Chapter 3: The Lycan's Bite

Chapter 3: The Lycan's Bite

The back alley was a world away from the strained civility of the living room. Here, the air was thick with the smell of damp brick and refuse, and the only light came from a single, flickering sodium lamp that cast everything in a sickly orange glow. The moment Silas had guided them out the back door, Lyra felt the suffocating weight of her brother’s form. It was a prison she didn’t know how to escape.

Behind them, Kael had finally awoken. He’d stumbled out of the basement, pale and disoriented, his eyes wild with the fury of his failure. The sight of Lyra wearing his face had nearly sent him into a rage, but Silas’s calm, commanding presence had silenced him before he could start shouting.

Now, Kael stood hunched against the grimy wall, glaring at Silas. “Who the hell are you? What did you do to my sister?”

Silas ignored him, his unnerving grey eyes fixed on Lyra. “The energy from the ritual needed a vessel. His was too weak, too unprepared. Yours was… compatible.” He tilted his head, a gesture of academic curiosity. “An unprecedented expression of latent polymorphous genes. You don't just mimic form; you copy the raw genetic template. Fascinating.”

The clinical assessment made Lyra’s skin crawl. “Change me back,” she demanded, her voice a low growl that was pure Kael.

“I can’t,” Silas said simply. “That power is yours. But its anchor,” he glanced at the fuming Kael, “is him. The connection is unstable. A feedback loop waiting to collapse.”

Kael shoved himself off the wall. “Stop talking about me like I’m not here. You messed with my ritual. That power was mine!”

“The power you sought would have destroyed you,” Silas countered, his voice dropping, becoming intimate and conspiratorial. He took a step towards Kael, entering his personal space. “You ripped a hole in reality, hoping a wolf would jump through. What you don’t understand is that the wild, chaotic shift of a common Were is a genetic flaw. A disease. The power you truly crave isn't just about changing shape. It’s about changing perception. It’s about control.”

He leaned in closer, his voice a hypnotic whisper. “What you want is to be a Lycan.”

The word hung in the air, charged with myth and reverence. Lycans weren’t just shifters; they were the apex predators, the aristocrats of their kind. They didn't lose themselves to the beast; they commanded it. They were a legend Kael had chased his entire life.

“Lycans are a bloodline,” Kael scoffed, though a flicker of desperate hope ignited in his eyes. “You can’t just become one.”

“Not on your own,” Silas agreed. “Your ritual was a blunt instrument. What I’m offering is a key. A key that will rewrite your flawed code, unlock your potential, and grant you access to a hidden layer of reality.” He paused, letting the weight of his words sink in. “I can give you the Lycan’s Bite.”

Lyra felt a jolt of pure terror. “No, Kael, don’t listen to him! He’s a stranger! Look what just happened. We were almost caught, almost dissected. This is a trap.”

“It’s a trap we’re already in!” Kael rounded on her, his face a mask of desperation. “He’s right, Lyra. I felt it. The power was there, and my body rejected it. I’m flawed. Broken. And you… you became me! You think I want to live like this? Cowering in a basement while you accidentally steal the only thing I’ve ever wanted?” His voice cracked with a pain so deep it momentarily silenced her. His pride, his entire identity, had been shattered.

He turned back to Silas, his jaw set. “What’s the price?”

Silas smiled, a slow, thin curve of his lips. “The price is everything you are now. Your weakness. Your ignorance. In exchange for everything you could be.” He extended his right hand. “Your choice.”

“Kael, please,” Lyra begged, stepping forward.

But Kael’s eyes were locked on Silas, burning with a reckless, all-consuming fire. He saw his one chance to seize the power he was owed, to become the protector he’d always dreamed of being. He shoved past Lyra and grabbed Silas’s hand, his grip firm. “Do it.”

Silas’s smile widened. “As you wish.”

His form didn't shift into a wolf. It was something faster, more efficient, more alien. The flesh of his hand and forearm rippled, darkening to a glossy, chitinous black. His fingers elongated into needle-sharp digits, and with a movement too fast to follow, he plunged them into Kael’s shoulder.

It wasn't a bite; it was an injection.

Kael screamed. A raw, piercing sound of absolute agony. He collapsed to his knees, his body convulsing violently. It was a thousand times worse than the aborted transformation in the basement. This was not a reshaping, but a deconstruction. A biological violation.

Lyra watched in horror as veins pulsed black beneath Kael’s skin, tracing paths of virulent change up his neck and across his face. He choked, his eyes rolling back in his head as the foreign genetic material waged war on his own.

Then, something shifted in Lyra. A violent, pulling sensation, as if an anchor had been ripped from her soul. The borrowed strength, the foreign mass of Kael’s body, suddenly dissolved. The world swam in a nauseating blur, and she collapsed, the concrete scraping her real hands, her own hands. She gasped, the air filling lungs that were once again hers. Shaking, she looked down at her own familiar frame. The feedback loop had snapped. Kael's transformation had severed their connection, forcing her back into her own skin.

But Kael’s ordeal wasn’t over. His screams subsided into ragged groans. He was on all fours, head bowed, his body trembling. When he finally looked up, his eyes were no longer the simple brown she knew. They were luminous, golden, and terrifyingly sharp. He wasn’t looking at the world anymore. He was reading it.

“I can… see it,” he whispered, his voice hoarse with awe and pain. He stared at the grimy brick wall, but his focus was elsewhere. “The lichen… its cellular structure. The dormant bacteria in the mortar. The residual DNA from a stray cat that passed here yesterday…”

He turned his glowing eyes to Lyra, and she felt utterly transparent, as if he could see the double helix of her DNA spiraling inside her.

“Your code… it’s a mess,” he breathed. “Latent markers, suppressed sequences… a polymorphous anomaly nested inside.”

Silas watched, his arms crossed, a scientist observing a successful experiment. “Welcome to the Genetic Codex, Kael. The source code of the world. All Lycans can access it. It is the language of life itself.”

Kael pushed himself to his feet, swaying. The alley was no longer just a collection of shapes and shadows to him. It was a symphony of biological data, a roaring river of information. The scent of fear from Lyra, the alien, shifting code of Silas, the hum of a million microorganisms on the pavement—it was an overwhelming, exhilarating flood.

He had gotten what he wanted. He had become something more. But as he stood there, trembling in the face of this terrifying and beautiful new reality, Lyra knew this was not an end. It was the beginning of a fall.