It had been a week since Dennis had gone missing.
Mavis and Johnny were beside themselves with worry and Dracula was distracted.
It wasn't like Dennis to do something like this. He was a good boy and close with his family. He would never just run off like this.
Meaning that someone had to take him.
Dracula knew in his heart that it was the Van Helsings that had taken him. Kate had gone back to her family and told them about his family and about his hotel. He hated that he hadn't been able to kill her when he had the chance, avoided this whole situation. He blamed himself for this.
However, even as he thought this, he felt deep down that there was no way that Kate had betrayed his trust. He didn't know why he could think that when all evidence pointed to Dennis being kidnapped by her family.
He stood by the front desk and sighed, watching as his daughter and son-in-law came down the stairs slowly, her pregnant belly making it hard for her to move.
Her heart broke as he believed that he would never see his grandson alive again. Never see Dennis' curly red hair, see his excited blue eyes or hear him call out for him again.
"Papa Drac!"
Dracula blinked before turning to the sound, sure that he had misheard. Walking in the front doors, a small boy in an over-sized hoodie was running across the lobby. The hood fell back and Dracula couldn't help the relief that filled him at the sight of that unruly red hair.
"Dennis!"
Dracula flew across the lobby, grabbing the young boy in his arms. His shout had drew the attention of Mavis and Johnny, who joined him in hugging Dennis. For a moment, he just felt relieved that Dennis was alive and well.
Mavis was the first to pull back. "Where were you? What happened?"
Dennis looked down with an ashamed look on his face before he started to tell his story. How he had felt left out because of the new baby coming and everyone ignoring him so he had run away to find a new friend when he had been hit in the head and taken, locked up in the basement of a house.
"How did you escape?" Johnny asked, his hand on his son's shoulder.
"There was a girl there with me, she helped me. She looked like she had been there a lot longer than I had and they had hurt her. She saved me."
Dennis pulled the hoodie off of him, leaving him in the t-shirt and shorts he was wearing when he disappeared a week ago, except for a piece of string around his neck.
"What that?" Mavis said pointing at the string.
Dennis followed his mother's finger. His eyes widened and he pulled the string over his head and put it into his hands, holding it out to Dracula.
"She told me to give this to you. Made me promise to give it to you."
Dracula reached out and took the item from Dennis' hands, looking over what he had given him.
It was a gray colored string, covered in dirt and what looked like red jam, but that wasn't what drew Dracula's eyes.
Looped on the string, was the pair to the ring he was wearing. Martha's ring. His eyes widened in shock.
"Where did you get this?"
"Kate gave it to me," Dennis said. "She took it out of a cabinet in the house."
Dracula looked up at Dennis at those words, shock filling him. "Did you just say Kate?"
Dennis nodded. "She helped me escape. She even pointed me in the right direction and told me to run. She took off in the other direction, said that it would give me time to escape." He turned to Mavis. "I hope she is okay. She wasn't doing so well when I left her."
"What do you mean?"
Dennis turned back to Dracula, his wide eyes filled with sadness. "She was bleeding, but she was trying to hide it from me."
Dracula looked back at the string. It wasn't jam, it was dried blood, Kate's blood.
"Why was she bleeding?"
Dennis took a deep breath. "They were hurting her when I woke up. The mean lady kept asking her where he was. She never said anything. Her back was covered with cuts."
She hadn't said anything to her family. The Van Helsings had just gotten lucky when Dennis ran off, perhaps even unaware of his connection to Dracula. She had kept her promise, even at the cost of her own life. She was out there, bleeding, running, as a distraction for his grandson.
"Dennis, which way was the cottage?"
Dennis pointed out the hotel. "In the direction of the setting sun. It took me 2 days to get here on my own."
Dracula wasted no time. Placing Martha's ring in his pocket, he flew out of the front lobby doors out of the hotel, leaving behind 3 shocked faces.
Dracula didn't know what possessed him to find Kate, but he knew that he had to find her. Would she even still be alive? He didn't know, but he wasn't going to stop until he was sure.
He stopped when he reached the edge of the forest and could see what he assumed had to be the cottage Dennis told him about. He wanted to go there and take that revenge against the Van Helsings right this moment, burn their home to ground as they did his all those years ago.
Instead he turned and continued west.
Dennis' trail was more subtle, but Kate's wasn't. It looked like she had done it on purpose, maybe she had. She was trying to distract the Van Helsings from Dennis, so it made sense that she would make this trail more obvious.
If the trail hadn't been obvious, the blood trail would have guided him.
He could smell the fresh tainted human blood of the Van Helsing family, Kate's blood. He had to be getting close now.
He followed the trail quickly, looking for any sign of Kate. He couldn't believe how far the girl had run when injured. Based on this blood trail, she had to be bleeding pretty badly. He moved faster.
When he reached the end, he froze.
He was standing at the end of a ditch, and at the bottom was a body. He moved down and turned the body over carefully to see her face.
Kate.
Even covered in blood and dirt, he recognized her. Her eyes were closed and she was pale, even in the dark. He reached out and placed his fingers on her neck, checking for her pulse, hoping she was not dead.
The world stood still as he waited.
After what felt like an eternity, he felt her heartbeat. He almost cried out in relief, but didn't. Her pulse was weak, but it was there.
Carefully, he lifted her into his arms and turned towards home. It would take a little longer to get there since he couldn't transform, but he hoped that she would survive the journey.
Kate wanted to scream.
The pain had woken her from a deep sleep, although she felt anything but rested.
She kept her eyes closed against the pain. She didn't want to get up and try to run anymore, but she needed to do so. She hadn't gone nearly far enough. Dennis had to make it home to his parents, his grandfather, Dracula.
A new pain set in as she thought about the lonely Count Dracula. She had tried her best to forget him these last 6 months, but even now she knew the exact shade of blue his eyes were, feel the softness of his cape as it caressed her skin, the twinkle in his eyes when he had her trapped in a game of chess, the musical melody of his voice.
She had accepted long ago that she had fallen for the vampire, but she wasn't naive enough to believe that he would be interested in her except to hate her. She was a Van Helsing after all, that wasn't about to change.
She tried to move her arm and found that it hurt too much to move it more than an inch or so. Still she tried. She had to get moving off this mattress and keep...she froze.
Mattress? Last she remembered was falling into a ditch. She should still be there.
She forced herself to open her eyes and look around her surroundings.
She was lying on her stomach on a mattress. A soft, comfortable mattress with silky sheets, fluffy pillows and a warm comforter.
Without moving her head too much, she glanced around the room. Drapes hung around her bed and the walls were dark and made of stone. This room looked familiar.
She heard a door open, but heard no footsteps. Instinctively she knew who it was but she prayed that she was wrong, but also wanted to be right.
"Drac...ula?"
Her voice cracked slightly, indicating she hadn't spoken out loud in quite some time. She had run for nearly 2 days before she fell into the ditch. Who knew how long she had been out after that?
A body came into view suddenly and Kate found that she didn't even have the strength to jump in surprise. The body lowered and she found herself looking into those familiar blue eyes she had been dreaming about the last 6 months.
"It is you," she said softly, her voice cracking. "I would think I was dead if it wasn't for the pain I'm feeling."
"Be still now," he said, that voice washing over her like warm chocolate. He made to reach out and touch her, but pulled his arm back before making contact with her.
Kate almost flinched at the sharp pain his obvious rejection caused her.
"What happened?"
Dracula's eyes flickered away from hers. Gods she hated this. She hadn't asked to fall in love with a man still in love with his late wife, a man who hated her family, a man who would never be able to love her.
"Dennis said that you saved him from your family, that you were being..." He glanced at her. "...tortured."
Kate took a breath. "He told you that?" Dracula nodded.
Kate couldn't believe it. She never wanted Dracula to know. She never expected to see him again so he wouldn't need to know the depths she went to keep his location a secret from her family.
"How long were you there?"
Kate looked into Dracula's eyes. He was looking at her intently now. There was no point in trying to keep the truth from him. He already knew that she had been tortured.
"After I left here, I went to my aunt's home. She was the one who sent me out to Transylvania after all and she demanded I return to tell her what I found. I went back and for 2 days she kindly asked me where you were and for 2 days I replied that I didn't know. I told her that your village just enjoyed old legends and celebrated monsters every year as a result. On the 3rd day, as I was packing my bags to return to school, they got the jump on me and knocked me out. When I woke up, I was chained up in the basement, unable to escape. I've been there the last 6 months."
Dracula's eyes widened. "Why couldn't you escape? Van Helsings have similar abilities to other monsters. You could have run?"
"I may be stronger and faster than the normal human, but the chains were meant to hold monsters. I tried but couldn't break them."
Dracula narrowed his eyes at those words. She had been trapped and tortured for his whereabouts. She had been there for the last 6 months.
He thought back to when he last saw her. She had asked him to kill her to keep her from spilling his location. He hadn't been able to do so and let her go. Then her own family had hurt her, repeatedly, just to try and find him.
"Why didn't you say anything?"
Kate blinked, confusion filling her features. "What?"
"Why did you keep my location secret? Why did you protect the hotel? Why keep quiet when speaking would end your suffering?"
Kate blushed. She couldn't very well tell him it was because she was in love with him. He wouldn't believe it.
"I promised you I wouldn't say anything," she said. "I always keep my promises."
Dracula wasn't sure what to think about Kate Van Helsing.
When he had brought her back, Mavis had helped him clean the wounds on her back. There were scars criss-crossing her back. She had been whipped, multiple times, over the course of her 6 month imprisonment.
He couldn't believe what he was seeing.
She protected the hotel and all the monsters here, even when being tortured by her own family. He didn't know of any monster or human who could have survived that long.
Mavis had been told the story, including the past between Dracula and the Van Helsings. However, she had pushed past the story and looked at Kate as the woman who saved her son. She wasted no time helping the Van Helsing girl.
"I hate the Van Helsings for taking my mother," she had said, "but Kate saved Dennis. She risked her life to keep us safe. I can see past her family to the woman she is inside."
Over the past week that Kate had been staying at the hotel recovering, Mavis spent a lot of time with the young woman, making sure she was eating and helping her regain her strength. The power of the Van Helsing family helping her recover much faster than a normal human would have.
Turns out that starving the girl was another tactic the Van Helsings tried with Kate to get her to break. She was much smaller than she was when she first came to the hotel indicating that they barely fed her the whole time she was trapped. To a girl whom he knew loved food, it had to be torture to live off barely anything for 6 whole months.
She was getting stronger each day she stayed at the hotel and her weight was coming back. She had even started to walk around the room and hallways. Today, she was joining Mavis and Johnny for dinner in the restaurant.
Dracula watched across the room as she slowly ate the food she had chosen. She had learned the hard way that because she hadn't eaten much over the last 6 months that she had to eat much slower and a little at a time.
She had more color in her face and her cheeks were starting to fill back out. She was looking alive again. She was smiling at something Johnny had said, Mavis was laughing too. Dennis ran up and joined his family, even taking a moment to hug Kate.
She was fitting in with his family. A Van Helsing fitting in with his family, it should have bothered him, but it didn't.
He didn't understand. He looked down at the ring he had kept in his pocket. Martha's ring.
She had stopped and taken time to recover this ring, knowing that if she had been caught that she would have done everything she could to get Dennis out, but still allowed herself to be caught.
He felt strange that he was feeling this way about someone from the family that killed his wife, his zing. Somehow, he found that he liked Kate, but even that didn't seem like a strong enough feeling for what this was.
He curled his hand around Martha's ring, finding himself somewhat torn as he watched Kate interact with his family. Her eyes lit up and laughing at something Johnny had said.
What was this feeling?