Lynn stepped out onto the balcony to find her fiancé, lounging in the rope hammock he had strung up between the side of the building and the support pole to the left of the French doors that exited from the living room. She stood for a moment in the door frame taking in the sight of him. He was wearing a grey trilby pulled low over his closed eyes as he lightly dozed. His forest green shirt was slightly open, revealing his white under shirt, which was tucked into his khakis. His tail, which he'd taken to wearing out when it was just the two of them, had slipped through one of the openings in the ropes, was lightly grazing the patio and his bare feet were crossed at the ankles and propped on the wooden spacer at the far end of the hammock. She couldn't help but smile at the picture he made, he looked innocent and relaxed; she could almost imagine him laying there, an infant on his chest, while they dozed in the light summer breeze. The very thought sent a flutter through her stomach.

"Are you going to stand there, staring all day, or are you going to join me?" Warren murmured, not opening his eyes or making any other moves to indicate he was aware of her presence.

"How did you know I was here?" She asked, stepping out into the shaded balcony.

"I could smell you," He smirked softly under the brim of his hat. "You have a very unique scent, with or without that scented stuff you have been favoring as of late." He reached out his hand to her, drawing her to his side, "It's very alluring."

"Is that so?" Lynn cooed.

"Yes, I just want to curl up in it." Warren's eyes opening slightly, a wolfish gleam sparkling in them.

"I think I can help you with that." Lynn chuckled, "Scoot over."

"Nope, I'm settled here," Warren shook his head, "There's enough space on the other side, but the only way is over."

"Cad," She laughed, lifting her skirt slightly to allow enough movement to lift her leg over until she was straddling his hips. Bracing her right knee to the side of his hip and her right hand on the wooden spacer above his head, she pushed off with her left foot. The hammock swayed a bit as she settled her body next to his, her head resting on his left shoulder, right arm curled between their bodies and across her abdomen, left hand resting lightly on his chest. Warren uncrossed his ankles, allowing her to drape her left leg over his thigh, her knee and lower leg nestling between his.

"You love me." He chuckled, pulling her closer, allowing his left hand to trail along her back as his right hand tipped her face up so that he could kiss her.

"As if I had a choice in the matter," She grinned against his lips. "So, what are we gonna do about it?"

"I guess you'll just have to marry me," Warren teased her, "Speaking of, how do you want to go about that?"

"I have been giving it some thought, it should be somewhere in the Nine Kingdoms, and in such a way that my mother and Prince Stephan cannot protest it." She settled back against his shoulder, as the fingers of her left hand played with the hair that peaked out from under his shirt.

"Which rules out a shaman performing the ceremony, at least exclusively," He sighed, "Although even if that was a possibility, it might be hard to convince one, because, well, you know."

"Because I'm a Hood," Roselynn supplied, "Do you think the Vicar at your uncle's castle would do it? It would be lovely to be wed under our tree; do you think that would be possible?"

"It could be doable," Warren agreed, "You know that means my uncle will want to be there."

"I don't see any reason King Wendell shouldn't be." She shrugged, "After all, his side of the family has no issues with me, your parents may take issue, though."

"Mama won't care, Papa on the other hand may be slightly resistant," He replied thoughtfully, "I think our biggest issue will be your mother."

"That's a given," Roselynn groaned, "But who says we have to tell her?"

"Lynn, you know at some point we have to tell her," Warren reminded her gently, "Can you imagine the fit she would throw if you suddenly reappeared on my arm at some official function?"

"Although it would be amusing to watch her barely contained rage so as to not make a scene." Lynn giggled softly, "Although I think it would be best if we were married before we tell her, that way she can't do anything to put a stop to it."

"So, when do you want to do it?" Warren turned his head and lifted the brim of his hat to look her straight in the eyes.

"Soon," Roselynn smiled coyly, "Preferably before the next lunar cycle."

"I agree, I can duck over in a couple days and make the arrangements for say, two weeks?" Smiling at his betrothed's excited nod, he settled back into the hammock, lowering the brim of his hat once more, "Now that that's settled, why don't we just enjoy this fine summer day?"

"Yes, let's," Lynn snuggled back into him, allowing herself to drift off, images of him, finely dressed, and standing beneath their tree, looking at her with unrestrained love in his eyes merging into the same look as he held her in what she imagined would be the official moment they would be mated. She couldn't wait for the day to come.

"I don't understand why we needed to come here," Christy grumbled, following her cousin across the park.

"You have been sullen since you got back from your quest," Bianca reminded her, "I think a change of scenery will do you some good. Besides we have an open invitation to visit your brother whenever we wish to, and we haven't seen him in months!"

"I know but…"

"You need to get your mind off of him," Bianca turned on her sharply before softening her voice and features a bit as she took her cousin's hands in hers, "Look, you're my cousin and I love you dearly, but you can't just drift through life barely living. I know it hurt to leave him behind, but that was your choice, you must learn to live without him. You didn't want to be with someone who barely knew himself, mate or no. I know it hurts, but you have to find a way to put him behind you."

"I know," Christy nodded, squeezing her cousin's fingers, "I just love him so much, I don't know if I'll ever fully get over him."

"I know, Darling," Bianca pulled Christy into her arms, "But if he is your destiny, he will come back to you somehow. You just have to be content with being apart from him until then."

"I suppose you're right." Christy nodded, wiping away a tear that had strayed from her eye. "I think a girls' weekend away is just what I need to distract myself for a little while. Lead on."

"Here we go, I hope your brother still has the spare key where it used to be." Bianca grabbed Christy's hand and practically dragged her across the green space to the towering building where her family's condo resided.

Before either of them knew it, they were stepping off the elevator and into the hallway that was shared by the Grant and Wolfson families. Christy was just reaching behind the sconce where the spare key was hidden when the Grant's door opened.

"Christy, Bianca, you're back!" Maureen squealed as she wrapped the two women in a tight hug before turning toward her open front door, "Evie, get out here! Christy and Bianca are here!"

"Really?" The younger woman came out, "It's been forever since we've seen you! Are you here to see Warren and Lynn?"

"Lynn?" The two women shared a perplexed look.

"Warren's fiancée?" Maureen supplied, taking in the confused look on her friend's faces, "Pretty, blonde, blue-green eyes… and you have no clue who I'm talking about."

"No, but I'm going to find out," Christy quickly grabbed the key from its hiding place and opened the front door. "Warren, are you home?" She called out softly, making her way into the entry.

The first thing she saw was a purse hanging on the coat rack next to a feminine-cut, short, beige trench coat. There were two sets of keys in the bowl on the side table, one of which bore a silver keychain with a silhouette of a wolf baying at the moon. Beneath the table sat two pairs of her brother's shoes, one pair of all-stars and a dressy pair of black oxfords, beside them were a pair of nude flats and a pair of tall, heeled, brown boots, both much smaller and feminine in style.

The condo felt more lived in, there was a thick warm smell coming from the kitchen. Lamb, if her nose was right, her brother's favorite food. The living room had been changed, rather than the gaudy, floral-printed, rich lady furniture, sat a couch, love seat, and easy chair all in warm brown leather, with green throw pillows as accents and a cream afghan folded over the back of the couch. The thick brocade curtains were gone, replaced with lighter brown curtains which were tied back with a gauzy cream window dressing set on a secondary rack. The curtains fluttered with the light breeze that drifted through the open French doors.

The four women slowly made their way through the living space toward the balcony. The first thing they saw were two pairs of bare feet, the toes of the smaller pair painted a soft pink, tangled together and wrapped in a pair of pants and a sky-blue skirt. The pair's arms were likewise wrapped around each other, Christy took in how her brother's left hand softly caressed the woman's back, flirting with the patch of skin between her white peasant-style shirt and skirt at her hip while the thumb of his right hand caressed the woman's wrist while her hand rested softly on his chest. It wasn't hard to miss the glimmer from the woman's left hand; it was clearly not a ring bought in New York. Christy bit back the slight twinge in her heart that her brother had clearly visited the Kingdoms but had not come to visit her.

The feeling passed swiftly as she saw how content her brother looked wrapped up in this woman's arms, causing her to smile softly, at least until she saw the face of the woman in her brother's arms. "You have got to be kidding me!"

Her exclamation caused the couple to jump slightly, stirring from their afternoon nap, "Christy?" Warren lifted the brim of his hat and peered up at his sister, his voice thick with sleep, "When'd you get here?"

"We just arrived," Christy crossed her arms over her chest.

"'We?'" Warren repeated looking around, finding his neighbors, who were barely concealing their grins behind their hands, and his cousin all standing on the balcony, "Oh, good afternoon, Bianca, Maureen, Evelyn."

"Now that we have recognized almost everyone here, do you care to tell me why you are laying there with a Hood?" Christy demanded.

"She has a name," Warren grumbled at his sister as he sat up, swinging his legs over the side of the netted swing, his intended silently mirroring his movements and shifting to sit beside him, "And I thought you liked Roselynn."

"I do," Christy huffed defeatedly, "But do you have any idea what kind of trouble this is going to cause?"

"I feel like we're missing something here," Evelyn whispered to her older sister who nodded.

"I think I am too." Maureen turned back to the other siblings' discussion, "Can anyone lend some context here?"

"I think that's a good idea," Bianca agreed.

"It's past time we tell them anyhow," Lynn finally spoke up, "I think we owe them that much; besides I would like to have them there when it happens.

Warren simply nodded and gestured toward the living room as he stood, his tail trailing slightly as it pulled itself from between the ropes of the bed, and assisted Lynn in standing. He deliberately ignored the surprised looks on his neighbor's faces, knowing they had seen, and followed the women into the condo, closing the doors behind them. "Please sit," he indicated the couch and chair where the women took their places. Christy in the chair and Bianca, Maureen, and Evelyn on the couch.

"I suppose we should start from the very beginning," He sighed.

"A very good place to start," Bianca agreed, ignoring the rolled eyes of her friends and cousin beside her.

"Maureen and Evelyn, there is something that you don't know about Christy and me. Something we never told you for fear you would think us mad." Warren began speaking. "You know how when Roselynn got here, she had no baggage, no identification?"

"You said her things were lost in transit from your home country." Maureen added.

"That wasn't exactly true," Warren shook his head, "Or well, wasn't true at all. You see, wow this is harder to explain than I thought," he looked at his fiancée for help.

"Oh, huff puff!" Christy exclaimed, gaining everyone's attention, "We come from another dimension, a place where what you know as fairy tales are our true history."

"Wait, so you mean, Snow White, Cinderella, all that is true where you come from?" Evelyn looked between her four friends.

"Snow White was my great grandmother." Bianca nodded.

"You called her a 'Hood,'" Maureen looked between Christy and Lynn, "And your last name is Wolfson…"

"My great grandmother was Red Riding Hood the first," Lynn supplied.

"And we are Wolves," Warren finished, "I know the two of you saw my tail when I got out of the hammock."

"So, it all really happened?" Evelyn, mused, "Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf…"

"Not how you think," Lynn shook her head, "The Wolf did murder my great-grandmother's grandmother, but my great-grandmother was able to escape. She ran for help and found the woodsman who killed the Wolf. They fell in love and eventually married."

"Explaining why your last name is Hunter." Maureen supplied.

"Yes, however this incident caused my great-grandmother to become extremely prejudiced against Wolves in general." Lynn explained, "You see, the Wolf who killed her grandmother was an escaped convict who was supposed to be put to death for several murders he'd already committed."

"Wolves, in general, are a peaceful people," Warren continued, "But like all people, there are bound to be a few bad steaks, and this Wolf was one of them. When we are allowed to be, most would never know we are there, many of our people have lived for years unnoticed in most of the kingdoms. Of course, that is by hiding our tails, in the Kingdom where Roselynn is from, they have to register, can't hold decent jobs, are restricted by their education, and are very poor by Kingdoms standards."

"We're lucky, we live in our uncle's kingdom so the only real hardship, is not much of a hardship at all, in that we must endure is the full moon," Christy shrugged, "We get more aggressive, moody, not unlike PMS, and have an overabundance of energy. Those who are mated, tend to spend time with their mate, I think I can leave it to your imagination to figure out how they spend those nights. Those who are not will generally hunt or find other activities to expend the energy. At some point we will all usually wind up in the woods where we can freely worship the moon goddess."

"What do you do?" Evelyn leaned forward, intrigued. "I think we can imagine what Warren does."

Lynn blushed at the insinuation as Warren cleared his throat, "Actually, we aren't mated, at least not yet." He shrugged, "We've chosen to wait until after we are wed, according to the traditions of Roselynn's people. We also are trying to avoid any situation that may give her mother a way to nullify our union. In her Kingdom, if a woman is not a maiden when she is wed, one or both of the families can annul the union."

"Wolves mate for life, once the mating occurs, we see the pair as wed, although we do have a binding ceremony that nearly all go through either right before or a short time after they are mated to acknowledge the commitment and bond between the mates." Christy added, "It's a beautiful ceremony, we've been to a few of the binding ceremonies for the Wolves in the Fourth Kingdom where our uncle lives."

"Does that mean that you are a Wolf as well?" Evelyn turned toward Bianca.

"No, my parents are both full bloods," Bianca shook her head, "Their mother, my father's step-sister, married a Half-Wolf, which is why they are Half-Wolves themselves. We aren't even biologically related, although my great-grandmother was my aunt's fairy godmother for a while."

"Our mother is from here, she and our father met when he was sent to capture and return our uncle who had been turned into a dog by our biological grandmother and escaped through a traveling mirror which brought him here where our Mama, literally, ran into him." Christy explained, "It's kind of a long story."

"Your family tree has got to be really weird," Maureen mused.

"It's only going to get weirder," Christy agreed, "How do you think Mama and Papa are gonna take it?"

"Mama will be happy that I'm happy," Warren shrugged, "Papa may be slightly more resistant, but he'll come around, I hope."

"Do you plan to tell him before or after?" Christy looked toward her brother.

"Your parents? Before," Lynn piped in, "I would like for them to be there, I admire them, but my mother will definitely not be told until we absolutely have to."

"Are we saying before the Lost Prince's coronation?" Bianca looked between the couple.

"I'm sorry, the what?" Lynn looked at her friends to expand on the revelation.

"The Lost Prince, Queen Cinderella's great-great-grandson who just reappeared," Bianca explained, "He's been missing for nearly a decade and a half! No one knows where he's been, he just suddenly appeared in a royal carriage bearing the crest of the First Kingdom with no explanation of where he'd been. It's a great mystery."

"As descendants of the Four Who Saved the Nine Kingdoms, we have to attend the coronation." Christy added before turning back to her New York friends, "Long story short, Grandma was brainwashed and turned evil by the original Evil Queen and married my uncle's father. She turned Bianca's dad into a Dog, Papa was sent after him, they both met Mama and Grandpa, and the four of them went on a journey to restore Uncle Wendel to his original form and hopefully capture the new Evil Queen and put her back in the jail from which she'd escaped. Although in the end, in an act of self-defense, Mama killed her."

"Wow," Maureen gasped, "I wouldn't wish that on anyone."

"To be honest, things like that happen more often than you think where we're from," Lynn shrugged. "Anyway, when is the coronation?"

"A couple months," Bianca informed them, "It's a masquerade, so you don't have to reveal yourselves if you don't want to. Lynn, since you are still considered missing in the kingdoms, you don't even have to go, but Warren will be expected to."

"True, but wouldn't it be odd if I showed up, wearing a ring with no mate to show for it?" Warren pointed out.

"'Ring?'" Christy repeated, "Are you planning to be married within the next month and a half?"

"We wanted to be married at the next full moon," Warren explained, "We just decided today."

"You do know that gives you less than two weeks to put everything in motion, including telling our parents." Christy reminded him.

"We know," Warren smiled down at his betrothed who was likewise beaming back at him.

"Well, you're not going to tell them tonight, are you?" Maureen looked toward the excited couple.

"No, we would have to send notice to my parents to meet us at my uncle's palace." Warren shook his head, a Wolfish grin on his face "Probably best to tell him a day or so before, let him get over the shock before having a Hood as a daughter-in-law before the vows are exchanged."

Christy just rolled her eyes, "You are just like Papa."

"Thanks," Warren chuckled, "Sorry, Maureen, why were you asking?"

"Well, if you are getting married in short order, I think Lynn needs a bachelorette party, don't you think, ladies?" She looked between the women.

"Oh yes, that has to happen," Evelyn agreed emphatically.

"Is that like a hen party?" Bianca asked.

"Yes, exactly like a hen party," Christy nodded, a grin splitting her face, "I know exactly where to go."

"I have a few ideas myself." Maureen smirked. "Ladies, go get dressed, we'll hit the town in an hour and a half!"

The plans for the evening settled, Maureen and Evelyn disappeared back to their apartment and Christy, Bianca, and Lynn headed toward Lynn's room. "Cripes, I can only imagine what trouble they will be getting themselves into." Warren sighed.

The night, while fun, was not nearly as wild as Warren was imagining. Since one of their number was just out of high school, that ruled out the local clubs. None of the women were all that interested in watching someone take their clothes off, so they wound up going to see a drag show and then had dinner at a posh restaurant before returning home late in the evening.

The sound of the women returning pulled Warren from his sleep. Wandering into the living room, he arrived just in time to see his fiancée, sister, and cousin stumble in tiredly. Bianca and Christy bid him a quick good night and headed to the unused spare room which had two full beds to settle in for the night.

"Have fun?" He smirked.

"Yes," Lynn giggled, "It was the perfect way to celebrate. I really enjoyed spending time with all the ladies."

"I'm glad." Warren smiled, stepping towards her, pulling her to his bare chest.

"I like spending time with you more," Lynn kissed his left pec and the base of his throat, causing him to growl softly, before meeting his lips. "And to be honest, my plans for you eventually will involve much less clothes." She ran her fingers teasingly along the waistband of his pajama pants.

"Don't tempt me," Warren hummed against her neck, "I would hate for us to start something we can't finish."

"Agreed," Roselynn sighed, "Kiss me then, and I'll be off to bed… without you, for now. The ladies are taking me dress shopping tomorrow, but you cannot see what I am to buy."

The couple shared one last tender kiss before she made her way to her room, swinging her hips and glancing over her shoulder at the dark look she received from her fiancé. "Tease," He called after her.

"You love me," She grinned, ducking into her room.

"More than the fullest moon." He sighed, making his way to his room to try to sleep, knowing full well he would be dreaming of her in his arms by the light of the full moon.