CHAPTER 170

Tristan crashed against the ground and flipped backwards to avoid the heel crush aiming for his head, frowning as he realized how worse the situation suddenly turned.

After Allison got the Sheriff and hightailed it out of there, everyone automatically went frenzied, with he and Satomi fully shifting to combat Deucalion.

Deucalion on the other hand, finally revealed the type of monster he truly was and Tristan upon seeing that immediately started thinking.

Their best play at this moment was to find a way to break the stalemate in their favor and Tristan already had one in mind, the only problem was that he knew Satomi couldn't hold back Deucalion on her own if he acted. In fact none of them here could hold him back alone.

His blood froze Deucalion's hands and tried to cut it off but the man just ripped it off him as if they were brittle ceramic and not the crystallized blood they were.

Time was running out and the more they stalled, the more they wouldn't be able to hold him back any longer.

Satomi engaged Deucalion but there was little she could do when it came to actually killing or maiming him. She was a master martial artist but it wasn't as if Deucalion couldn't hold his own or that his werewolves abilities didn't overshadow hers in every way.

He was an Alpha who siphoned all the power of his betas by killing them, and had killed a few Alphas on his own over the years. Satomi might be older and wiser, but there was little knowledge could do in a direct battle against overwhelming power.

… And that was when he started fully shifting.

Every werewolf in the vicinity, even Jennifer and Chris, felt as if something gnarly was wrapping around their throat and that they would lose their life if they made even the slightest mistake. And that feeling wasn't wrong.

Tristan wasn't the only one stalling for time as that was the same play Deucalion made, but this wasn't because he couldn't fight Jennifer alone, no.

The reason he waited for a change in Jennifer's side was that because he knew that if he killed Jennifer too quickly, especially after she completed her ritual, the others - the Buddhist and the Hale Pack - would quickly join in and attack him. They might not even wait for him to finish killing Jennifer before they bound together to stop him, and then he would have to face an empowered and vengeful Darach, a tricky to kill vampire, and an array of betas because Satomi and Derek wouldn't waste time going after his Alphas to cut short any power he could draw from his link to his Alphas.

His best bet was for them to stop Jennifer from completing her ritual and then quickly overwhelm them to kill her. In the ancient game of Go, a move like this is called 'Myoshu' – a move that exceeds expectations and turns the game around. Not exactly a 'Divine Move' but was the making of one.

His skin darkened, a darker blueish-black pigment, the red glow of his eyes intensified with his facial features turning more rigid and his muscles bulging.

In such a showing form, Tristan finally understood why his epithet was 'The Demon Wolf', because truly, he looked like a demonic wolf.

"Our social get-together ends here, Jennifer." His voice took on an even darker tone that scared the shit out of everyone. The betas, including Malia, were visibly shivering and flinching as he articulated his words. "How unfortunate that your little ritual saw a premature ending. How unfortunate indeed."

ROOOOOOAAARRRRRRR! ROOOOOOAAARRRRRRR!

The twins let out terrifying roars as their Alpha finally started taking things seriously. The easily overpowered Malia, Brett, Scott and Lori, throwing and clawing their way through them.

ROOOOOOAAARRRRRRR‼!

Derek and Tristan gave out bloodcurdling roars in response to the twins' provocations; their predator pride, along with a hint of youthful vigor, wouldn't take such acts of intimidation from creatures they considered themselves superior to.

Tristan's blood wriggled excitedly as if in response to his roar, and even Malia managed to stand more upright after hearing him roar – something that didn't escape either Satomi or Deucalion's notice.

"Since we've come this far, I'll say this once: Jennifer is dead. And as for the both of you," He directed gazes at Scott and Tristan, "Join me, and be the Alphas you were meant to be."

"We don't have to fight, Deucalion. We want Jennifer stopped just as much as you do." Scott exclaimed. To him, and some of them as well, Deucalion still hadn't crossed the line of a dead-or-die enemy, even after they had killed two of his Alphas.

Derek might hate him with all his bones for what he did to Cora and Erica but he wouldn't give chase if Deucalion retreated.

"Your naiveté is your greatest shackle, Scott." The Demon Wolf scoffed, "Allow me to enlighten you."

Scott and Lori's senses practically howled as Deucalion said that, which was the same time their eyes lost sight of him.

By the time they finally registered Deucalion's faint, almost nonexistent, presence behind them, all that was around them was a world of frozen red as Tristan's blood trapped them in a frozen blood cocoon.

Rows of visible jagged and razor sharp teeth snarled at Deucalion and glared menacingly at the hand trapped a few centimeters from Scott's neck. Having instantly reacted the moment he senses alerted him of danger aiming at Lori's direction, he shifted without him pushing it and suddenly found himself moving towards Lori.

The cocoon trapping the both of them pushed them out towards Tristan and melted, flowing back to the irate vampire.

"The twins." Was all he could say before everything blurred in his perspective.

The real monsters were finally out to play.

Everything, from Deucalion's short speech to him attacking Scott, happened in an instant that by the time Scott and Lori reacted, the twins had already fused together to the gigantic Alpha entity they could become, and were already trying to rip apart Malia and Brett.

The only reason why Malia and Brett, even Scott and Lori to some extent, had survived this long against either of the twins were only because they were a cut above the normal betas.

Brett and Malia were Tristan's main fight buddies before he became an Alpha and even beat him a lot of times while growing up. Lori and Scott, while to a lesser degree, also were more than adept at fighting; Lori being because Malia dragged her along whenever Brett and Tristan were busy maiming each other, Scott because of his time training with Derek and recently with Deucalion.

On the Argent patriarch's end, Chris knew when he was over his head, especially when he was fighting supernatural creatures without laid out plans or carefully crafted traps, like this current situation which was why he made the easier choice of joining the betas and trying to kill one/both of the twins – more so when they were a giant target.

He glanced at what was quickly becoming of a circle – Deucalion, Derek, Tristan, Satomi, Jennifer Blake – all of them fully shifted, with Jennifer in her mutilated form as it cost her power to keep using her pristine human form, and nodded approvingly to himself at his smart decision.

The problem with the current free-for-all was that neither Deucalion and Jennifer were willing to trust either Hale or Ito, and definitely not each other.

One of Tristan's tails shot forward before splitting in two directions at Deucalion and Jennifer but the latter easily dodged it while the former casually cut it halfway with his elongated claws.

Under the split moment he cut Tristan's tail, he was suddenly in front of the teen with his claws leaving Tristan's midsection while leaving five deep claw marks behind. His second hand was already halfway to Tristan's neck but ended up being grabbed in a strong vice by Satomi who was now beside Tristan.

Seeing the opening of Deucalion's back turned to her, she and Derek quickly closed the distance between them, the former a step faster than the latter, and conjured as much power as she could into her palms and struck wickedly against the Demon Wolf's seemingly unguarded back.

FIUSSSSSH. THOMP.

The wind howled as her hand smacked against Deucalion's back, making the air ripple as a gale was dispersed in all directions upon contact, yet Deucalion didn't flinch a muscle.

"Stupidity shouldn't be praised but I'll applaud yours, Jennifer." Even standing behind him, she could feel the nightmarish smirk currently across his face. "How about we make them understand, Jennifer? Understand why you needed to slit the throats of so many in sacrifice - virgins, warriors, healer and philosophers - just to face me?"

The color slowly drained out of her face as she comprehended what had just happened.

She expected it, no, she knew this was what would happen without the complete preparation, but knowing something and finally getting to see and understand the reason why it was so were two entirely different things.

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