Urban Hidden Wolf

Chapter 13: Moonlight on the Sutures

The ER lights stabbed at Fang Yan’s eyes as he burst through the glass doors with Su Qing in his arms. The nurse’s scream still echoed in the stairwell—"Dr. Zhang! The patient’s wounds—they’re healing!"

"Put me down." Su Qing pushed against his shoulder, her white coat streaked with his blood. "I can walk." Her voice trembled from the glass shards raining down earlier, but her fingers were already on his pulse, clinical as ever. "Your temperature’s off."

Only then did Fang Yan notice the heat radiating from his palms.

An orderly rushed past with a gurney. When he grabbed the metal rail, it seared his skin—no, he was the one burning.

"Officer Fang?" Dr. Zhang emerged from the trauma bay, sweat darkening his scrub cap. "The patient in Bay 3… his injuries are… unusual." His gaze flicked to Fang Yan’s hand—where the glass cut had already scabbed over. "You should see this."

A sharp pain lanced Fang Yan’s neck.

He followed Dr. Zhang, each step like wading through cotton. The wolf thrashed in his veins, fire crawling up his spine to his temples.

Behind him, Su Qing changed into surgical scrubs. The scent of antiseptic and her jasmine hand cream—usually comforting—now needled his nostrils like shards.

"Found at the abandoned factory at 3 AM," Dr. Zhang pulled back the sheet, revealing five claw marks gouged to the bone. "But look—" The forceps lifted a blood clot, revealing fresh tissue regenerating beneath. "He was hemorrhaging half an hour ago. Now…"

Fang Yan’s claws bit his palms.

He knew werewolf healing better than anyone—but this speed wasn’t natural. Kneeling, he spotted faint blue markings on the man’s neck—a nascent sigil, paler than his own.

"Gloves." His voice grated.

The latex gloves cracked when he touched them. His body heat had turned them brittle.

Su Qing returned just as Fang Yan wrenched off his silver pendant—the wolf-head charm he’d worn since childhood, now gleaming cold in his grip. His ears were flushed, hair damp with sweat like a drenched animal.

"Prepping for surgery." She brushed his scorching hand.

He flinched but then seized her wrist, grip crushing. "A-Qing." His pupils slit in the fluorescent light. "Whatever you see—"

"I’m here." She pressed his hand to her chest. Her heartbeat thudded steady through the scrubs. "This never lies."

The wolf inside him stilled.

He released her, thumb grazing the scar on her hand—from her first failed surgery, back when he’d taken a grieving family member’s punch for her.

When the OR lights blazed on, Fang Yan’s chest constricted. He fled to the locker room under the pretense of changing gloves.

The mirror showed bloodshot eyes, gums aching as fangs pushed through. He bit his tongue—the coppery taste did nothing to quell the power surging within. The silver pendant, usually soothing, now burned like ice against his skin.

"This isn’t normal." He yanked his collar down. The sigil on his neck pulsed with heat. "They did something…"

—

In the OR, Su Qing froze.

Embedded in the patient’s chest was a silver shard—no larger than a fingernail, its edges charred. Under magnification, the etchings matched those inside Fang Yan’s pendant.

"Cover for me." She pocketed the shard in a biohazard bag. "Running a lab test."

When the analyzer beeped, her hands shook.

The report glared: "Highly bioactive metal." And at the bottom—"DNA match: 97.3%."

"How…?" She whirled, knocking over a reagent rack.

Amid the shattering glass, a voice purred: "The Silver Moon Society’s work is impressive."

Su Qing held her breath.

A woman in a black trench coat—Lin Xue, the Observation Bureau agent disguised as a therapist—was injecting a blue vial into the blood sample fridge. "One step from activating the full sigil…"

"Fang Yan." Lin suddenly turned toward the ceiling vents. "Did you think I wouldn’t smell you?"

Claws screeched against metal. Fang Yan had tailed her here, but Silver Moon Society? The clan that slaughtered his kind still existed?

Before he could leap down, Su Qing appeared in the doorway, holding the damning report. The sealed bag in her pocket swayed.

"This sample matches your DNA." Her voice was soft as a scalpel. "Yan, what are you?"

Fang Yan’s claws drew blood. He landed three paces away—afraid his heat might scorch her.

"Home." He rasped. "I’ll explain… at home."

—

The old apartment smelled of ginger-date tea.

Fang Yan found the still-warm bowl on the table, a note beneath it in Su Qing’s handwriting: "I’ll wait for the truth."

The tea was cold. She’d come while he was changing, left quietly to give him space.

Moonlight through the curtains cast a clawed shadow—his own, uncontrolled.

The sigil burned as he studied his pendant. The engravings matched the shard exactly. Lin Xue’s words haunted him: "Activating the full sigil…"

Then he remembered Old Fang’s dying words: "The mark on your neck… is the Wolf King’s seal."

A sound came from the balcony.

There, on the windowsill, lay Su Qing’s old photo album—its cover frayed, their twelve-year-old selves grinning inside. Blue stains edged the photo.

As he reached for it, a car honked below.

Su Qing stood under the streetlamp, holding the album. She waved, then disappeared into the building. Her footsteps on the stairs echoed like a heartbeat.

Moonlight silvered the album as he opened it. A yellowed photo slipped out—his eighteenth birthday. Young Su Qing held a cake, eyes crescent-moon bright. And at the photo’s edge, barely visible, was the sigil on his neck.

On the back, Old Fang’s handwriting:

"Yan, the blood will call you one day.

But remember—you are human first."

The full moon hung heavier now.

Fang Yan pressed the photo to his chest. The wolf inside him whined—not in hunger, but longing.

Footsteps climbed the stairs. Closer. Clearer.

Su Qing was coming home.