Chapter 1 #4
Tammy and I slipped out quietly, pulling the door most of the way closed behind us. In the hallway, Tammy caught my arm, her voice dropping to a whisper. "Jordan, we're supposed to call the sheriff. Gunshot wound—it's protocol."
I paused, glancing back at the exam room where Ruka kept his silent vigil. "Would it do any good?"
Tammy's expression turned grim. "No. Everyone knows Sheriff Dawson doesn't like Orcs. He'd probably come down here and make their night even worse, ask a bunch of questions, try to make the Orcs look like the bad guys."
I thought about it for a moment—about the fear in Ruka's eyes when he'd carried Ardin through our doors, about the careful way he'd answered every question, about a father who'd done nothing wrong except have a son who'd been in the wrong place at the wrong time.
"We'll make the call," I said finally. "But later. After they leave. We'll say we were too busy stabilizing the patient to call right away, which isn't much of a lie." I met Tammy's gaze. "That way they'll be gone when Dawson shows up."
Tammy nodded slowly, relief crossing her features. "Later. After they're gone."
"After they're gone," I confirmed.
The waiting room stood empty, leaving the ER in that strange liminal space between night and morning. I grabbed Ardin's chart and started filling in the details—patient charts didn't complete themselves, no matter how much I wished they would, especially at three in the morning.
But I couldn't focus.
My gaze kept wandering back to that exam room, drawn to the sliver of space where the door stood ajar.
Through it, I could make out Ruka's silhouette—motionless, steadfast. In the half-light, his features were all dramatic contrasts.
The heavy ridge of his brow casting shadows over those luminous amber eyes, the strong cut of his jaw, the ivory curve of his tusks breaching past his lower lip, the powerful breadth of his shoulders that seemed to fill the small room.
I'd seen Orcs before, of course. On the news, in Franklin's downtown, always at a careful distance.
Everyone had, ever since the Integration.
The media couldn't get enough of them—usually framed to inspire either fear or fascination.
They were imposing, undeniably powerful, their masculinity almost mythic in its intensity.
But I'd never looked at one and thought: beautiful.
The word ambushed me, stealing my breath.
Yet there it was, undeniable. Ruka was beautiful—not despite the orcish features that made him so different from me, but because of them.
The raw strength evident in every line of his frame.
The keen intelligence burning in those golden eyes.
The exquisite gentleness with which those battle-scarred hands had cradled Ardin.
It wove together into something that made my heart stumble in my chest, a flutter that had nothing whatsoever to do with the adrenaline crash I was riding.
"Earth to Dr. Bennett?" Tammy's voice cut through my reverie.
Heat flooded my cheeks. "What? Sorry. Just—tired."
"Mm-hmm." The sound dripped with skepticism, and when I risked a glance up, her expression was far too knowing for comfort.
I ducked my head, focusing intently on the chart in front of me. The words blurred together. I told myself not to look at the exam room again.
I looked anyway.
The rest of the night passed in that peculiar stillness that settles over emergency rooms in the hours before dawn like a held breath.
I found myself drawn back to Ardin's room more times than strictly necessary, each visit revealing Ruka standing vigil beside the narrow bed, one massive hand resting on the boy's shoulder with a tenderness that seemed impossible from someone so formidable.
Those amber eyes never left the monitor, tracking each heartbeat, each breath, as if he could will the child to heal through sheer force of attention.
He never sat. Never slumped. A mountain keeping watch.
By the time sunrise painted the waiting room windows in shades of honey and rose, I was held together by nothing but coffee and stubborn determination. The day shift would arrive soon to relieve me, but I wanted to hang one more bag of antibiotics before I surrendered Ardin to their care.
I was adjusting the IV drip when I heard it—the staccato percussion of expensive heels against linoleum, sharp as gunfire.
Everyone in the ER knew that sound. It was the harbinger of judgment, the drumbeat of bureaucratic fury.
Medical Director Nadine Fletcher materialized in the doorway.
Her light brown hair was scraped back into a bun so severe it could have been classified as a weapon, and behind wire-rimmed glasses, her eyes—pale blue and pitiless—swept from me to Ardin to Ruka.
I watched her expression curdle from mere irritation into something far more venomous.
"What," she said, each word dripping acid, "is this?"
I straightened, forcing my voice into professional neutrality. "This is Ardin. Six years old, presented with a gunshot wound to the lower chest. I performed emergency surgery to—"
"I can read a chart, Jordan." She snatched the clipboard from the footboard, her mouth compressing into a bloodless line as she scanned the notes.
"What I want to know is why you thought it was appropriate to squander hospital resources on—" Her gaze sliced toward Ardin with naked revulsion. "—on this."
The air itself seemed to freeze.
"On a child?" The words came out sharp and disbelieving. "A child who would have bled to death otherwise?"
"On an animal," Nadine corrected, her voice sharp enough to draw blood. She turned to Ruka, examining him the way one might assess roadkill. "These creatures have their own healers, their own primitive methods. They don't belong in a human hospital, taking up beds that actual patients need."
Ruka's expression remained carved from granite, but I caught the infinitesimal tightening of his jaw, the way his hand shifted closer to Ardin—shielding.
Fury detonated in my chest, white-hot and righteous.
"Actual patients?" I moved between Nadine and the bed, my hands balling into fists at my sides. "He's a six-year-old boy who was dying. That makes him an actual patient. That makes him someone who deserves our care."
Nadine's eyes became chips of ice. "Watch your tone, Jordan."
"No." The word cracked through the room like a whip. "You watch yours. The Hippocratic Oath doesn't include a species exemption clause. We treat everyone who comes through those doors. That's not a suggestion—it's the foundation of what we do as physicians."
"The foundation," Nadine said, her voice dropping to something dangerous and quiet, "is what I say it is. And I say we don't have the resources to waste on—"
"A child?" I interrupted, crossing my arms and holding her gaze. "Since when is saving a child's life considered waste?"
"That's not the point."
"Then enlighten me," I challenged. "What is the point? That he's different? That his skin is green instead of pink? That he's not human enough to warrant basic decency?"
Nadine's face flushed crimson. "How dare you—"
"How dare you," I fired back. "You took an oath. The same one I did. First, do no harm. Treat the sick. Heal the wounded. You don't get to cherry-pick which lives matter based on—"
"Enough!" The word exploded from her like a thunderclap. "You're done, Jordan. Go home. This is the last night of your seven-day rotation, and if I have anything to say about it—and I do—it might be your last night at this hospital, period."
The threat hung between us, toxic and unmistakable.
My pulse hammered in my ears. Every muscle in my body screamed to keep fighting, to unleash the full force of everything I thought about her bigotry, her cruelty, her complete abandonment of everything medicine was supposed to stand for.
But exhaustion crashed over me like a wave—bone-deep, soul-crushing exhaustion that made my hands tremble and my vision blur at the edges.
What was the point? People like Nadine were fortresses, impenetrable and cold. You didn't change their minds. You just bloodied yourself against their walls.
"Fine." The word tasted like ash. I turned to Ruka, whose amber eyes had been tracking our exchange with the stillness of a predator assessing a threat.
"The antibiotics need another twenty minutes.
After that, he'll need the full course of oral medication I prescribed.
Pick it up from the pharmacy downstairs.
And watch for infection. Fever, redness spreading from the wound, increased pain.
Any of those, you bring him back immediately. "
"They're not coming back." Nadine's voice could have cut glass. "I want them out. Not in twenty minutes. Not in ten. Now."
"He needs to finish—"
"Now, Jordan. Or I'm calling security to remove them myself."
Ruka's gaze locked with mine. The moment stretched, taut as a wire. Then something shifted in those inhuman eyes—a flicker of understanding, maybe even gratitude, though his expression remained carved from stone. He gave me the barest nod.
My hands moved on autopilot, muscle memory taking over where my mind had gone numb.
I approached Ardin's bedside, my touch feather-light as I removed the IV from his thin arm.
The boy made a small sound of distress that pierced straight through my chest. I pressed cotton to the puncture site, my fingers steady even as my heart cracked.
"I'm sorry." The words came out barely above a whisper. I looked from Ardin's pale green face to Ruka's towering form. "I'm so, so sorry."
Ruka's massive shoulders rose and fell with a slow breath. "Thank you," he rumbled, each syllable deliberate and weighted with meaning. "For Ardin."
I forced my lips into something that might have resembled a smile. "Just doing my job."