Chapter One:The Night He Bit Me

The city was soaked in neon and stormlight the night everything changed.

Evangeline Cross had just left St. Mercia’s Neurological Institute, her final shift as a resident finally behind her. The weight of the title, Doctor Cross, still felt foreign on her shoulders, like a coat she hadn’t broken in yet. It should’ve felt victorious; but at the moment, all she felt was exhaustion.

She walked with long, purposeful strides, black slacks clinging to her legs in the damp breeze, her gray button-down still tucked in with surgical precision. Her chin-length bob, jet-black and razor-straight, clung to the sides of her face. Moonlight caught on her mahogany skin, and her sharp gray eyes flicked upward as thunder rumbled in the distance.

At twenty-seven, she was tall, poised, and unapologetically serious - a woman sculpted by science, sleepless nights, and ambition. There was an intensity in her posture, the kind that made people move out of her way without knowing why.

She had just brought out her phone to order a cab when she saw the crash.

It was impossible to miss as sparks scattered from the twisted black car hugging a telephone pole at an unnatural angle. Flames licked at the hood, while shattered glass painted the pavement like glittering confetti from some macabre celebration. Without hesitation, adhering to the doctors' code, she sprinted toward it.

The front passenger door was crushed inward, smoke curling from the dashboard, as she pain strikingly found the door , the scent of burning oil thick in her nose. Inside, the passenger sat slumped, barely conscious as she broke his window.

“Hey!” she shouted, yanking open the rear door. “Can you move?”

He turned his head slowly, as if underwater but when their eyes met, she froze.

They were gold... not hazel nor amber, but pure gold; his irises shimmering like metal under the glow of the flames.

“I’ve got to get you out,” she said, reaching for him.

His hand clamped around her wrist with surprising strength.

“Don’t… take me to a hospital.” he wheezed.

“What? You’re bleeding. You need emergency care...”

“No hospitals.” His voice was low, almost melodic, laced with an urgency that tugged at something primitive in her.

She hesitated because the blood staining his shirt was real; but so was the strange calm in his expression, the intensity in his gaze, and then there was the rest of him.

He looked like he’d stepped out of some forgotten myth, tall and lean with sculpted features that bordered on unreal. High cheekbones, a blade-straight nose, and lips that looked more carved than grown. Long white-blond hair framed his face, tangled and damp from sweat and blood. He was beautiful, but not in any earthly way, yet unnervingly beautiful.

“Please,” he whispered again, eyes never leaving hers. “Help me. Just… not the hospital.”

Something in her cracked, and against all reason, against everything she believed, she nodded.

Soon, she reached her apartment which smelled like antiseptic and lavender - the way she preferred it, clean and controlled.

The strange man lay on her gray leather couch, his shirt peeled away to reveal a chest marred by cuts and dark bruises. She worked in silence, pressing gauze against a gash across his ribs. She had expected blood to pour but she watched in awe as the wound shrank, the skin around it knitting itself back together.

“This… isn’t possible.” She leaned closer, stunned.

He didn’t respond, his breathing had evened out now, but his brows were furrowed like someone trapped in a bad dream.

Her steel-gray eyes studied him under the warm halo of her lamp.

'This was... wrong!' she mentally screamed. 'No human healed that fast. Not even models or actors. This was definitely not natural.'

She traced the edge of the gauze with her fingers. His skin felt warm... too warm. His heartbeat was steady but faintly irregular. She made a mental note of everything: accelerated healing, unnatural temperature, physical perfection, golden irises.

This surely was not normal.

She then sank into her armchair and rested her temple against her knuckles, her wrist still sore from where he had grabbed her.

“What are you?” she murmured to the silence, as the clock ticked toward midnight.

The moonlight slipped through the blinds in pale ribbons, sliding across the floor until it bathed his body in silver. Evangeline hadn’t taken her eyes off him in nearly an hour. She’d meant to call someone... anyone. But something told her to wait, something instinctual.

And, then he finally moved.

He didn’t jolt awake or stir like a man disturbed. He simply opened his eyes.

The gold in them was brighter now like liquid fire.

“You shouldn’t be here yet,” he said softly, voice cracking like old wood.

“Yet?” She stood. “Who are you?”He didn’t answer. Instead, he sat up slowly, the muscles in his abdomen tightening beneath his skin like he’d never been injured at all.

“You need to leave, Evangeline.”

Her heart froze. “How do you know my name?”

He blinked once, and then, too fast for her to react, he lunged at her.

Pain shot through her body as his mouth clamped around her wrist. His fangs - yes fangs - sank into her skin. She screamed, twisting and trying to free herself, but he held her with impossible strength. Hot venom rushed into her veins, burning like acid and ice at once.

Her then knees gave out as she collapsed to the floor, gasping as her vision began to blur.

He was above her now, crouched. His face twisted in agony.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “It wasn’t supposed to be like this.”

“W-what did you do to me?” she gasped, voice barely a whisper.

He didn’t answer with words.

His bones then began to crack at the final stroke of midnight, the sound of muscles tearing and reforming soon filled the room. Bleach white gur then exploded across his body as his limbs elongated and reconfigured. His mouth elongated into a snout, his eyes still glowing gold as his human frame vanished into the shape of a massive white wolf.

Seven feet tall at the shoulder, he was still luminous and ethereal.

He stepped toward her on silent paws, the floor creaking under his weight.

Through the haze in her mind, she heard one final phrase - not spoken aloud, but pressed into her consciousness like a branded promise:

“Wait for me.”

And then, the world went black.