Rebirth in the Apocalypse: Third Time's a Charm

The face below the jaw of the wolf broke out into a smile at my words. "I can make you a queen," came the deep voice that seemed to cause the very Earth to vibrate.

I smiled in response to his words. "I already am. And you have threatened my men."

"With me, you wouldn't need four," came his reply and I could see my men stiffen in pure rage at his words. I only burst out laughing.

"Sorry, you're not my type," I said, never taking my eyes off his jawline. "But now it is my turn for an ultimatum. Turn around and leave, or me and mine will make sure that none of yours will walk away from this." I could feel the worry along the links between me and my men, but the fact that they remained unchanging on the outside meant a lot. They trusted me to take care of this, and so I would.

'Wang Chao, turn them against each other. Liu Yu Zeng, send your mist and kill them all,' I said through my bonds. 'They all need to die, but we cannot let a single fish escape our net.'

"You are your mother's savage daughter," the giant said in what I was sure was supposed to be a whisper but came out sounding like the slicing of a blade through the air.

"I will not cut my hair, I will not lower my voice," I replied, continuing the song.

"And you will not be my queen?" asked the beast in front of me.

"No," I said simply.

"Why?" he demanded, his temper starting to show.

"My mother's child dances in darkness," I sang as I started to sway back and forth. This was one of those songs that seemed to speak to every part of my being. But in this case, it was right. I would dance in darkness if it meant protecting my men.

I could hear the quiet thudding of bodies hitting the ground, and if I could hear it, the giant definitely could. Trying to keep his attention focused solely on me, I called upon my purple flame and held my hands palm up at my sides. I let the flames travel up my arms until they embraced my whole body.

I was dressed simply in jeans and a sweater for this trip, but I was still rocking the look of a purple candle.

The giant swung his attention back to me as his bottomless eyes tracked the path of the flames, his entire being focused on me. He was vibrating as he dropped one of his battle axes to the ground and reached forward to try and touch the fire that protected me. The tips of his fingers brushed against the fire and he jerked back in a hiss, not expecting the pain.

Dropping the second axe, he held both hands out to try and touch me, his entire being focused on me like a moth to the flame.

He tried to grab my arm with his other hand but came across the same problem as before. Jerking back his hand, he raised it to his lips and licked at the burn blisters that had appeared on his palm. He cocked his head and looked at me as I pulled back the flames just a tiny amount.

Thinking that this was his chance, he grabbed my upper arms and gripped me so tight I was surprised that my arms didn't shatter under the pressure. Bent almost in two, the wolf skull came down to my face, the black holes where the eyes should have been seemed to be a black sea of nothing.

"My queen," he growled, his voice so low that the words almost couldn't be made out. But I could hear them, and so could my men.

"Their queen," I smiled in response. "Your death." As soon as I had said the last word, I bathed the two of us in the purple flame, the flesh of his hands melting into my skin, stopping him from being able to pull away from me.

He fell down to his knees as he tilted his head back, roaring in pain.

My ear rang, but I continued to feed my power into my flame until his hands turned to ashes where they rested on my arms. The ashes continued up his wrists to his forearms and continued until his whole body simply turned black and blew away in the wind, never to be seen again.

"Are the rest dead?" I asked as I dusted off the black marks on my upper arms. I looked up at my men when it took them a few minutes to respond.

"They are dead," confirmed Liu Wei as he took a step toward me. He wet a piece of cloth with his powers and started to wash my arms, doing a better job cleaning me than I was.

"Sounds good. I'll burn everything and then we can take off. This took longer than it should have and now FNG will be able to tell me that he told me so," I grumbled as I took the hand that Liu Wei was not tending to and shot out a purple flame to burn the bodies of the rest of the Reavers.

I didn't want to leave any evidence of what happened. I had no idea if we got them all or what, but I was not going to take any chances. The cars that they were driving exploded as my flame set their tanks on fire, the sound of explosions echoing in the air.

"We should go," I said turning around in a hurry. How could I have forgotten that the zombies would be attracted to the vibrations of the exploding vehicles? The blue shark was called the requiem shark for a reason.

A mass for the dead.

And there was a lot of dead here.

And a lot of living if we didn't get a move on soon. I knew that the zombies wouldn't touch the Reavers, no fear made them taste terrible, but that didn't mean that we weren't on the menu. And there was a whole tide of them coming soon.

I picked up my pace and practically ran to my RV. 'We need to leave now,' I called out to Wang Chao, knowing that he would be able to see my concerns. I didn't even get a chance to sit down before my RV shot forward and picked up speed. Chen Zi Han held onto the roof as he smiled at me. "Ready to resume the movie?" he asked me.

I raised my eyebrow. "Is that really what you want to say? You have no questions? No comments? Nothing?"

Chen Zi Han raised his eyebrows and stuck out his bottom lip. "Nope. You will tell us when you are ready. Until then, we have a movie to watch."

And that, my dears, are why my men are the best.

I patted the couch beside me and as soon as he sat down, I curled up in his arms. "I would shower, but I don't think that this is it for today," I said as I snuggled down and pulled out a blanket from my space.

"It's fine," he reassured me wrapping his arms around me and turned on the movie. "Just no comments on how the crazy cat lady was right."

----

In this case, I was wrong. The rest of the trip went smoother than planned and we managed to make it to the City Y Sanctuary Base in a little over 2 and a half hours. Take that FNG. I was right.

But the welcome that was waiting for us was not what I expected in the least.

---

"Is someone going to tell me why we are sitting on this side of the gate when they were the ones that came to us for help?" I asked my men as I got out of the RV that I had been sitting in for an hour. I mean, Chen Zi Han tried to distract me with more movies, but there was only so much I could take before I got cranky.

We were there because they asked us to come. For them to keep us waiting like this was pure bullshit.

"We are waiting for the Major General to show up and allow us in. They also have a problem with all of the vehicles we have. I wouldn't be surprised if they were trying to figure out a way to take them from us," grumbled Liu Wei from where he stood beside Wang Chao. The two men were leaning against the hood of the lead SUV their legs crossed at the ankles and their arms crossed against their chest. Dress in a black tight sweater and black cargo pants, they looked good enough to eat.

"Well, let's help the resist temptation," I said looking at my men. "Is everyone out?"

After double-checking that all 100 men were accounted for, I placed all the SUVs, RVs, and ATVs back into my space and stood next to my men, waiting for whatever was going to happen to happen.

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