Hi Everyone, sorry I've taken so long to update... But her 'tis... The last chapter of Alternate Universe.
I'll still be writing my new stories, My New Life and Fight Back, so if you'd like to read them or
continue reading them, whatever the case may be, that would be great.
But don't forget to leave me a review... I have a lot of people alerting and favouriting, but not many reviewing...
Anyway, I hope that I answer a lot of your questions about this story by the end. I have no plans
to continue this story, but you never know what the future will hold.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy this last chapter and thank you so much for your support and reviews
that you've all given me. You all put a smile on my face every day!

Sandy

Forty Nine

I honestly didn't think I'd ever pass through these gates again. Seeing the 'hidden vampire city' again caused many emotions to go through me, concern, apprehension, excitement and I suppose a certain amount of longing for familiarity. It wasn't until we started driving again that I realised that I'd been holding my breath at the entrance. I think there was some part of me that was waiting for the royal guard to pop out of the bushes and take us all to jail, that thought hadn't completely left me yet though... It was sort of like waiting for the other shoe to fall... We followed the other SUV's up to the Royal residence and went into the underground parking. As I got out of the car I looked around to the other guardian's that were banished with me and saw that they were feeling exactly like me.

"Could cut the air with a knife down here hey Rose?" Alberta mused.

"I thought it was just me..."

"Nope... not just you."

"I really want to believe them, Alberta." She just nodded in agreement, after all... what else could she say? Two guardians that I hadn't seen before walked out of a set of double wooden doors and walked over to us.

"Your majesty, if you'd just follow us please?" He said while bowing to Lissa.

"Thank you Guardian..."

"Guardian Moody Your majesty, Randy Moody." I tried really hard to keep my mask on but I don't think I was too successful, my eyes widened slightly before I was able to gain control of my face. As Lissa passed me; she gave me a stern look accompanied with a jab to the ribs from her elbow, it was either my face that gave away my thoughts or she had actually heard my thoughts...

"Good to meet you Randy." She said without missing a beat. I however covered up my almost laugh with a well executed throat clearing...

"Sorry... got a tickle in my throat." I said with a smirk. Liss just walked off shaking her head...

Don't you dare make me laugh you cow... She said silently.

Well don't call me cow... Ducky!

Pig! Oh...!

Horse... I couldn't help but smile...

...Turkey! She said after some thought... and then we both started laughing softly. I was aware of the others around us; the ones who didn't know about our bond were either confused or annoyed at our snickering, or the ones who did know were wondering what we were talking about.

I can't believe that's his name.... I nearly had to bite my tongue off.

I know... She said almost with a growl...

As we walked through the lobby that was on the other side of the doors from the car park, we saw four elevators on the far wall. The guardians that stood beside each door pressed the buttons and as we got there, the doors opened and we all piled in.

"We will be meeting with Tatiana first." Said Lord Conta. "She would like to speak to you before we get you settled in."

"Yes, that would good thank you." Liss said from behind me. I looked back to her and saw her standing side by side with Christian; their hands locked tightly together. I smiled and then looked to Mason who stood at my right but his eyes were firmly planted on the doors in front of him. Dimitri stood to my left and he too stood stock still in front of Christian. When the doors opened, we found ourselves in a large room. It took me a second to realise that this was in fact the room that I'd attended a ball in once when we were still in school, we were now entering it from another direction this time...

"Your Majesty." We all turned towards where the voice had come from to see Tatiana sitting at large table with probably thirty or more chairs at it. I remembered the faces of those that sat with her; the council members who threw me out!

"Please, call me Lissa."

"Alright, thank you. Lissa... I thought that we should meet to go over a few things before you're officially sworn in as our next monarch." My eyes narrowed as the hairs on the back of my neck bristled, my distrust in these people was increasing with every second and I didn't like it one bit.

"I've already signed the papers..." Lissa said in a confident voice.

"Yes, true, but an official ceremony will need to take place before you are 100% legally recognised as the new queen." I could feel Lissa's unease through the bond and it only served to amplify my own misgivings. "There is no need for guardians to be present in this meeting, so if you don't mind..." she said to the Dhampir's in the room. "That means you too Rose." I didn't move a muscle.

I'm not going anywhere Liss...

"My guardians will be staying Tatiana; I have no secrets from them." Tatiana's eyes narrowed and she glared at me.

"Fine. The coronation ceremony is scheduled for the day after tomorrow, so we should get down to business." After that Lissa walked to the head of the table while Tatiana and the council members filled her in on the most pressing concerns going on around Court. It was quite boring actually and I'd found that I'd been staring at a painting for the last few minutes when Lissa's voice echoed in my head.

Rose, pay attention.

Sorry... I said as my eyes flicked to hers for an instant as I became aware of the conversation at hand.

"Speaking of the issue regarding the guardians..." Lissa said. "Lord Conta has filled me in on some of what has been happening since we were...removed." The look she gave the 'former' queen almost made my guardian mask slip but on the inside I was doing the victory dance...

"Yes your majesty, it is the most pressing issue at the moment." Lady Conta said.

"Well, I do hope that everyone here understands that in order for them to come back to us and have the confidence that they will no longer be treated as second class citizens, it is us who need to change not only our thinking but also our laws. I know that everyone here is intelligent enough to realise that the way we have treated the dhampirs in the past is the reason they're leaving us now." I could see that there were a few here that wanted to disagree with her but they were smart enough to know if they spoke against her, their credibility would crumble in front of the others.

I want to you speak Rose, so be ready. I looked at her with wide eyes and dread with what she wanted from me. "I know that there are some here that will disagree with me," she continued, "...but that's just too bad. What you have done in the past obviously hasn't been working, so it's time for a new approach. Guardian Hathaway, please take a seat." She motioned to a chair a couple down from her... right in between Tatiana and Lord Voda... Oh joy!

What are you doing Liss? I growled at her as I walked to the seat.

"What better way to help heal the hurt and scars of the past than ask those who have been hurt. Guardian Hathaway, from a guardian's point of view, are there any changes that you feel need to happen so that those who have resigned may choose to come back?"

This was not nice Liss... "Well, the main issue is respect."

"What do you mean Guardian Hathaway?" Lady Ozera was sitting back in her chair relaxed, she looked a lot like Christian and Tasha but her demeanour was definitely different. Somehow I knew she was not a fire user.

"Well, as a race, we are not respected at all. This was shown by Lady Ivashkov's comments to me when she banished me." Tatiana stiffened when I referred to her words at the farce of a trial I had at the academy. "Something along the lines of 'that's what we're bred for... to guard Moroi.'... We're not dogs, we're not animals, we're people who have the same hopes and dreams that you all have, we also have the same need to be loved as you do but if by some chance we find it, we are forced to relinquish that love. I know for a fact that this is the reason that most dhampirs do not even start their training in the first place and lead a normal life, a life with a family and love... you know...what you all have. I may be wrong, but I doubt it, but if more dhampirs knew that they could train, they couldbecome guardians and still be able to have family and love in their lives...I think more would choose to guard." I hadn't planned on speaking at all, so Lissa and I were both surprise that I'd said so much and I felt so much pride come through the bond; I turned to her and smiled... But I wasn't quite finished...

"Also, speaking from the unique position of being a dhampir female, the way we are seen by all moroi has to change. There is no choice for you in this. The way that female dhampirs who have chosen to raise a family instead of becoming guardians, are seen as that of being blood whores. Why is our need and dream to have children any different to yours? Why is our choice denigrated to something dirty? Moroi have a choice of who they have children with, their own race or with ours... We do not have that choice. We only have you... and because of that we are victimised. We are treated with disdain and disrespect. We are beaten by moroi who hide safely behind their guardians (who know that they will be punished if they let anything happen to their charges.) We are used, abused and raped by those who we are expected to protect with our very lives... Can you see why we are now leaving you?"

The Moroi around the table were utterly silent. Some had looks on their faces like they'd just become aware of something bad they did while under the influence of alcohol, others looked like they were finally getting it but didn't want to admit it...

"You're right." Lady Badica stood up and walked around from her side of the table to me. Out of habit, I stood up from my chair and nodded my head in respect but what shocked me as well as others was when she got to me... she did the same thing. "We as a race have become so ignorant and self absorbed that we've become weak in both body and mind. We used to be a strong race, we used to fight alongside of our guardians, guardians who used to respect us, guardians who used to die for us because they loved us, not simply out of duty and the knowledge that if our race died out then so did they... We need to change." I was stunned beyond belief at her words...then she nodded to me once again before walking back to her seat, but she thought of something else she wanted to say once she got there. "We need to become strong again, we need to be respected again and the only way for this to happen is to show the respect to those that we have wronged so immensely. Thank you guardian Hathaway for opening my eyes to my ignorance."

"And mine..." said Lord Szelsky. "Your majesty, I think that we need to retire on this and maybe come up with ideas on how to rectify it and bring those ideas to a meeting tomorrow morning?"

"Yes, that would be a good idea, thank you Lord Szelsky." Lissa said.

Holy shit Rose... that was truly – I don't have words to describe what you just accomplished. You are truly amazing Rose. Without you, none of what has happened would ever have eventuated and I'm pretty sure that we all would have died a slow and painful death.

Thanks Liss. But you're pretty awesome yourself you know.

Only with you by my side...

Always.

88888888

Five years later.

That next day, the meeting that took place after my little speech was enormously productive, I never thought that I'd live to see the day that we would have the respect given to us that we now had. The coronation went off without a hitch and Lissa became our new queen. Our initial uneasiness about returning to court was laid to rest as many new laws started being passed in council meetings. For the first time in recorded history a new council was set up. Young and old moroi and dhampirs now made up a new political council that the separate moroi and dhampir councils answered to. Twelve months after the new laws started to be put into place, more and more female dhampirs started their training, and we even had older dhampirs from all around the world come into the academies and wished to resume their training that they'd previously walked away from. By the end of Lissa's second year as queen, marriages between dhampirs had become more common and there were quite a few between moroi and dhampirs. Some of those marriages were shocking at first and we started to realise just how many dhampirs and their charges had found love together.

I too am now married... Dimitri and I finally took the plunge three months ago, we're both in our mid twenties now and we both knew it was what we wanted more than anything and as you could imagine, Liss went all out on the ceremony... She may be queen, but underneath it all, she's still Lissa. She too is married...yup, you guessed it, she married Christian and she's pregnant... both of them just glow with extreme happiness these days...

There was one other newly formed council that was a first in the history books, the Moroi Guardian Council... yeah, who would have thought that there were Moroi around who actually wanted to become guardians. Tasha and Christian were both on the council and I got the shock of my life when Mia Rinaldi stepped forward to become a member. Apparently her Moroi father had been killed in a strigoi attack which left her mother and her unprotected. She told me that after seeing what happened to Hope and then the death of her father, she needed to take control of her life and future... she trained hard and became one of the first inducted Moroi Guardians just over two years ago.

The last five years have not happened without a lot of hard work, blood, sweat and tears but we now have more promised guardians than at any other time in recorded history and for the first time in centuries, every Moroi...Royal or not, fighting or not, has at least one guardian, most have two. There are still blood whores around, but they are slowly being helped to leave that life, to get over their addictions and are being shown that they deserve happiness. There are still Moroi who try to take advantage of those who aren't in a position to stand up to them, but those incidences are becoming rarer as the months pass. The majority of their guardians no longer stand back and let them abuse dhampir women, they intervene and protect them, some have even requested transfers after their charges go back to old ways. This has worried the moroi so much that they are willingly changing their behaviour rather than risk that they'll be unprotected. For centuries, guardians were unable to just leave their charges... if they tried; they were blacklisted and then couldn't find another charge so they'd end up taking cruel charges or guarding prisoners in some God forsaken prison in the middle of nowhere. This is no longer the case and the Moroi know it.

Some of the strigoi battles have been hard over the last few years, when they saw that things were changing in our world, that we were fighting back...they banded together, they started changing more humans, going on more 'Moroi raids'. We lost good people, both Moroi and Dhampirs, but now...we are winning. Strigoi numbers are at their lowest that they've been in nearly a century. Moroi numbers are increasing like never before as they all know that they are more protected as well as the fact that now, more time is spent and invested in our scientific departments tackling the issues of low Moroi fertility rates. But the scientific breakthrough that will have the biggest impact our world has ever seen, happened three months ago... Scientists have finally found a way for dhampirs to conceive children together. The first dhampir/dhampir pregnancy has been achieved... now we just have to wait to see if the pregnancy not only survives, but also produces a healthy child.

"Rose, please promise me that you will take it easy. We don't know what to expect." Dr Peters said to me. I'd come to know her quite well since coming to court, after all, my propensity to injure myself hadn't diminished over time.

"Do you really think I'd do anything that could in any way jeopardise my child?" I asked her seriously.

"Not intentionally no... But Rose, I think I've seen more of your body than I've seen of my own over the last few years, you can't help yourself."

"Oh ha ha, very funny. You know that I've taken myself of guard duty so I won't be putting myself in harm's way, and do you really think that Dimitri is going to let me do anything harmful? He's already smothering me." I looked over to him where he sat beside me and he just looked at me and shrugged while doing the 'eyebrow' thing...

"Would you have it any other way my love?" He said smiling.

"No..."

"Then stop complaining." I couldn't argue, but me being me had to do something, so I poked my tongue at him.

"Well as long as you understand the risks and promise me that you will call me if you experience anything out of the ordinary. Your pregnancy is too new to know what to expect, so you have to be careful. This child could be Dhampir or Moroi or even human... we just don't know."

"Don't put that on the kid just yet Doc... Human? That would be a disaster!" And it would be... that would be the end of dhampir's having kids together... The Moroi have accepted a lot, but Dhampir's producing humans... I think they might object to that.

"Well, I'm just saying... We just don't know what to expect so if you experience any pain, even slight pain, please ring me. Any weird cravings... if the child turns out to be Moroi then you may need extra blood..." I hadn't thought of that... Eww!

Mason has finally found love too, a beautiful and classy non-royal Moroi named Louisa Gray. She came to the royal Court from England to be inducted as the English representative of the Moroi Guardian Council. She's a water user like Mia but her skills are out of this world, she is deadly. She can not only suck the water right out of the air, but also the water out of the bodies of the strigoi, leaving them looking like prunes and writhing on the ground. Mason looks at her like the second coming of Jesus himself... He adores her. Eddie is with Mia, surprise, surprise. They tried to hide it, but when Mason found out about them he did his normal thing and made their lives a living hell until they admitted it and now they're married and expecting their first child.

And Adrian... Well Adrian finally got a happy ending... It was only six months after we returned to Court that we found ourselves in a fight with strigoi while out of the wards, Tasha, Christian and Adrian had to attend meetings in a small town just outside New York and on the way back from the airport we were attacked. We had eight guardians with us but we were out outnumbered two to one. Tasha fought bravely but just as the last of the strigoi were being taken care of, she was killed... We loaded back into the cars, Adrian refused to leave her body behind and that's where he brought her back to life. That is also where we all found out about the relationship they'd been keeping to themselves. But we all knew what his healing Tasha meant... they would now be bonded. Their bond developed a lot faster than Lissa's and mine did. Tasha started hearing Adrian's thoughts only two months after he'd saved her and then it only took them another six months after that to tie the knot! They now have three kids... Thomas Christian Ivashkov aged three and twins Brianna Rose and Nastassja Liza Ivashkov aged eleven months.

But the biggest shock...well to me anyway, is Lissa's new guardian, the one who is replacing me until I can come back. My mother. When Lissa became queen, she returned to Court with her charge for the coronation. Things didn't go real well between us at first, you know... all the abandonment issues I had against her, but over the years we've found a common ground. We'll probably never have the normal mother/daughter relationship, but what we have is fairly close I suppose. Her charge took a position on the new Moroi/Dhampir ruling council so he will be well guarded here by the court guardians, leaving mother with the opportunity to guard Lissa. She won't admit it, but we all know that she is bursting with excitement over the fact that she is now the queen's number one guardian and she rules with an iron fist. When I told her about Abe... she was heartbroken. She'd lost contact with him over the years and I realised that what they had was more than just the normal 'dhampir got pregnant by a moroi' thing... They really did love each other but my mother was too hardnosed to go against the rules back then and be with the man she loved, so she did what most Dhampir women did... she handed me over to the academy when I was old enough so that she could go back to guarding.

Alberta has finally retired and living a quiet life here at court...with a man! Yeah I know! Weird hey... He's a guardian that she knew from the academy where she trained as a teenager. He graduated a year ahead of her, they'd seen each other over the years at different functions etc that their charges had attended, but now that there are so many guardians and novices waiting in the wings, older guardians are able to retire earlier if that's what they wanted to do and have a life. Some of the now retired guardians are looking after their grandchildren so that their guardian children can continue to work.

So much has happened in such a short time, and sometimes it makes my head swim. We still have the odd few Moroi that look down their noses at Dhampirs, but we can all see that they are all too willing to accept and embrace the now almost overflowing ranks of guardians.

Some parts of our community have estimated that within ten years, the possibility of seeing the final strigoi die will come to pass. I hope that happens, I hope that I get to see a future where my unborn child will live in a world that strigoi do not exist other than in the history books and in people's memories. If that happens, there will still be a need for guardians because we all know that there are greedy people out there who will trade what we have accomplished over the last five years for an undying existence. But for now... I'm smiling. I know that for the next year, I get to go to bed and then wake up beside the man that I love with all of my heart and soul and in just under eight months I will hold in my arms a flesh and blood testimony of our love.

Sometimes I get scared to go to sleep because I think that I'm going to wake up and all of this will just be a dream. I'll wake up and I'll be in some long forgotten jail cell slowly awaiting my death. Oh, and in case you're wondering, Tatiana somehow twisted it all around and made out that she was the one who wanted Lissa to become queen. She selflessly stood aside for the good of her people... yeah right! Liss made me promise that I would never let on that she was lying... something about being the first step to healing old wounds... But every time I pass her in the halls around court, we glare at each other. I will never forgive her for what she did. It was because of her actions that Hope turned, that I was tortured, that Adrian lost his only sister, but I also knew that if it weren't for her actions, this new life we had would never have happened... but I'll be damned if I would admit it.

So here I am, lying in the incredibly strong, muscular and naked arms of my husband and looking into his deep brown eyes with our growing unborn child between us...

"I love you." I whispered to him.

"I love you more..." he said as he kissed me passionately.