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The 10th Kingdom held many wonders, all kinds of things the like of which Wolf had never known before. It was the place his beautiful, succulent Virginia had come from, and for that alone, he had to love this world. That didn’t make it his home. It was just so different to the others lands, to any place he had ever known before. A month after choosing to live here, and the whole experience was enough to make his head spin, sometimes literally. Everything was an adventure, but a new kind that Wolf had not quite expected. Whilst Virginia had struggled and fought her way through dangers unnumbered in the kingdoms that Wolf well understood, now he must face the challenges of this place called New York City.“Huff puff! Sometimes I think I’d prefer another huntsman and an evil queen and even a dumb old Prince dog!” said Wolf, gazing up at the full moon above.It helped to be here. On the roof of the apartment block, looking up into the big gold globe above him, Wolf could believe he was anywhere. The 4th Kingdom where so much of his adventure with Virginia had taken place, even back in the 2nd Kingdom where he had been born.“A shepherdess makes quite a mess, but little lambs are lovely,” he sang to himself, thinking of his mother, his fellow cubs, the world he knew before.His eyes closed at the thought of it all, the daydreams he sometimes had of all the different ways his life might have turned out. For the longest time he had fought to find his place in the worlds. He never expected it to be here. He never could have predicted anything like this.“Wolf?”She hardly ever managed to startle him, but on this one occasion, he had been so distracted, so lost in his own thoughts, that Virginia was all of a few feet away before he had any idea.“Wolf, are you okay?” she asked warily, lifting herself up through the roof hatch with ease.“My dear, sweet Virginia!” he greeted her, rushing to assist her just a little too late. “What are you doing up here? You should be sleeping, or at the very least resting. You work so hard, and there is our cub to consider.”“Wolf, you really have to learn not to fuss so much,” she urged him, smiling still at how caring he truly was. “Two months into a pregnancy is not such a big deal. Maybe when I get to my third trimester, then you can confine me to bed rest, but even then, only if I feel like I need it or a doctor says so. Honestly, I’m fine. Made of tough stuff,” she reminded him, reaching her arms up around his neck and rubbing her nose against his own.“You are the perfect combination of femininely female and exceptionally strong and brave,” he agreed, hugging her close. “You are also my most beloved, always,” he promised her, kissing her lips, her neck, her shoulder.It was easy to get lost in the moment, and Virginia’s eyes closed of their own accord as he made her feel so alive. When he growled near her ear, she shuddered, her eyes popping open in time to see the full moon above them. As much as she loved and trusted Wolf, it put her on her guard just a little.“I didn’t realise,” she said, pulling back a little. “The moon.”“It’s beau-ooooo-tiful, isn’t it?” he said happily, howling into his words. “Almost as perfect as you, but only almost,” he told her, kissing her cheek one more time.“It is, but I... I thought it would affect you more,” she noted, shaking her head in confusion. “You don’t seem so stressed out or emotional as you were the last time.”“The last time we were in a different world,” he noted. “I think perhaps the 10th Kingdom is lacking in the kind of magic that makes me feel so... changeable.”“That makes sense.” Virginia nodded. “I mean, this world is pretty much lacking in all kinds of magic, so...”“How can you say such a thing, my darling Virginia?” Wolf gasped. “We have the most important magic in all of the lands!” he told her too loudly. “We have tru-ooooo-ue love!”The way he yelled it to the heavens was wonderful in it’s way, but Virginia was mindful of the neighbours since it was so late. It was tough enough to explain the eccentricities of her beloved Wolf to the people who ran across him in New York. Howling on roof tops might be a leap too far, she realised, quickly shushing him.“We do have love, and it is wonderful, but you really need to keep your voice down,” she urged him. “People are trying to sleep.”“I don’t think I possibly could, not tonight,” Wolf told her, picking Virginia up in his arms and spinning her around until she was dizzy. “Oh, sweet Virginia, this world of yours is special in its own way, and I cannot regret coming here to be with you, but don’t you miss our adventures? Running free in the open spaces, amongst the trees, and down by the river.”“I guess, a little,” she admitted, giddy from the spinning, more so from the look in his eyes that was hypnotic and hungry and haunting all at the same time. “It was a wonderful adventure, Wolf, but I couldn’t stay. I belong here.”There was a moment when she feared he would tell her he had changed his mind. That he realised now his place was back home, in one of the other nine kingdoms that lay beyond the magic mirror. Virginia was terrified to even consider it, but it played on her mind once in a while, and tonight most of all.“Virginia, I know this already,” Wolf assured her. “You belong here, and I belong only at your side. I told you, wolves mate for life. I’m here with you and our little cub, and that’s where I am staying, forever,” he said, smiling, one hand straying to her stomach. “I’m sorry I haven’t learnt everything yet, but huff puff, I’ll try harder, I promise.”“Oh, Wolf,” she sighed, reaching up to hug him closer and kiss his lips one more time. “I know you’re trying. I know none of this is easy on you, and I think it’s amazing how much you’ve already learnt.”“Cars are particularly troubling,” he noted, scratching his ear thoughtfully. “The kitchen appliances are incredible, but much less confusing than cars.”Virginia smiled, resisting temptation to ask him again to let go of the idea of driving. He was so determined to learn, sure he would need such an important skill for his future survival in New York. Virginia tried to tell him nobody really drove in the city anyway, that it was better to use the subway, but he wouldn’t hear of it. “Well, at least work is going well,” she considered aloud. “I never doubted your cooking skills, and hey, you’re really good at shopping.”“Yes, indeed!” said Wolf happily. “The supermarket is a wonderful place, full of amazing smells, and better tastes. I am quite taken by your potato chips, and the frozen cream.”“Ice-cream” she corrected him, giggling at the mistake, “and yes, I noticed. I didn’t think you could love anything as much as meat, but it has to be a close-run thing when it comes to ice-cream in particular.”“All I know, sweet Virginia, is that I could never love another as much as I love you... except perhaps our cub,” he said definitely.When he kissed her then, her knees grew weak, and Virginia was almost sure she felt a surge of whatever power the moon held over Wolf pass through her too. It seemed impossible, and perhaps she just imagined it, but that was exactly how it felt as the animal instinct took them over, right there on the rooftop.It seemed like it might become a monthly ritual for Wolf, and yet so many other things occurred in life that he almost entirely forgot. Of course, he was aware of the full moon shining brightly overhead, and he was sure even Virginia noticed it, but it did not call to him as it had back home. His beloved and their little apartment was far more of a draw to him.Arriving home one night, Wolf was shocked to find himself alone in the home he shared with Virginia. She ought to have been there, she was just moments before, he could smell her still. Following her intoxicating scent, he was amazed to find he must ascend the ladder to the roof if he would continue to follow on his journey. Further amazement came when he found her in the centre of the rooftop, howling at the full moon like a true wolfie might.“Oh, my beloved, delicious Virginia!” he gasped, stepping out onto the roof proper with his hands over his heart. “I am enraptured, entranced, overcome. You have always been beyond beautiful, but in this moment, I cannot express-”He stopped speaking abruptly when she turned to face him, eyes flashing yellow for an instant. Wolf almost tripped, he came to such a sudden halt. For a moment, he saw the animal in Virginia’s face and then just as quickly it was gone, replaced by the softness of her usual beauty and kindness.“Virginia?”She looked confused, stunning as ever, but lost for a moment. She stared at Wolf as if she didn’t know him, perhaps as if she didn’t even know herself. Gently, he put his hands to her shoulders and drew her a little closer, though they were hampered by her much-expanded stomach.“Little cub is not so little anymore,” he said as she bumped into him much more easily than ever before.“I... I barely remember coming up here,” she told him, one hand going to her head. “I just... I felt it calling. It was so loud in my head.”She turned towards the moon again, swaying a little in place. Wolf could feel the change her in, or more accurately, in the cub inside of her. It was a week at most until their son would be born, their little furry chap. He was grown enough to feel the pull of the moon’s power, even the ever-present glow that never failed to draw Wolf’s attention in the 10th Kingdom. He supposed it wasn’t so strange that Virginia was affected, but Wolf worried that she wouldn’t be able to control herself as he did.“Is this how it feels for you?” she asked then, looking at him with wide eyes that flickered gold still.“Not as much here,” he considered. “As I told you many months ago, the magic isn’t so strong, but back in my world? Oh, Virginia, sometimes it was so intoxicatingly overwhelming.”“It is,” she agreed, breath quickening as she held onto him yet, staring up at that beautiful golden globe in the dark night sky. “It’s amazing. It’s... it’s almost too much,” she said, eyes closing, feet staggering.Wolf was quick in his movements, sweeping his beloved up into his arms like a true prince. This was more than just the moon’s effects, he was so sure of it now, and when Virginia suddenly stiffened in his arms and cried with pain, he knew he was right.“Oh, it is a good thing that I learnt to control a car in the end,” he said, rushing to get Virginia back down the ladder. “I believe we need a hospital, and quickly.”She heard nothing of his words, not really. Virginia was lost in pain and panic, confused by the overwhelming hold the moon still seemed to have on her. In the hours that followed, she cried from the pain, for the loss of her father who never had returned, and for another loss she could never explain as her baby was finally born. As happy as she was to be a mother, she knew that now her little cub was out in the world with them, she could no longer know how Wolf felt under the full moon, but Virginia could remember, she wanted always to remember.Their lives went on, happy as ever but seemingly so fast. Taking care of their son, raising him as both child and cub, working when they could, sharing the load. Virginia wasn’t sure how she and Wolf coped with it all, but they did. They more than coped. They really lived, and loved, and laughed all the time.Months passed one behind the other, without a sign of slowing, until they turned into years. The adventures they had known in the 4th Kingdom became bedtime stories for their son and little more. Life seemed so normal, almost too sane, in their little apartment on the edge of the forest.Wolf adjusted to the world and became a man in the street, that no-one questioned or looked at strangely anymore. Thankfully, behind closed doors, he was still her beloved Wolf, crazy and wonderful and an animal in the best of ways when she wanted him to be, but Virginia felt a loss. She loved her life, her husband, her child, the so-called 10th Kingdom that had always been her world, but something was wrong, just a little off, as time went on.It was late one night when she woke to find the bed cold and empty beside her. Virginia got up and headed to Cub’s room only to find him gone to. She ought to have been worried, she was sure, but she wasn’t. Head tipped back, she listened hard, and lo and behold, she heard the howling.“When the moon calls,” she whispered to herself, a smile coming to her lips.She didn’t feel the pull of the moon’s magic anymore, not since Cub was born years before, but she did feel something urging her on, as she quickly ran up one flight of stairs to the next. Her boys, her wolves, they were calling to her.“And when you were born, you were a boy, but you were always a wolf too,” Wolf was explaining to their son, crouched on the roof with Cub standing by, their arms around each other. “The moon calls to us, because of what we are. It’s a part of us, just like magic is a part of everything, even when you can’t see it. You understand, Cub?”“I understand, Papa,” he told him, nodding solemnly. “The moon is beau-ooooo-tiful,” he howled a high-pitched boyish howl.“Wow, you’re already so good at that,” said Virginia as she approached them.Cub turned and threw his arms around her neck the moment she crouched down to his level.“Are mommies wolves too?” he asked her a moment later.“Well...” Virginia began, unsure how best to explain.This was probably a lot of a kid to understand in the first place, she didn’t want to make it worse. Of course, there had to be female wolves, like Wolf’s mother and sisters, but Virginia was just a human woman. She almost hated to admit that. Wolf had to have sensed her discomfort. He was always very good at that, smelling a change in things, in people, feeling it more deeply than a normal man might. In an instant, he literally jumped in and answered for her.“Your mother is an exceptional lady,” he told Cub solemnly. “She was not born a wolf like us, but she has the spirit of a wolf, and she loves us like her own kind. She’s part of our pack, Cub, the most important, succulent, and beau-ooooo-tiful part of our world.”“Beau-oooo-tiful,” he intoned, smiling widely. “Like the moon, Mama,” he told her, hugging her one more time.Virginia had tears in her eyes as she looked over her little boy’s shoulder at the full moon high in the sky. To think she had such grace and beauty, that she could mean as much to the wolf-men in her lives as the celestial being that called to them each month and gave them the means to be truly what they were.This was what had been missing. For as much as she was a woman and Wolf was a man and their son was a boy, there was far more to the three of them than that. When Virginia gave birth to cub, she felt a loss, and hated herself for it. Now she realised quite how much she gained in him, in everything that had happened to her these past few years, starting when she first met Wolf at the Grill.She looked at him now, at both of them, and somehow saw her future there before, every part of it shining and golden as the moon. The mothers at the park would fawn over Wolf, thinking him handsome and charming. The kids in Kindergarten made friends with Cub, thinking him a great boy. Only Virginia, in the whole of the world, only she knew just how extraordinary they were, and she was the one blessed with all the love each of them possessed. She had lost nothing. She had gained everything.“You know, the 10th Kingdom doesn’t have much magic,” said Wolf then, getting Cub’s attention, “but the three of us have the greatest magic in all the ten kingdoms.”“We do?” said his son, looking confusedly from Papa to Mama.“Yes, sweetheart,” Virginia promised him, smoothing out his wild hair. “This family was built on true love, and that’s the strongest magic ever.”Cub grinned wide at that, throwing an arm around each of his parent’s necks.“Love you, Papa. Love you Mama,” he told them happily.Wolf and Virginia smiled at each other, and the great full moon smiled down on them, for everyone and everything was as it should be in that moment, and for all time.