My Strength Chapter 37 - Finale

The newborn’s head was pulled from its’ shoulders with more effort than the two vampires cared to admit. But orders were orders. This newborn, fresh from being turned, didn’t have a power. And those were the only ones that lived. What good was a vampire without a power? Especially since the only reason they were turned in the first place was to fight for the coven leader for more territory.

“He was supposed to have a power.” One of the vampires complained. They had been expecting the vampire to have a strength power. They were looking for more vampires with enhanced strength to help control the newborns.

“He was probably just high.” The taller of the two said.

They were in Mexico, taking advantage of the history it had with vampires and of the current situation the humans were in with the cartel, it was the perfect place for a new vampire lord to rise up with a new army. The vampire wars from centuries past served as a big enough warning to not do anything similar again that no one dared to go to Mexico to repeat past mistakes.

The cartel was willingly taking the blame for the disappearances and smartly not questioning where it was really coming from. The vampires had their pick of people they thought would have a gift and could easily kill the newborn if it didn’t. The coven leader’s main goal was to take down the Volturi and take power over all the vampires like they had done to the Romanians so long ago. But he needed an army first and only gift vampires stood a chance against gifted vampires.

It was a bad string of luck that a few scattering pairs of vampires had claim to larger parts of cartel ran Mexico that was needed to have better free reign of picking humans. The entire coven was currently either wrangling newborns or fighting vampires for territory. The coven leader had big plans and seemed to be trying to do everything at once. He was very ambitious and that was what had drawn the few trusted vampires to him. But as the months kept passing and very little progress was being made with the ultimate goal of taking down the Volturi, more and more of the vampires were fighting amongst themselves and calling a free for all to the humans for meals.

But that wasn’t their problem. They were promised sanctuary and easy meals and as long as both of those kept happening, then they were okay. They were just some of the muscle used to kill and keep control of the newborns. Anything beyond that, they didn’t know about and they didn’t care.

The two vampires made their way back to base, a hidden cave most humans couldn’t physically get to, to inform their leader the newborn had awoken with no gifts and was immediately dispatched of. The burning house the newborn had been in would likely make news but the fire would probably be blamed on cartel violence of some sort; so not their problem.

“I wonder how pissed he’ll be when he learns another one didn’t work out.” The shorter vampire said, “Isn’t this like the sixth or eighth in a row or something?”

“I don’t care, it’s not my problem.” The taller man said as they continued on their run in the middle of nowhere, following an invisible trail humans would never be able to see.

“It will be if he takes out his anger on us.” The shorter one grumbled. He liked the setup he had, not having to worry about where his next meal would come from. But he didn’t like how volatile the leader was.

The two neared the cave and as they neared the entrance, both stopped in their tracks. Just because their power lied with strength, didn’t mean they didn’t have other vampire senses they could use. This was their main base, where only a select few were allowed to be. But just outside, they smell an unknown vampire. They were two of the oldest vampires in the coven with strength as a gift, they knew everyone in the coven both newborns and non-newborns.

They were under attack.

“Let’s go have some fun.” The shorter vampire said with a smirk, looking forward to getting to fight someone that wasn’t a newborn. It would provide a better challenge than someone who was so instinctual and didn’t actually know how to fight.

Before they could even get to the mouth of the cave, a woman casually walked out of it. The woman was of average height, didn’t seem to be an ancient vampire they had been warned against. But the way she glided instead of walking and the casualness she had about her worried both of the guardsmen. What worried them even more and had them stopping in their tracks, was the woman was holding the head of their coven leader by his hair. She didn’t seem to have a scratch on her even though they both knew there were a lot of gifted vampires that surrounded their leader.

“Who the hell are you?” The taller of the two growled out, deciding if it would be worth it to run or not. The woman was wearing a very distinctive robe, a robe of the Volturi guard. While neither he or his partner had met any Volturi members, their leader had warned them not to cross paths with any guard and told them how to spot them.

The woman smiled, looking forward to another fight. She knew these men wouldn’t last much longer than the others, especially since their intel said these two’s gift was only strength and nothing fun. All Bella would need was her physical shield to keep her safe. It would at least be entertaining to watch the shock on their faces when they realize they can’t touch her.

“My name is Bella Volturi, you have been charged with helping to create a newborn army.” Bella said and then smiled, “I’m here to carry out the punishments.”

Both vampires froze, their eyes widening in both shock and fear. While they hadn’t met any member of the Volturi, they sure as hell had heard of the Volturi Princess. Rumor was the princess was trained by the much feared and ferocious Caius and Athenodora to be an absolute terror in a fight. There were rumors about how the princess could never be harmed in a fight, no matter what power was used against her or how many enemies there were; no one ever touched her.

The shorter man kept still, concerned there were other guard members lurking nearby he couldn’t detect. With all the powers the Volturi had gathered in their ranks, the shorter man was sure Bella wasn’t alone, no matter how strong she was.

His partner didn’t share the same sentiment.

The taller vampire knew his days were numbered. He knew the princess was there to kill them all. But he wasn’t about to go down without a fight. He was the strongest of all the vampires in their coven. He wasn’t very old but he was old enough to have met quite a few vampires and in his few decades as a vampire before joining this coven, he had never seen someone come near him in strength. All he had to do to survive was be faster than this princess and kill her before she could kill him with whatever unknown power she had.

With a growl, the taller man took off with all his strength. The princess smiled at him, silently urging him to go faster. Within a blink, the man punched the princess with as much strength as he could muster. His cocky grin of assured victory, fell, when he noticed the woman hadn’t even flinched.

“I hit you.” He said in shock, she didn’t flinch. At the very least, she should have been pushed back by the sheer strength of his hit.

“No, no you didn’t.” Bella said with a smile, loving the confused look on the mans’ face.

Thanks to her parents training, she could see when the man was about to turn and run away. It would figure a muscle man used to fighting his way through things would run the second his strength couldn’t help him. Bella was thankful she had her shield, just from looking at him throwing his punch, she was sure he would have given even Felix a run for his money in terms of strength. Too bad no amount of strength could break her shield; her parents made sure of that.

Before the man could turn and run, Bella used her physical shield to keep the man still long enough for Bella to reach out and grab his head.

“Perhaps in your next life you might decide to make better friends instead of ones that have you breaking all sorts of laws.” Bella said before easily ripping the mans head off his shoulders. His body would be added to the fire in the cave very soon.

From the corner of the eye, she saw the shorter one try to run but she wasn’t worried, his escape was already thwarted before he even attempted it. The man fell to his knees in pain as he screamed in pure agony.

“I could have gotten him.” Bella said with a frown towards the blonde who was taking her time in walking towards the fallen vampire.

“Yes, but I have plans I want to get back and they don’t involve you taking your time.” Jane retorted as she tore the mans head off his shoulders.

“I have plans too.” Bella said with a frown.

“No, you don’t.” Jane retorted quickly.

“I could have plans.” Bella pouted. Her mates were actually on a mission of their own. Kind of. Victoria was off Heidi on some random trip she was forbidden to go with and Zafrina was with her sisters in the Amazon creating some havoc with the human’s deforestation attempts and she was strictly forbidden to go with her as well.

“No, you couldn’t.” Jane answered as she tossed her vampire into the cave, sure Felix would grab it to add to the fire. “You were ditched, get over it.”

“No, I wasn’t.” Bella argued as she tossed her vampire inside the cave as well. “I happen to know they are both trying to find the perfect ring to ask me to marry them even though I told I didn’t care about human traditions.”

“And how did you find that out?” Jane asked. Victoria had asked her input on what to get Bella for a ring a few months ago since Jane had gotten much closer to Bella since she was first turned. Jane told her Bella didn’t want one; which was true but it hadn’t helped Victoria in the slightest. So now she was off with Heidi, their resident vampire who liked all things pretty, to find the perfect ring. She had been under the impression both Victoria and Zafrina had wanted to surprise Bella with the rings. They didn’t want a ceremony so much as they wanted all three of them to wear rings that reflected they were all in a relationship. Jane thought it was stupid and so didn’t see the point in helping. Which was why she, Felix and Demetri was on the mission with Bella instead of Bella coercing one or both of her mates to go.

“Aro.” Bella said with a wide grin, “I just had to promise to tell Marcus he was my favorite uncle and he immediately caved. It also didn’t hurt to have Didyme egging him on since she wanted me to get them rings as well.” Jane rolled her eyes, of course the over romantic queen would want that.

“Of course, she would.” Jane dryly said. “I still want to leave sooner rather than later, let’s finish here and we’ll leave.” Jane ordered.

“Sure, Jane.” Bella said with a smile.

There really wasn’t much left for them to do, so Bella just stayed there and waited for those inside the cave to come back out to give the okay for them to leave. Bella smiled as she thought about returning home. She would still have a couple more days of waiting for her mates to get back but that was okay, she could wait. Re-uniting was so much more fun when the anticipation is dragged out.

Bella really couldn’t be happier with how her life had turned out. As far as she was concerned, everything was finally perfect.