Author's Note

I do not own Young Dracula.

Sorry for the delay in updating. Life is getting me down, and even though this story is fully written, I haven't even been able to find the time just to post the next chapter of any of my works.


It had been a long time since Vlad had anyone his own age to confide in, and Erin provided that role. So, of course, because his children must never be happy, Count Dracula demanded she be thrown into a firepit. Ingrid helped him break her out of the cage and as they waited for the sun to set so the three of them (and Sirius) could leave Garside - and the Count - Vlad kissed her. Erin, that was. Not Ingrid.

Her lips were warm.

She was human.

It felt like she'd ripped out his heart.

He roared and screamed, throwing her across the room. Ingrid shot inside, a knife in her hand. Vlad snarled, unable to make the words, pointing furiously at Erin. Ingrid looked between them and spun the knife in her hand. Erin shook her head. "It's not what it looks like. I can explain, let me-"

"She's a breather!"

Ingrid frowned. "Is that it? I thought she'd tried to stake you or something."

Vlad snarled and glared at Erin. "You lied to me! I thought you cared about me!"

"I do care about you!"

"Then why didn't you tell me?"

She opened and closed her mouth.

"You could have told me! You should have told me!"

"I get the feeling this is exactly why she didn't tell you baby brother."

Vlad growled. "Shut up Ingrid."

"Fine, fine. Just saying."

Vlad glared down at Erin. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"I was scared."

"Why do this at all? Why come here?"

Her gaze slid past him to Ingrid. "She bit my brother. I thought if I staked her it would end the line and turn him back."

Ingrid raised her eyebrows. "You do know that's an old wives tale? Staking the creator won't help you at all, except making you feel a bit better."

Erin sighed. "Yeah, Bertrand said. I figured if I was going to find a cure anywhere, it would be here with the Draculas, right?"

Vlad held his hand out and pulled her to her feet. "If you want to leave, half-fang, you leave right here, right now. If you stay, you never lie to me or keep anything from me again. Do you understand?"

She nodded.

"And?"

"I was a Slayer," she whispered.

That one did come as a surprise.

ItEndswithUs-ITENDSWITHUS-ItEndswithUs

They took Erin's car and left Garside, setting up camp in an old manor a hundred miles away.

From what Vlad heard, the Count was furious.

Served him right.

He'd taken his family with him, and what did they need Count Dracula for any more? As regent? He named Ingrid regent.

Sirius loved it there, there was a big garden with a small wood of trees at the back for him to play in. It was nice seeing him act like a normal child for once. Vlad had never had that. Neither had Ingrid. Neither had Erin. Her parents were Slayers. They started teaching her to Slay as soon as she could walk.

"And now here I am, hiding out with two vampires and a vampire werewolf hybrid thing. What would my parents think?"

Vlad growled. "It doesn't matter what they would think. You've got us now."

She smiled, and looked at Wolfie as he whispered to his teddy. "What's he gonna be like when he grows up?"

Ingrid shrugged. "Most hybrid children take after one or the other parent. He's already started changing, so I would assume he'll be a werewolf."

"So he won't change and be a vampire like you two?"

"Might like his meat rare. But then that's a werewolf thing too."

"Huh."

Bertrand was the one to find them, bringing that damn book of his with him. "It doesn't matter to me what you decide to do or go, but please let me know the next time."

They moved that night, Bertrand had led the Slayers right to them and Vlad could have staked him, he really could.

ItEndswithUs-ITENDSWITHUS-ItEndswithUs

They went back to Stokely, partly to visit and partly because it was the last place anyone would go looking for them.

Vlad hadn't got a good look the night he and Ingrid fled, on account of being semi-conscious. Now though, he could see the damage the vampires had wreaked. The houses were ruins. The streets were little red with rubbish and the husks of rotting cars. The place stank like rotting corpses.

He looked at Ingrid.

Ingrid looked at him.

Neither of them spoke.

They went to visit the castle.

It was a burnt out ruin.

That was a shame.

It was a nice castle.

He'd liked that castle.

Vlad looked at Ingrid.

Ingrid looked at him.

Neither of them spoke.

Bertrand, who had wandered off somewhere - probably to meditate with his precious book and whisper 'my darling' to it - yelled. Vlad flashed over to him. No one touched his allies!

He found Bertrand struggling with a tiny figure in a heap of rags. Vlad threw it off him. The girl landed twenty feet away and rolled into a crouch, snarling-

Then stopped.

"Vlad?"

"Chloe?"

She was thin, sickly thin, and vampire-pale, but with her long fangs that wasn't a surprise. By the looks of her, she must have been turned soon after he left Stokely, a year at most. She pressed a hand to her mouth. "I'm sorry. I'm just hungry, and there's nothing to eat."

Vlad looked at Bertrand. "Stay with her. If anything happens to her, I will personally stake you."

He brought her back a lamb, and she gulped the blood down eagerly. Erin went a funny shade of green. Chloe licked the last of the blood from around her lips. "What are you doing here?"

"We thought we'd stop by. What happened to you?"

She rubbed her neck as if remembering. "The vampires... They overran the town. We couldn't fight back. Ian... And dad... Mum tried to take me and Robin and Paul away, but she timed it wrong and they crashed the car. I don't know what happened to her. Robin and I, they- They-" She rubbed her neck again. "And left us for dead. Paul... He got away. He's a Slayer now."

"Is Robin here too?"

She shook her head. "We got split up a few months ago. Slayer attack. They've been more proactive really."

Ingrid glanced at Vlad. "Gee, I wonder why."

"I thought he might come back here, so I came..."

"You're staying with us."

Vampires could age, but slowly. Very slowly. Very, very slowly.

Chloe Branagh was going to be an eleven year old vampire for a very, very, very long time.

ItEndswithUs-ITENDSWITHUS-ItEndswithUs

They left Stokely in the morning, one family member up from what they had arrived with.

After the Slayers found them for the third time, they decided it safest to return to Garside. Vlad warned his dad that the next time he put a foot out of line, he would be the one out on the street, not them.

ItEndswithUs-ITENDSWITHUS-ItEndswithUs

Chloe was not the girl he remembered.

She was defensive, quick to anger, and even quicker to attack.

Her hunger was almost insatiable.

Vlad wondered if it had something to do with her age. He told Bertrand to do some research on young half-fang vampires. Then again, it could also be the fact that she tried to resist the urge to eat, to feed, even when Vlad offered her disgusting soy substitutes. She'd starve herself half-conscious and then go on a rampage, desperate for food.

Ingrid set about teaching her how to moderate.

Bertrand said her age could make her metabolism faster, trying to maintain her age and youth as well as help her to grow even a tiny bit. Vlad told him to find a way to keep her fed without her drinking them out of house and home.

In the end they bought a small cottage to keep sheep at and one of them took Chloe there nightly to make her drink. It seemed to help, if only a little.

ItEndswithUs-ITENDSWITHUS-ItEndswithUs

The day Vlad started hearing voices calling his name he thought he must be going insane. He found himself in the mirror room, staring at the Blood Mirror. "What do you want now then?"

The gargoyles at either side came to life and threw him inside.

He hadn't seen that one coming.

It turned out that as the Chosen One, he had more than one reflection to merge with. He had a thousand (which made no literal sense, but eh, whatever). He could feel his power increasing as they jumped into him. It felt good.

Vlad stepped from the Blood Mirror a changed man. He was taller and more muscular, his hair darker, and his blue eyes flecked with red. Black leather covered him from his neck to feet. The Dracula clan symbol was printed on both shoulders. Vlad fingered it and smiled.

He had never felt more powerful.

He had never felt more vengeful.

He had never felt less like a Dracula.

He smiled, licking at his newly enlarged fangs.

Everyone except Ingrid, Erin, Sirius and Chloe wanted something from him. Power, money, fame, political power, military power, something, everything.

The world never had any love for him.

And in his newly empowered body, he had no love for it.