Disclaimer: Everything you recognise from the film series isn't mine.

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The Lone Wolf

Kahn wondered if something had actually gone wrong all of a sudden or if the coven had been building to this moment for an unknown length of time and just hadn't been aware of it. For the last few decades, it seemed as though the hunt for the remaining lycans had been reduced to tracking down a few random strays that cropped up across the continent a few months apart at least, and suddenly they found themselves facing two prominent lycans engaging in virtually open warfare in a public place and Selene expressing concerns that something bigger was going on.

…All right, so things had been strange for a few months, but since the only strangeness back then had been Selene's request for a private safehouse Kahn hadn't thought it was that big a deal at the time. He'd been curious when Selene had made her request, but her explanation that she had someone to protect had seemed plausible enough, and he was hardly going to deny her the chance to get away from Kraven for a while to pursue something in private. He respected Viktor's choice of regent, and he would never go against the Elder's decision, but there was a difference between respecting Kraven's authority and actually liking him as a person.

He hadn't been certain how Kraven would react if Selene actually chose someone else over him, but Kahn knew that he wasn't going to be the one to expose her secret relationship. As he'd told Selene, she had never made a personal request in all the time he'd known her, and while he respected her for her dedication that didn't stop him regretting the necessity of it. If she truly had found someone who made her want to explore something outside of her duty, Kahn would do everything in his power to make sure his friend was happy.

When an alarm had been tripped for Selene's safehouse, Kahn hadn't known what to do about it. He had set up the system so that only he would be alerted if anything happened, but that was based on the idea that he would be able to alert Selene if her lover was in danger. Faced with the prospect of the safehouse being under attack and no news from Selene, Kahn had been grateful when the alarm stopped after a minute, as it at least suggested she was already dealing with the issue himself. A discreet check of the relevant security systems had revealed no sign of anything moving in that area, but Kahn couldn't stop himself worrying that the lack of movement was another sign that Selene's lover was in trouble…

He was pulled from his grim musings when his phone rang at last, Kahn practically dropping the new gun he was working on to answer that familiar ringtone.

"Selene!" he said urgently. "Your safehouse-!"

"I know," Selene cut him off. "I was there."

"You- you were there?" Kahn repeated, surprised at the confirmation despite his own suspicions. "I thought you were-?"

"I was pursuing a lead and it meant I had to get Michael to safety, and from there… well, things have become complicated," Selene explained. "I need you to meet me at the safehouse opposite the perfume billboard; I'll explain more when you arrive."

Selene hung up the call after that cryptic request, which left Kahn to shake his head at her brisk manner as he turned his attention to the safehouse system. He couldn't leave this open for anyone else to find the alert system for Selene's private safehouse, but he just needed a moment to confirm what safehouse she was in now…

Regardless of his current confusion about the situation, Kahn had to admit that he appreciated the opportunity to get out of the manor for a while. He enjoyed his work in the armoury for the most part, but like Selene, fieldwork would always be his favourite part of the 'job', even if this was a relatively simple excursion into more controlled territory.

He had left instructions with some of his most loyal Death Dealers to cover for him while he was away, and had faith they would alert him if something came up, but frankly Kahn doubted anything would happen. While he tried to respect Kraven as Viktor's chosen regent, the man rarely bothered to talk with the Death Dealers unless there was a reason for it, and there definitely wasn't anything official going on that might merit that kind of attention…

Unlike Selene's preference for her Jaguars, Kahn decided to indulge himself for a change and take his motorcycle to the safehouse. He appreciated the greater versatility of the vehicle, and when he spent most of his time in comfort in the lab he liked to feel the air when he got out like this, even if he had to go to more effort to wrap up to ensure he wouldn't get caught in the sunlight. Parking his bike on a suitable corner, Kahn walked up to the identified safehouse and walked inside, noting with surprise that the door on the street looked undisturbed. He wasn't surprised that Selene would find a less obvious way into the building, but the implication that she was comfortable enough with Michael to reveal that she wasn't entirely normal…

Pushing those thoughts to the back of his mind, he walked up the stairs towards the safehouse near the top of the building. He was half-way up the stairs when he heard footsteps from above, looking up to see Selene walking down towards him with an anxious expression on her face.

"Are you all right?" he asked once they were on the same flight of stairs. The analytical part of Kahn's mind noted that they were almost exactly halfway up the building, but decided not to over-analyse that detail.

"Fine," Selene nodded. "There were… I didn't have time to get exact numbers, but at least three lycans attacked the other safehouse."

"Three?" Kahn repeated in surprise.

"Two transformed and one human," Selene confirmed. "There might have been more, but that's what I know for a fact; I killed one on the roof and kicked another off, but the third one was still on the street in human form, and he nearly got Michael before I shot him."

"Is Michael all right?" Kahn asked; Selene seemed calm enough, but when she'd never had anyone to get emotional about…

"That is… where things become complicated," his old friend said, looking at him with a surprising sense of apprehension.

Selene had fought alongside him and investigated potential lycan lairs without any sign of fear, but if something about whatever she was about to discuss made her feel this genuinely concerned, Kahn wondered if he wanted to know it…

"Kahn…" she began at last, still looking unusually concerned for a trained Death Dealer in a location she had to know was safe, "do you remember when I first spoke to you about setting up a safehouse for Michael and I?"

"Yes…" Kahn looked curiously at her.

"And do you remember what I asked you then?"

"If I trusted you?"

"More specifically, if you trusted me enough to believe that I would never break the Covenant or deliberately jeopardise the coven, no matter how strange my actions might seem?"

"Of course," Kahn nodded at her, confusion now evident on his face. "Selene, what is this about?"

"There is… something I didn't tell you about Michael." For reasons Kahn couldn't understand, Selene looked around herself at first, as though she had to be sure there was nothing and nobody watching her, before she finished her sentence. "He's… technically… a lycan."

The sheer impossibility of that statement left Kahn feeling like he'd just been kicked in the head.

This Michael who meant so much to Selene… he was a… she'd been-

No, Kahn reminded himself, forcing down his initial shock at that news.

It was a disturbing revelation to be sure, but as Selene had just reminded him, he had faith that she would never do anything that would deliberately jeopardise the safety of the coven. Given her long history with lycans and the personal blow they had delivered to her before she even became a Death Dealer, she would never have let a lycan live unless she was certain it was the correct decision, which meant that he had to consider why she had made such a significant exception for this Michael rather than immediately assume the worst.

"How can he be 'technically' a lycan?" Kahn asked at last, deciding to focus on the most significant detail first. "Someone is either a lycan or they're not; this isn't exactly an area where there's a lot of middle ground."

"From what Michael told me, he was infected when he crashed his car into a lycan back in America, and the lycan's fangs scratched Michael while it was in its death throes," Selene explained. "When I found him, Michael was keeping himself contained in a storage locker or other isolated areas every full moon so that he could avoid hurting anyone. I spent a month watching Michael in secret before I was satisfied that he didn't even know about other lycans, never mind about us, and even after I made contact I didn't tell him what I was for months."

"I see…" Kahn nodded thoughtfully as he considered Selene's explanation. Considering the ferocity of the lycans, coupled with some of the modern theories about the lycan virus being more 'intense' than their own strain due to the more violent reaction it triggered in the subjects, he supposed it wouldn't be impossible for a lycan to infect a human by accident if the right tooth scratched the right body-part. The only real question would lie in how Michael Corvin could have survived such an attack without being killed, but assuming the lycan he crashed into had been very badly injured…

It's possible.

It would require several unlikely events to come together, and there was the question of why a lycan would infect Michael and then leave him, but Kahn could see an injured lycan running off after being caught in an accident like what Selene was implying…

"And you're certain that no other lycans know about him?" he looked at Selene with new intensity.

"As far as I can tell last night was the first time any other lycan was in Michael's presence since he came to this city," Selene nodded.

"And… your relationship with him?"

"…Friendly," Selene said, something in her manner suggesting to Kahn that there was something there that even she wasn't ready to admit to herself. "Once I was satisfied that he wasn't in contact with lycans, I made contact with him and offered to help him try and control his condition-"

"Control it?"

"He's actually made… interesting progress," Selene observed with a cautious smile, before she looked at Kahn with new resolution. "But now the lycans are after him."

"Now?"

"Raze and Trix were clearly focused on Michael in particular during the fight in the subway, and I'm certain that they didn't know what he was," Selene explained. "Trix tried to grab him while I was looking in their direction, and he clearly wasn't expecting Michael to be strong enough to push him away even before I stepped in."

"I see…" Kahn said, nodding in cautious understanding before he looked at Selene with new curiosity. "So what am I doing here?"

"You and I both know that I can't bring Michael to the mansion," Selene replied. "Apart from anything else, Kraven would order him killed even before he learned that I've been harbouring Michael for months; he'd never stop to think about the wider implications here."

Kahn was about to point out that Selene wouldn't have thought about those implications herself once, but stopped himself with the harsh self-reminder that there was a difference killing a known foe who had transformed to attack you and a man who you were certain didn't have any choice in his changes. When lycans were so often pack animals, it was easy to lump them all together and assume they lost their humanity the moment they were bitten, but now that Kahn stopped to think about it, how much of that was the pack taking any new lycans away away after the initial infection and telling the new recruits that they 'had' to be ruthless to survive?

Trying to talk down lycan warriors in the field might not be an option, but hearing Selene's talk of Michael left Kahn thinking… if he had been left alone and was actively working to stay human even now…

"Can I meet him?"

Briefly surprised at the question, Selene soon nodded in acknowledgement and turned around to walk back up the stairs, opening the door to the safehouse. Noting the relatively basic nature of the equipment, Kahn made a note to see about updating the safehouses later- never mind Kraven's talk about prioritising the budget; they couldn't do anything with old computers- but his gaze soon fell on the young man who could only be Michael Corvin, standing awkwardly in the middle of the room, wearing a casual dark T-shirt and jeans, his lycan scent at odds with the apprehensive expression on his face as he looked at the door.

"Kahn, this is Michael Corvin," Selene said, stepping aside to stand between the two. "Michael, this is Kahn; he designed our original safehouse, and back at the mansion he heads up the coven's armoury and takes care of our weapons."

"Right," Corvin nodded at the male vampire with a thoughtful, cautious expression on his face. "So… you're like the vampire version of Q?"

"Q?" Kahn repeated curiously.

"Character in… a series of spy films," Corvin explained with a tentative shrug. "Q basically provided the main character with all the weapons and gadgets he used on his missions… I'm sorry, that probably sounds stupid…"

"How long have you been…?" Kahn began before he trailed off, suddenly unsure of the best way to phrase what he was about to ask.

"I was basically bitten… God, I don't think it's even been a year yet," Corvin answered with a tentative smile.

"Then… your references to human things is… perfectly normal," Kahn nodded cautiously at Michael before he allowed himself a slight smile. "Frankly, the modern world is changing so fast we're going to be obliged to put more effort into keeping up with it soon enough; keeping track of technology is one thing, but the cultural gaps are getting ridiculous…"

"They are?" Selene asked.

"Keeping in touch with human agents can be more difficult than you might expect; when they don't know what we are, it's surprising how many of them start talking about the latest celebrity gossip or what happened in the shows they're watching," Kahn explained with a smile. "It's not just keeping track of what humans think of us, you know."

"I… see," Selene nodded in a slightly bemused manner.

"Uh… not to make this all about me, but what should I do now?" Corvin looked uncertainly between the two vampires. "I mean, if I've got more… lycans… after me, turning myself into the cops doesn't exactly help anything…"

"And we can't bring you back to the mansion with us either," Selene observed, bemusement replaced by bitterness before a thought occurred to her. "But we might have another option…"