Code The Lycan

Taller, broader, a perfect blend of discipline and brutality — 6’9”, all sharp lines and a body like a forged weapon. His skin was marked too, though his runes burned with the scent of desert fire and deep ruins, where his kind had learned to mix witchcraft and blood. His tattoos, etched from war and not nature, gave him warning when prey or threat drew near. Like Grant’s, they too pulsed now. Because he was near. Code had crossed continents to see the Moon rise here, just this once — drawn not by tradition, but by a wolf he could not forget. The one who had bested him in a duel two moons past, beneath a blood-red eclipse. The one who refused to speak his name even after breaking his nose and stealing a piece of his pride. The one who howled like a king and moved like wildfire. Now that wolf stood in the center of the glade — stronger, calmer, and as untouchable as a god. Grant. --- From the shadows of the Gathering, packs milled around them. Young wolves sniffed the air, elder Lycans circled with narrowed eyes, and the magic of the Moon Goddess thickened like fog. They weren’t supposed to care. They weren’t supposed to look at each other. But both Code and Grant did. And worse — they looked at the same person. A wolf neither belonged to their forest nor their bloodlines. One who had been whispered about for weeks. Someone new, yet timeless. Someone whose presence twisted the Moon’s pull just enough to make both Grant and Code ache — with instinct, with possession, with longing. This wolf, unnamed and wild, stood on the ceremonial stone. Tall, proud, their eyes like silver storm clouds. The Moon glowed behind them, and the scent of old magic clung to their skin like snow. They did not choose yet. They watched.