weep over someone they'd met three weeks ago during a group date at a winery—but that was precisely the point.
It numbed the brain just enough to silence the nagging voice that wanted to calculate my student loan interest or worry about whether my truck's bald tires would survive the first mountain snow.
Sacha—a willowy brunette poured into a dress that cost more than I made in a week—stepped forward on stilettos that could double as weapons.
The Bachelor (Derek? Darren? Did it matter?) extended a rose between them with the solemnity of a knight offering his sword.
Tammy practically vibrated on her stool, hissing "Don't you dare" at the screen like he could hear her.
The automatic doors whispered open.
Footsteps. Heavy ones. Not the uncertain shuffle of someone elderly navigating unfamiliar territory, not the frantic stumble of acute pain. These were purposeful. Controlled. Each step landed with enough force that I felt the vibration travel up through the legs of my chair.
I turned.
An Orc filled the entrance, one massive hand braced against the doorframe like he was holding up the building itself.
A small boy lay cradled in his other arm, dwarfed against that broad chest. The Orc had to be seven feet if he was an inch, shoulders so wide they'd barely cleared the double doors.
His skin reminded me of deep forest moss—that dark green that's almost gray when the light hits it wrong.
Jeans and a black t-shirt strained across muscles that looked carved from stone.
And blood. Christ, so much blood.
For one heart-stopping second, I thought it was his—that vivid red pooling in the creases of his arms, dripping from his elbows. But no. The Orc's jaw was set, his breathing controlled. Not his blood.
The child's.
My gaze snapped to the boy—Orc, maybe five or six, with dark hair plastered to his skull.
His t-shirt had probably been blue once.
Now it was mostly crimson, the fabric so saturated it clung to his small frame like a second skin.
More blood painted the Orc's forearms in streaks, each drop hitting the white tile with a sound I felt in my teeth.
The boy's face had gone the color of old ash. His eyes were closed, head lolling boneless against the Orc's chest with the terrible stillness of the critically injured.
My body moved before my mind finished processing. Training took over—feet already carrying me around the desk, hand already rising to point toward triage.
"Tammy!" The name ripped from my throat, sharp enough to shatter the waiting room's fragile quiet. "Trauma Two—move!"
Behind me, her chair shrieked against linoleum. Footsteps thundered. But the world had already narrowed to a tunnel. The Orc, the child, the blood that kept flowing.
"With me. Now." I shouldered through the double doors, holding them wide. My voice came out steadier than I felt. "How long since the injury?"
The Orc swept past, bringing with him the scent of pine forests and rain-soaked earth, all of it threaded through with copper-bright blood. But there was something else beneath it—something wild and electric that made every nerve ending in my body snap to attention.
Jesus, Jordan. Focus.
"Forty minutes." His voice rolled through the space between us like distant thunder. "Maybe longer."
"Gunshot?"
"Yes."
I yanked a stretcher from the wall, wheels squealing as I positioned it. "Here. Easy now."
Those massive hands—hands that could probably crush bone without effort—lowered the boy onto the mattress with the delicacy of someone handling spun glass. The child's whimper cut straight through me, a knife between the ribs.
"Tammy, I need you!" My fingers were already working, peeling back the blood-soaked fabric. Entry wound, left side, tucked just below the ribs. I searched for an exit wound, found nothing. "Now!"
The Orc retreated a single step, but his presence still dominated the space.
He planted himself at the foot of the stretcher like a sentinel carved from stone, those dark eyes—no, not dark, amber, I realized, like whiskey catching firelight—locked onto me with an intensity that raised goosebumps along my arms. Not menacing.
Just... aware. Tracking every twitch of my fingers, every breath I took.
I pressed two fingers against the boy's carotid. His pulse fluttered beneath my touch like a trapped bird, too rapid, too weak. Each breath came shallow and desperate.
"What's his name?" The scissors in my hand made quick work of the remaining fabric, exposing pale green skin marbled with darkening veins.
"Ardin."
"Ardin, sweetheart, my name's Jordan. I know you're scared, but I'm going to take care of you, okay?
" I kept my tone soft, measured, the way you'd gentle a frightened animal.
Even if he couldn't respond, some part of him might still be listening.
That connection mattered—sometimes it was the only thing that did.
Tammy exploded through the door, her expression cycling through shock and professional composure in the span of a heartbeat. "Jesus. What've we got?"
"GSW, left lower quadrant, no exit wound. Pulse is 65 and thready, respirations shallow and labored. Start a line, push fluids wide open. I need a full trauma panel and type and cross for surgery." I lifted my gaze to the Orc, whose jaw had gone rigid as iron. "Any allergies?"
A single shake of his head. "No."
"The bullet's still in there?"
"Yes." The word came out strangled. A muscle ticked beneath the angular plane of his cheekbone. "I believe it's silver."
Fuck.
Tammy's hands stuttered mid-reach for the IV supplies, just for a fraction of a second.
Silver bullets. We'd learned enough about Orc physiology to know this was bad—catastrophically bad.
Like werewolves in the old stories, Orcs and silver didn't mix.
The metal didn't just wound; it corrupted.
It turned healthy tissue necrotic, spread like poison through the bloodstream, made natural healing impossible.
The clock was already ticking down.
"Alright." I caught Tammy's eye. "Page Dr. Reeves. Tell him we need an OR prepped five minutes ago—emergency surgery, suspected silver toxicity." I turned back to the Orc, whose entire body had gone taut as a bowstring. "You made the right call bringing him here."
He didn't answer. Just continued that unblinking vigil, those amber eyes boring into me, and despite the chaos—the blood painting my hands, the child dying on my table, the adrenaline screaming through my veins—something low in my belly tightened in a way that had absolutely nothing to do with fear.
Not now, Jordan. For God's sake, focus.
I turned my attention back to Ardin, pressing gauze against the wound to slow the bleeding. "Hang on, sweetheart. We've got you."
Tammy returned less than a minute later, her face pale. "Dr. Reeves is at Gatlinburg General. Earliest he can be here is an hour and fifteen, maybe more with traffic."
My stomach dropped. I looked down at Ardin. He was so small, about the size of a human six-year-old. His breathing was already labored, his skin taking on a grayish tinge around the wound site. The silver was spreading.
An hour and fifteen minutes. He wouldn't make it.
"Jordan?" Tammy's voice was tight with worry.
I made the decision in a heartbeat. "Bring in a portable X-ray and get me a surgical kit. Local anesthetic, forceps, irrigation supplies. Now."
"You're going to—"
"We don't have a choice." I met her eyes. "The silver is killing him. If we wait for Reeves, this kid dies."
The big Orc's hand shot out, gripping my wrist. Not hard enough to hurt, but firm. Demanding my attention. "You can do this?"
I looked up at him. Up close, I could see the flecks of gold in those amber pupils, the sharp intelligence behind them. "I'm not a surgeon. But I've removed bullets before. With it being a chest wound, I'd rather he be treated by a surgeon, but that's not an option right now."
For a long moment, he just stared at me. Weighing. Deciding whether to trust this human woman with the life of his—what? Son?
Finally, he released my wrist and issued a single, sharp nod. "Do it."
Tammy didn't wait for further instructions.
She was already yanking open cabinets, her hands moving with the kind of muscle memory that comes from years in the ER.
I hit the sink hard, scrubbing like I could wash away the voice in my head screaming about liability and medical boards and all the ways this could go catastrophically wrong.
But then I glanced back at Ardin—really looked at him—and that voice went silent.
"Okay, big guy," I said, snapping on gloves with more confidence than I felt. "I need you to hold him steady. The local will help, but this is still going to hurt like hell, and he might fight us."
He moved to the head of the gurney with surprising grace for someone his size, those massive hands settling on Ardin's shoulders with the gentleness of someone cradling something they deemed precious and breakable. "My name is Ruka," he said, his voice low and steady.
"Jordan." I swabbed the wound site, my hands already falling into a familiar rhythm. "Nice to meet you. I wish it were under better circumstances."