CHAPTER ONE
LAINA
The rain came down in torrents. Spring in Bramble Creek, Maine, meant mud season, that special stretch of weeks when the dirt roads turned liquid and the woods smelled like green things trying to break through. I’d grown up with it. The isolation didn’t bother me one bit.
Tonight it was just me, the cottage I’d inherited from my dad, and the sound of rain hammering the windows hard enough to make the glass rattle.
My phone rang.
Unknown number. I almost didn’t answer, but the clinic’s emergency line forwarded to my cell after hours, so I picked up.
“Hello?”
“Hello. Um. Yes, hello. My name is Brovish Dayngris. I’m part-owner of the Creature Rescue League. Along with my friends. Orc friends, that is.” The voice was deep, careful. “Drogar. Krem. Traig. And Greth.”
“Okay,” I said slowly.
“I got your number from Dr. Halstead in Pinegrove. I’m sorry to call so late. Our on-call vet is out of town, and we have a creature in distress. A clatterwing. I need someone tonight.”
“A what?”
In the background, something made a high, reedy sound, like a hinge that needed oil crossed with a baby crying.
“A clatterwing,” he said again. “He’s from the orc kingdom.”
I blinked at the dark window. Orcs had been on the surface a few years now. I’d seen them around Bramble Creek, at the gas station, and once at the general store buying what looked like half the produce section. Big. Green. Tusked. Their creatures were very different from our own.
“I’ve never worked with an orc kingdom animal before,” I said.
“I didn’t think you had.” He hesitated. “I think you can help anyway.”
The sound echoed in the background again, sharper this time.
I was already stuffing my feet into my boots. “Okay. I’ll come.”
“Thank you.” Relief bled through his voice. He gave me the address for my GPS. “The road gets bad past the main turnoff. Do you have four-wheel drive?”
“I do.”
“Good. There’s a gate. The code is one-zero-zero-four. Please make sure it latches fully behind you. We don’t want anything escaping.”
Escaping?I blinked. “Got it.”
“Thank you again.” He hung up.
He had a nice voice, slightly growly yet sweet. Washealso growly and sweet?
I shook the thought off and flipped through the legal documents I’d been studying on my kitchen table.
My phone chimed with a text from the partner in my clinic.What are your thoughts about my offer?
She’d been after me to sign over my share of our partnership for months now, and I’d avoided looking at the papers. It wasonly after she’d cornered me earlier today and asked again, politely enough, that I’d agreed to look them over.
Would it be bad to let go of the legacy my father had left me? It had never felt like mine. I’d stepped into his shoes after he died, but his feet had been bigger than mine, and his shoes had never fit quite right.
Just got a call,I texted back.I’ll be sure to look at them tomorrow.
After tugging on my boots, I grabbed my bag.
