CHAPTER 71

The reptilian creature snarled at Tristan and Malia but it had already been established since the beginning that none of them was backing off from this.

Seeing its assailant not heeding its threat, drunk on the influence of the full moon and also its cold-blooded nature, it attacked first by swiping its tail towards Malia but she reacted fluidly and caught the strikingly fast scaly appendage with a grunt only for Tristan to appear in front of it with a brutal kick to its head that was aimed to knock it out. 

The lizard crashed against the wall, cracking it, and then surprising Tristan as it deftly pushed itself off the ground with a few bone pops. 

"I don't know why but it's giving me a really familiar vibe." Malia said as she eyed the lizard with extra caution after feeling the force behind its tail swipe. 

The lizard was about to bolt away but Tristan had already anticipated the likeliness of it making such a choice so as soon it made the effort to face another direction to run in, Tristan was already upon it again, aiming a punch to its scaly head. 

Just like its nature, it's supernatural agility enabled it to dodge backwards only for it to stack up against Malia who rolled over Tristan's and dug her boots to its underside, sending it flying and crashing into more things. 

Rightfully enraged, it abandoned all thoughts of retreating and bared its fangs and claws at Tristan and Malia and rushed at Malia who was in front only for Malia to be dragged backwards by Tristan who entered into her position and brought down his claws on the attacking lizard. 

In another display of its overly dexterous limbs that irritated Tristan, it drew its attacking hand backwards while still in motion and then brought the other one to meet Tristan's claws. 

It's tail wrapped around Tristan's leg as their hands stopped each other from advancing. 

Malia stomped on the tail as she put herself in front of Tristan and grabbed his other hand before slashing open its chest without hesitation, which caused dark blood to flow out. 

The lizard stunned them for the second time that night as they could clearly see the wounds Malia just inflicted closing at a speed visible to the eye.

"I fucking knew why it felt familiar! It's like I'm fighting a lizard version of you!" She cried out in indignation. 

She could tell that the both of them were more than enough for it but it's speed and the way it moved limbs, and now the regeneration. To her, all Tristan was missing was the tail and the scales and there'd be similar in every goddamn way. 

"Not now, Malia!" Tristan had to shout as he saw the lizard jump and hang itself on a ceiling while facing them upside down with saliva dripping from its mouth. 

'Something still feels off about it.' Tristan thought as he dodged the spear-like tail while Malia tried attacking it. 

"Get down here!" Tristan jumped at the lizard and crashed into it against the ceiling and dug his claws into its shoulders and used it to drag it down.. 

Tristan immediately separated himself from the lizard and gave it a wild berth as his senses suddenly screamed danger. 

"Careful Malia, something feels really off about this one." It was just the air around it that told how dangerous the creature in front of them was. Though not in any way comparable to Peter, there was something around the lizard that made him cautious of it. 

At that moment, the entire house fell silent as an euphoric wave washed over all of them like a blanket, increasing their ferocity and bestiality. 

The apex of the full moon. 

12:00 midnight. 

Why was he even being cautious of a creature he was undoubtedly stronger than? 

It felt as if none of them cared any longer as the house became choked full of a bloodthirsty atmosphere that launched them at each other. 

Before it could register its next course of action and act on it, a shadow fell on him before he felt his throat being crushed under an iron grip. Before it could move its limbs and try to attack Tristan who was about to down it with asphyxiation, he was flung against the kitchen cabinet. 

Its pain receptors screamed even louder as it felt a knife pierce through its tail and imbed itself into the wooden cabinet. 

Nothing made sense again as it felt something staggeringly strong smashing into its reptilian face and destroying the cabinet to its base. 

Reacting purely based on instinct, it pulled itself away from where it had been writhing in pain, not even caring about the injury it gave itself from forcefully dislodging the knife from its tail, narrowingly dodging the claws that left five long deep gashes on the ground. 

-‼ 

Its instincts screamed once again for it to dodge but Tristan gave it no chance as his claws dug into the spine of the lizard and raised it up only to have Malia grab its legs and pull it down, shredding open its back with Tristan's lodged claws. 

It screamed in untold agony and tried to wiggle free rabidly as Tristan removed his claws from its back but all the effort it made were rendered useless as Malia used the two legs to spin it in three rotations before swinging its head to collide against the nearest wall edge. 

Two pairs of lighter and darker shades of hauntingly frigid blue eyes stared at the writhing, bleeding and convulsing form of the humanoid reptilian with complete soulless apathy. 

Neither Tristan nor Malia cared about its pitiful state as the only thing they cared about was unearthing its human form and knowing what kind of creature it was. Since they had already established that they were going for feral lethality from the beginning of fight, neither had any qualms with beating the creature to an inch of its life. More better for them was the knowledge that it possessed near instantaneous regeneration. 

The moment it tried to push itself up was the only signal the both of them needed to resume their brutal tempo with picture-perfect synchrony on their scaled opponent. 

Malia cared not for any ideal fighting attack as she showed her animalistic side by driving an elbow directly to the injured spinal section of the creature, causing it to gurgle large amounts of its own blood only for its regeneration to go to work, struggling to keep the body alive. 

Tristan grabbed the already healed up tail and swung it overhead with his entire strength, destroying the flooring. Pulling on its tail again, he slammed it against the other side of the floor. 

He could see its yellow slitted eyes turning pale with unbridled rage but he stomped on it and broke that entire floor section, letting them fall down to the basement underneath. 

He landed with his feet still pressed against the lizard's face, staring down on it unflinchingly as blood flowed out of all its orifices. 

"Are you going to shift now and let us talk?" Tristan asked the serpentine humanoid tailed creature under his feet. "Still having cloudy eyes?"

He looked around the base and then focused back on it. "Why did you come here? Have some sort of relationship with the Laheys? Derek, or something else entirely? No, nothing?"

The calm tone he spoke with and exceedingly pale, almost white, skin with blackened veins all over his body contrasted menacingly with his blue eyes and completely black eye sockets, painting an eerie picture of a wraith-like apparition of nightmarish origins. 

Seeing no response from the creature under him except for the wrathful stare. 

"Let's dig it out. Who knows, maybe it'll grow them back?" Malia said, feeling irked at the look it was giving them as if saying it'd prey on them once released. 

Tristan removed his leg from the face it was stepping on and grabbed its neck and raised it to his eye level where the two of them fell into a staredown as the both of them gazed unflinchingly into the other's eyes, one with calm alacrity while the other with a bone-chilling rageful glare. 

The two of them continued like that for some extended brief moments until Tristan's eyes widened in surprise as he saw what laid behind the pair of yellow reptilian eyes. 

Just as he was about to open his mouth, the lizard slashed his wrist with its claws and he immediately felt his grip weakening, giving the lizard the chance to pry his hands open and immediately jumped upwards through the hole on the floorboard. 

"Tristan‼"

Malia shouted as she saw Tristan wobbling only for him to steady himself and gain a semblance of balance. His eyes glowed brighter as he felt his blood churning, heating up as it tried to destroy whatever entered his bloodstreams. 

"I'm fine." He said as the dizzy spell assaulting him cleared off. "It's a paralytic toxin. Damn effective and instantaneous in its effects."

"Poison?" 

"Yeah, probably secreted from his fangs and claws. He's not a lizard, he's a goddamn snake." Tristan remarked while snarling at the numbness he was still feeling to a degree. 'At least, I can actively fight against it.'

Malia caught the little detail in his words. "Him? You know who it is?"

Tristan laughed humorless as he finally could push himself to walk. "It's the same as the boy who cried wolf."

Malia's eyes widened at realization, only for it to dim back down making her question their next course of action. "Jackson huh? Are we killing him?"

Despite the slight trembling and numbness he was feeling in his legs and hands, he pushed himself and together with Malia they left the Laheys. 

"Killing him is a viable option but it could just be the full moon as I couldn't feel any type of sanity in him throughout the whole thing. He seemed weirdly focused on going to the Laheys with a specific goal but his mind was still rabid, even when he ran." Tristan explained, his guts telling him that there is something more to this than what they saw tonight. "Whatever it is that's wrong with him, Derek will have to know since he sired the boy into whatever the hell he is, and it's only until then does killing him come into play."

Tristan breathed out as the last dregs of the poison left his system, returning him to peak condition. 

'Looks like I need to experiment more with my blood.'

Under the dimming moon of this cold night, the pair went home with a successful hunt as far as they were concerned. Though Jackson pulled one out of his ass at the end and hightailed it out of there, it mattered little since they already knew his identity and if the boy fails to prove forthcoming with what happened to him, they'll just have to beat him out again… and at that time, they will make sure that he has no way to escape. 

"… Told you that the hunt will pay off." Malia had no intention of leaving it as is without having the last word in. 

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