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

Feedback: Always appreciated.

AN: In advance, I have a few ideas for what Michael and Selene will get up to before we get to the main plot of the first film, but if anyone has any suggestions or ideas they want to pitch, feel free to let me know and I'll give them due thought; you never know what will inspire.

The Lone Wolf

Kraven had no idea what was going on with Selene these days.

He appreciated that he didn't always understand her at the best of times- why the woman enjoyed going out every night to fight lycans rather than appreciating the status she would gain as his partner he would never comprehend- but recently even what little he thought he understood about her seemed to have been thrown out of the window. Where it used to be hard to get Selene to do anything but go on patrol for any recent lycan sightings, in the last few weeks she had been apparently taking nights off to go out into the city for reasons he hadn't been able to find out.

He didn't think that she knew anything about his current association with Lucian- if there was any evidence of that, she would almost certainly have tried to use it to expose his current plans- but he was certain that something about Selene had changed recently. He only maintained a general awareness of the patrol patterns of most of the Death Dealers, beyond making sure they never went too close to any territory that Lucian had identified as his own, but he took care to keep track of when Selene was on duty, and she had definitely been going out on a few dates when he was sure she wasn't scheduled to do anything.

The problem lay in how he could find out what she was truly up to without pushing his luck too far. Ordering her to tell him would give away the fact that he had some reason to be concerned about what she was doing outside of patrols, and he couldn't use the excuse that she was potentially jeopardising their activities without risking questions about why he was so concerned about that risk in the first place, considering the efforts he and Lucian had gone to in order to be discreet about the growing lycan presence in the city.

He greatly preferred the benefits of his current position as a relatively removed 'administrator' to the hazards of fieldwork, but this was the first time in several decades that he regretted withdrawing from a more active role in the Death Dealers. He didn't doubt that he had their obedience, but he didn't have the social contacts necessary to learn exactly what Selene was up to without tipping the rest of the coven off that he was concerned. He recognised that his interest in her wasn't unknown, but the last thing he wanted was to make anyone else think that he was some desperate waste so pathetically eager to get the attention of one girl.

Unable to calm his mind enough to focus even on his current companion in the bed, Kraven finally put the current female out of his mind as a bad effort, shoving her to the side and getting out of the bed. He shrugged on pyjama trousers and a robe and walked out of the room, with some half-formed thought of grabbing a drink from the kitchen, only to be surprised when he found Selene in the corridor, wearing casual clothing that was almost more dramatic than her usual Death Dealer leathers. The dark leather jacket she wore bore some similarities to her usual attire on her patrols, but the sight of her in a white shirt and dark blue jeans was a particularly bizarre sight to him.

"Selene?" he said, feeling a need to confirm what he was looking at. "Is… where are you going?"

"I'm going out."

"You," Kraven looked sceptically at her. "You are 'going out'."

"Is there a problem with that?"

"There is if you're not available when we need you-"

"In which case Kahn has my number and can call me if something comes up that urgently requires my attention," Selene shrugged, before she fixed him with a grim stare. "The last time I checked I was still entitled to some free time when I'm not on duty; there's nothing wrong with that. If you don't like the way I do things, Kraven?" Selene paused to give him a strangely exaggerated smile. "Somebody stop me."

Kraven could only stare at her in confusion at that statement, trying to work out where she had come up with such an odd turn of phrase. If he didn't know that Selene didn't really do anything for entertainment, he could have sworn that she had just been quoting something…

"Well, I'm off," Selene said, nodding at him in brisk understanding before she turned and walked down the corridor, leaving Kraven staring after her in confusion.

The most frustrating thing about Selene's observation was that he couldn't deny that she'd made a valid point. He might have been subtly encouraging Selene to try more leisurely pursuits in the hopes that she'd do them with him, but he didn't exactly have the authority to make her do anything outside of patrol.

He couldn't even rely on his planned seduction efforts; if he hadn't been able to win her over so far, he was just going to have even more trouble with that plan when she was doing something he didn't know about and had no way to compensate for.

Having her on side would make the transition of power so much simpler, but she was so set in her own vendetta that he knew he could never make her accept his vision until there was no alternative available…

Had Selene or Kraven looked around a corner a short way down the corridor, they would have realised that they weren't as alone as they believed. Listening to the coven's current leader and its best warrior, Kahn had found himself privately cheering for the way Selene had neatly dismissed Kraven before going out to whatever she was doing.

He might respect Viktor's decision to put Kraven in charge of the coven in his absence, but he wasn't blind to the problems with Kraven's way of doing things. The man was so focused on ensuring his own power and status that he rarely paid much attention to the Death Dealers' activities except for when he was issuing specific orders, even if most of the time Kahn tolerated his little power plays because he didn't care that much about the politics himself.

That said, when he had heard Selene and Kraven talking, he had to confess that he'd been left with a few questions himself. Even since he'd set up that safehouse for Selene and her new partner, he'd asked around the other Death Dealers as much as he could without attracting too much attention, but it didn't take long to confirm that nobody else even know that Selene had met anyone, never mind had any reason to believe that there was someone in her life.

Kahn would like to think that he and Selene were good friends, but he couldn't help but feel hurt that she was keeping such a significant secret from him. He recognised that she must at least feel that she had a good reason for keeping her relationship secret, and he would never object to anything that made her happy, but the fact that she felt that she had to keep everything about it secret from him even after he'd helped her set up that safehouse…

He suddenly found himself remembering Selene's words when she'd made that original request, and told himself not to keep worrying about this relatively minor detail. For all his concerns and questions, Kahn trusted her not to betray the coven or her fellow Death Dealers; Selene's commitment to the war had been unquestioned for as long as he'd known her, and the only reason she wasn't a higher rank was that she enjoyed being in the field too much.

There was nothing wrong with Selene wanting some privacy after so long being dedicated to the mission, and Kahn could appreciate that Kraven's interest in her gave her a reason to want to protect her new lover.

He just wished that he could get over his secret pain that Selene didn't trust him enough to tell him the truth; didn't the secret safehouse prove that he could be trusted…?

What secret could she be keeping that would be so terrible to tell…?