A/N: DEAR GOD! HOW LONG HAS IT BEEN! I AM SO SORRY I LEFT THIS FOR SO LONG! I have not one excuse this time really except for laziness. I apologize profusedly. and you have all been so patient too T_T.

Gabriel: (Pats KT's Back) there there... (clears throat) Kairi's Twin owns nothing but her own characters and the plot, the rest belongs to Stephen Sommers.

KT: Thanks Gabriel (sniffles) Enjoy the long, long, LONG awaited chapter.

Chapter 14: Family Matters

The next morning Natalie was awakened by a soft knock on the door as Tasha gingerly entered the room, "Ah I'm sorry miss I hope I dinna wake you."

"Mmm no not at all Tasha. I shouldn't sleep too late anyway." She smiled warmly at the servant girl.

"There's a bath ready if you like miss and I will bring your breakfast up." She curtsied as Natalie smiled and ducked into the washroom.

It was not long until Natalie had eaten her breakfast and went to look for Vladislaus, Selena or Aria. She was crossing the entrance hall on her way to the library.

"NATALIE!"

The red head spun around her eyes wide. There was Sophie, Claire and the others. She had not expected them to come looking for her so soon, "Wh- what are you guys doing here?"

"We came to rescue you again." Raphael said watching her.

Natalie took a deep breath, it was now or never, "I don't need to be rescued. I am happy here and I love Vladislaus."

Gabriel stepped forward, "But he cannot love you. He is not capable of love!"

"He does love me! I will not go back with you." Natalie backed away from them.

"You may not realize it but he has you bewitched." Carl said trying to be the peacemaker. Meanwhile Gabriel had pulled out his dart blowgun.

"No you are wrong!"

"Natalie?" Dracula came around the corner and he narrowed his eyes at Gabriel. It was just then that the hunter stuck Natalie in the shoulder with a dart coated in sleeping mixture.

The girl swayed on her feet her eyelids drooped, in a flash Vladislaus was at her side his arms wrapped around her waist as her eye lids fluttered like butterflies until they closed.

"Release her Dracula!" Gabriel demanded.

"I cannot do that…" The vampire king said and in an instant the pair of them vanished from sight.

Gabriel cursed, "All of you split up and find her. For all we know he could be turning her right now."

Raphael objected to sending Sophie off on her own, but the young girl insisted that she would be fine. So they all went different ways to search Castle Dracula for Natalie.

Sophie had climbed many flights of stairs towards the north tower where Gabriel had said that the cure of the curse of the werewolf was kept. She didn't know why but she had a feeling that this tower would lead to something important. As she neared the door at the end of a short hallway she heard voices. Listening carefully she gasped, it was the vampires that had kidnapped Natalie that first night.

"Put the cool cloth on her forehead Aria. I will find the smelling salts to see if that has any effect."

"Yes sister." Sophie pressed back against the wall as the blond one she has spoken too in Vaseria dashed by with a cloth. She crept nearer and peered through the crack between the door and the frame. She could see Natalie laid on the bed still knocked out from the dart. Aria was gently pressing a cool cloth to Natalie's forehead. Soon the other, dark haired bride came into view holding a small vial filled with, Sophie assumed, smelling salts.

"Hello there small one."

Sophie gasped and spun around to see Dracula standing behind her. He was a good two feet taller than she was. The young woman backed away from the vampire king, tripped and fell into the room as her sister came around from the salts.

"Sophie…" Natalie looked at her sister still a little foggy, "Sophie it's alright he will not hurt you. None of them will."

She looked over her shoulder at Natalie. She seemed like her old self except for being in love with Dracula… "Y-You are not bewitched?" her voice trembled like a leaf in a gale force wind.

"No. I have been saying it the whole time. While I was here with Vladislaus I saw that there is more to him than the legends say. He has changed."

"But Raphael said-"

"I know he has killed members of the Valerious. But that was in the past. He did not hurt me even though he thought we were Valerious. He saved my life several times, even when I tried to escape and got trapped in a blizzard."

Sophie's eyes widened hearing about the blizzard but that was a story for another time she realized, "Well the funny thing is Natalie… You are a Valerious. So is your mother. She was abducted by Dracula…"

"She fell…" Dracula remembered, "She would not stop struggling against me and she fell. I thought she was dead. I meant to make her a hostage to negotiate with the family. I was tired of the fight at that point. Then of course the war between us intensified but I told Natalie I was a very different person then."

"So the reason mother could not remember when Grandfather Van Helsing found her was because she must have hit her head or something. But if she had not lost her memory she might not have married father. It is like… fate or something."

Sophie still seemed unsure, but as she studied Dracula she could see the soft look in his eyes as Natalie said it was fate and she smiled, "Maybe you two really do love each other… But Gabriel will never believe it. I am not sure about Raphael. He might just be glad to end the war between Dracula and his family, even if it is not the end he had in mind."

"I have to go…" Vladislaus said and smiled softly at Natalie's confused look, "I will not hide from Gabriel any longer. I will not let him say that I am using you as a shield. This I must do on my own love."

"Vlad no! I cannot let you risk yourself like that!" Natalie was immediately at his side and secured a vice grip in his elbow, "I will not let him kill you again. You cannot leave me."

He stroked her hair soothingly, "Hush love… there are some things that must be done." Vladislaus leaned down and pressed his lips against Natalie's.

Natalie felt her face flush with heat and her eyes slid closed as she pressed her lips back against his and allowed his tongue to caress her lips and explore her mouth in a mind numbingly pleasurable kiss. It felt like an eternity before he pulled away and freed his arm gently.

"Do not fear mea dragoste, I will return to you. I swear it." Then he vanished. Natalie immediately began to run down the stairs with Sophie, she knew they would not be in time to stop the fight.

Gabriel had stayed in the foyer to wait the other's return and listen for calls for help. He sniffed the air and turned to see Dracula standing five feet away.

"So you decided to show your face and fight like a man."

"I will not hide any more Gabriel. I am not ashamed I love Natalie. She has re-awakened my heart. This I will never give up with out a fight!"

The hunter growled feral and Vlad got a sinking feeling, "Fine then I will fight you once more. This time you will stay in Hell where I put you!"

If felt like ages but the whole transformation took only a matter of minutes. The hunters clothes bulged then ripped as his bones cracked like thunder in the vampires ears as they rearranged themselves. His face lengthened into a snout, teeth sharpened and finally the huge black werewolf howled at the moon, then he focused his big yellow eyes on his opponent.

Vladislaus backed away slowly, Gabriel was supposed to have been cured by the antidote!

That was all he had time to think though because in the next second the werewolf leaped at him and he had to sprout his wings and give a hard flap to dodge it.

Hearing the howl Natalie's heart leapt like a gain frog into her throat. She ran faster. Bursting through the tower doors both she and Sophie froze to see the wolf and vampire in pitch battle. Vladislaus had many lacerations that were not over serious, but Natalie winced as Gabriel's claws raked across her love's chest.

Claire, Raphael and Carl had also run out to see the commotion just as Gabriel delivered a powerful back handed blow to the King of Vampires. Vladislaus flew back crash into the wall with a sound that echoed in Natalie's ears like a gun shot.

Gabriel stood over the downed vampire snarling his fangs dripping with venom his eyes cold with hate.

"NO!" Natalie yelled and threw herself over Vladislaus chest covering as much of the vampire as she could, "No…please…" she looked up at the werewolf her face shining with diamond rivers from her tears, "do not kill him, please Van Helsing… I beg of you please."

The werewolf growled as it shrunk back into Gabriel's skin, "Why!"

"There are two reasons. The first and most important, I love him and do not think I could live with out him. And Secondly, he knows your story Gabriel. Your past. I do not just believe his words I have done research. Both at Vilakova Palace and in the Valerious library. Please, just listen to him."

"It is because of him that Anna is dead." They all looked at the hunter with pity as they realized he still missed the gypsy princess.

"Gabriel. Anna always knew the risks. And you killed Dracula before she died." Raphael placed a hand on this shoulder and smiled gently, "Are you not tired of all of this fighting? What harm can it really do to hear the vampire out?"

The great hunter looked at Dracula now in his human form, covered in cuts from his werewolf-self, "All right then Dracula, start talking."

Vladislaus told them everything he had told Natalie. That Gabriel and he had been brothers-in-arms and fought side-by-side for the Order of the Dragon, headed by Valerious the elder. He told of his love for Safia and his foolish jealousy that had been the end of him. "It is true I did many unspeakable things out of rage and pain. Most of them to my own family. But it was my own father who vowed that none of the Valerious would rest until I was dead."

Gabriel turned his back on Vladislaus as the vampire finished his story, "I am sorry… so very sorry Vlad. I don't know how I could have forgotten… something so terrible."

"You… you remember?"

"I do now. I was so distraught with the knowledge I had ended your life that I asked God to spare me the agony of it. I suppose this was how it was to be. Your father… he only thanked me for my service and said I could keep your ring…"

"I forgive you."

"Wh-What?" Van Helsing turned back to the vampire.

"I forgive you my friend. After all it was my jealousy, my unwillingness to listen that brought me to my end really. You were only following orders. I should have trusted my friend." The two men shook hands smiling, hunter and vampire united as friends once more.

A/N: So this is the end. But just to put a neat little bow on it there will be and Epilogue and then I will post a poll on my Profile to see if you guys want a sequel and what you think it should be ^^.

Vlad: So you are now ignoring the lateness of this chapter? After you abandon me for so long! You haven't written anything with me in it for ... MONTHS... ALMOST A YEAR IF I AM NOT MISTAKEN.

KT: (figgits uncomfortably) Only since March... that is ...four months... OKAY so I know it is bad. I already apologized PROFUSELY! Besides I needed a good wrap up chapter. It is hard to write you and Gabriel GETTING ALONG! It is easier to write you trying to rip eachother's throats out. Also I will add a note about Carl's pairing as I lied and never actually put her in a chapter... Sorry Carl.

Carl: That's all right. As long as people know she is there ^_^

KT: (blinks ... then looks at Dracula) Why can't you be more like Carl...?

ANYWAYS REVIEW THE LAST OFFICIAL CHAPTER! PLEASE! It has been a great time writing this and I hope you all enjoyed it. Epilogue WILL be up next weekend as I am crippled by a dislocated knee cap and cannot get out of me Kneebrace until Aug 2nd.

Love all my frequent reviewers and fans lots 3

Kairi's-Twin