Page 1 of Brotan

ChapterOne

Crow

Humans have always seen me as a monster.

Tonight is no exception.

A boot slams into my ribs, launching me over the tailgate. The pickup screeches around the emergency room's turnaround as I crash into the asphalt. My skin scrapes away as my shoulder absorbs the impact, vision strobing—black to red to black again.

Worth it, though. The wad of cash tucked against my thigh says I'm the new underground king of Quinn's fight pit. Ten thousand reasons why New York's champion fighter won't be smiling through his wired jaw for months.

"Stay the fuck out of Quinn's!" The voice fades as tires screech against pavement.

I've built my reputation in fights like tonight's. Humans have always seen me as a monster—might as well profit from it. I'm the one collecting now, and they don't like the tables turned.

Tonight, it took five humans and a Louisville Slugger to my skull to take me down. The beast inside me—that primal, ancient part that lives in my blood—is sluggish tonight, struggling against the darkness edging in.

The Ironborn patch on my cut is soaked with my own blood, but it's still the only thing about me worth a damn. My brothers would be here in minutes if they knew, and they’d bring the kind of retribution that makes headlines. But I'm on my own tonight, my burner phone shattered in the beating.

I plant my palms against the blood-slicked asphalt, arms trembling under my weight as I push myself up. Searing agony rips through my ribcage, the sound of bone grinding against bone telling me what I already know. Three ribs broken, minimum. They've probably punctured something vital inside.

I've survived worse. An orc who can't take a beating doesn't live long enough to wear club colors.

I stagger forward, each step a battle against gravity. The bastards didn't dump me at the ER out of mercy—they did it knowing cops get called for orcs who look like they just painted the walls of a fight club. Hospitals mean questions, questions mean jail, and jail means losing my freedom.

Not happening tonight.

"He's trying to leave!" A woman's voice cuts through the night air.

"Don't let him go—he needs to answer for whatever he did!" another screams.

A bitter laugh rises in my throat. These civilians think I'm the threat when I can barely stand. Like I'm about to tear through their precious hospital when all I want is to drag my ass back to Ironborn territory.

The crowd thickens ahead of me. An old man plants himself in my path, brandishing his cane like a weapon. His eyes hold that familiar human hatred—the kind I've seen since crossing the Rift at five years old.

"Move," I rasp, my voice shredded from tonight's fights.

Instead, he jabs the cane toward my face. Pure reflex takes over—the same instinct that's kept me alive through a hundred street fights. I snatch the pathetic weapon and snap it over my knee as easily as kindling. The sound echoes through the suddenly silent crowd.

"Not tonight, old man," I snarl, baring teeth and tusks still stained with my blood.

They close ranks around me now, a tightening noose of bodies. Soccer moms clutching purses like shields. Men with that false courage that comes from being part of a mob. Security guards with their hands hovering over tasers. The circle constricts with each labored breath I take.

"Someone call the police!"

"Don't let him go!"

"Animal!"

The last one hits where they mean it to. That's all I am to them. A beast in human clothes. All they see is green skin, tusks, and horror.

White-coated staff gather at the entrance, watching from their safe distance. Their expressions all tell the same story: detached fascination mixed with disgust. Ready to let nature take its course if the mob decides to pounce.

My legs finally betray me, and I drop to one knee. Blood loss is winning over willpower. Dark spots swarm my vision like circling vultures. Dying in a hospital parking lot surrounded by humans—there's some bitter irony in that. Hammer will put my cut in the clubhouse memorial wall, another brother lost to a world that never wanted us in the first place.

Then the automatic doors slide open with a hiss, and everything changes.

She parts the crowd with ease, five-foot-nothing of pure authority. Dark auburn hair pulled back in a sleek ponytail, white coat billowing behind her, eyes burning with a fury that seems almost out of place on her delicate features. A silver pendant, a caduceus maybe, gleams at her throat, catching the harsh fluorescent light.

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