Chapter 14
Ruka
My mate's friends were as much warriors as any Orc in the village—any Orc I knew, for that matter.
Kelsey had moved mountains. She'd battled through bureaucratic red tape and called in every favor owed to her, getting the antivirals delivered to the village within twenty-four hours.
Sarah had been equally formidable, managing the CDC and the inevitable media circus with a steel spine that protected my people better than any shield wall.
The CDC hadn't arrived empty-handed. They'd brought vaccines—experimental, rushed through emergency authorization with the kind of speed that only desperation allows, but they worked.
The stronger among us, those whose immune systems hadn't been completely ravaged, responded to the treatment.
Those who hadn't yet fallen ill received vaccinations that held the line against the disease's advance.
The tide turned. New cases slowed to a trickle, then stopped.
But victory tasted like ash when I walked past the empty spaces.
Thraxon's usual seat by the communal fire, cold now.
The corner where Morna had woven her stories into the hearts of children.
The workbench where Justin laughed while learning to carve Orcish patterns into wood.
The play area where little Keena's giggles had once echoed.
The losses carved hollows in all of us. Two elders—Thraxon and Morna—had been living pillars of our community, their minds vast libraries of oral histories and traditions stretching back through generations.
Justin, one of the first humans brave enough to live among Orcs after we'd breached the surface, had been a bridge between our peoples.
And Keena, barely three years old with her tiny tusks just beginning to emerge—she had been the clan's joy, our promise of a future.
Jordan had fought for each of them with everything she had, staying at their bedsides until the very end.
But the disease had been too fast, too vicious.
I'd watched her hold Keena's small hand as the toddler's breathing grew shallow and irregular, whispering promises she couldn't keep about getting better, about playing outside again.
Guilt sat like a stone in my chest, heavy and cold, even though I knew we'd done everything possible.
We couldn't even honor them properly.
Orcish tradition demanded three days for the dead.
Family washed and dressed the body, then laid them out beside the central fire where the entire clan gathered.
We shared stories, sang the old songs, painted their greatest deeds on their skin in sacred pigments.
On the third day, we built a pyre and returned them to the elements, the smoke rising to join the ancestors in the sky.
But with so many still sick, funerals became exercises in disease containment rather than honoring the fallen.
Bodies were wrapped in plastic sheeting within moments of death.
No washing. No painting. No three days of stories.
The CDC officials insisted on immediate cremation in an off-site facility, away from the village in order to contain the disease.
They returned ashes in sterile containers—not the ceremonial urns we would have lovingly crafted with our own hands.
Morna's daughter Seeva had wept openly when they took her mother's body away, my heart breaking as she wailed, "She deserves her songs. She deserves to be remembered properly."
But we couldn't risk it. Not with others still hovering so near death.
The common house had become a place I barely recognized.
Where celebration fires once crackled and children's laughter echoed off the rafters, now only the sterile hum of generators and the rhythmic beep of monitors filled the air.
The long tables that had groaned under the weight of feast platters now stood in rigid rows, transformed into makeshift hospital beds.
Medical equipment and the generators that ran it crowded every corner—IV stands like skeletal sentries, oxygen tanks lined up like soldiers, tangles of wires snaking across floors where we'd once danced.
The CDC doctors moved through it all like specters in their hazmat suits, their humanity hidden behind layers of plastic and rubber.
They'd descended on our village two days after Jordan's frantic call for help.
I was grateful—of course I was grateful.
They were saving lives. But watching them work, seeing our most sacred space turned into a sterile nightmare, stirred something bitter in my gut.
We needed them. That was the worst part. For all our strength, all our warrior traditions, we were helpless against an enemy we couldn't see or fight. The outside world we'd tried so hard to keep at arm's length had become our only lifeline.
The National Guard's presence didn't help.
Their vehicles ringed the village perimeter, officially enforcing quarantine protocols.
But Captain Baker had pulled me aside two days ago, his voice low and apologetic as he explained the real reason for the heavy presence: protesters.
They'd gathered on the main road with their hateful signs, screaming about "Orc diseases" and demanding our "removal for public safety.
" Nothing like a plague to give bigots permission to dust off their prejudices and parade them as concern for public health.
I spotted Jordan tucked into the far corner of the common house, her body curved over a laptop she shared with Dr. Carter, one of the CDC investigators.
The distance between us felt like miles, but even from here, I could see the exhaustion radiating off her in waves.
Her hair had staged a full rebellion against its ponytail hours ago, now hanging in defeated strands that framed her pale face.
The borrowed CDC scrubs swallowed her diminished frame—she'd been burning through her own reserves to keep everyone else alive.
"We've mapped every single contact point," Jordan said, her voice scraped raw from too many hours of use. "Every visitor who set foot in the village during the month before outbreak. Every handshake, every conversation at the border checkpoints."
Dr. Carter's stylus moved across his tablet in quick, efficient strokes. "And the water supply?"
"Nantahala River. Tested clean." Jordan pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes, and I caught the tremor running through her fingers. "Three separate tests. Food stores, livestock, the lake—we've eliminated contamination from every possible source."
"What about animal vectors? Could something have been transmitted through—"
"Already considered." Jordan's fingers flew across the keyboard, pulling up data with the mechanical precision of someone running on fumes and willpower. "We trapped and tested samples from every species within a five-mile radius. All negative."
I'd witnessed variations of this exact scene for three days running.
Jordan circling the problem like a wolf tracking prey, relentless and unwavering in her hunt for patient zero, for the key that would unlock how this nightmare began.
That fierce, protective instinct was woven into the very fabric of who she was—one of the countless reasons I'd fallen so completely for this female.
But that same instinct was going to shatter her if someone didn't step in. If I didn't step in.
Something must have flickered across Jordan's expression, because Dr. Carter's professional mask slipped, revealing genuine concern beneath.
"Dr. Bennett, the work you've accomplished here is nothing short of remarkable.
Without your early intervention, we'd be looking at a catastrophic mortality rate.
But you're running on empty. Let us take over the investigation—"
"No." Jordan's jaw locked into that mulish angle I'd come to know intimately. "These are my people, my responsibility. I have to—"
My people.
The words hit me square in the chest. Something primal and possessive roared to life inside me. A surge of emotion so powerful it threatened to buckle my knees.
She'd said it without hesitation, without even seeming to realize the weight of those two words. Not ‘the Orcs’ or ‘the clan’ or even ‘my patients’." My people. As if the clan had already become hers. As if she'd already claimed them—claimed us—as her own.
My mate. Speaking with the fierce protectiveness of someone defending her own blood. This was what I'd hoped for, what I'd barely dared to dream—that Jordan would find her place among us not as an outsider, not as a visitor, but as one of our own.
But watching her now, seeing the exhaustion carved into every line of her body, the desperate determination in her eyes, I realized that belonging came with a price.
She would burn herself to ash trying to save everyone, trying to prove herself worthy of a place she'd already earned a hundred times over.
"Jordan." I closed the distance between us, and two pairs of eyes snapped up to meet mine. Dr. Carter had the decency to look relieved, but Jordan simply stared at me with the blank confusion of someone who'd forgotten the world extended beyond her immediate crisis.
"Ruka. I'm just wrapping up with—"
"You need to rest," I said, keeping my voice low and steady. "The crisis has passed. The last patient left the common house this morning. Dr. Carter and his team are more than capable of continuing the investigation."
"But—"
"No." I moved into her space, dropping my voice to a register meant only for her ears. "You haven't slept for thirty-six hours. You're barely staying vertical. Tell me the last time you put food in your body."
Her mouth opened, then closed. Then opened again. Nothing emerged but silence—she genuinely couldn't recall.
Dr. Carter rose smoothly, collecting his scattered materials. "Your chieftain makes an excellent point, Dr. Bennett. Rest. We'll update you on any significant findings."