Wayne couldn't help but notice a streak of insanity running through every cub Wanda whelped to one degree or another. It went away for the most part as they got older, but not fast enough that if their eldest siblings weren't homeschooling the youngest, wildest groups, taking over for their mother, the younger would end up years behind in school.

Longer term issues tended to be weeded out amongst the cubs. Newborns with a bum leg, club foot, or too noticeable of other abnormality or defect tended to disappear within weeks of coming home. Mental handicaps extending beyond feralness were also grounds to become lunch to their siblings eventually. Though he never stated such to Wanda, as she wept at the loss of any pup, no matter what for, Wayne sometimes wished more than the eight or so had suffered this "survival of the fittest".

There were no computers, televisions, or game systems in Wanda and Wayne's cavernous house. A few times he had sprung for a TV and within the week it was broken beyond repair. Books left on their own got ripped to shreds and/or pissed on, so instead Wanda showed a talent for skimming through books friends may bring over on visits, and then spinning entrancing yarns to her cubs later as they followed her around as she did chores.

At work, coffee was Wayne's best friend. He had a two-cup mug in his desk that said "World's Greatest Dad" given to him from Winnie alone, that he filled at least three times a day and sweetened with three or four spoons of sugar each. At home it was strictly no caffeine or sugar. The kids were hyper enough as it was.

In an attempt to wind them down, it was team sports, groups of family against each other. T-ball was the favorite, but everything from relay races to touch football to lawn bowling to polo was played. Wayne coached then all and Wanda played cheerleader and medic.

During weekend moonlight hunting parties with the cubs, it was not uncommon for Winnie to ride on Wayne's head as point, more than making up for his lack of smell. It was also not uncommon to end up with a dozen other kids on his back at one time or another either. Wanda tended to take up the rear of the pack if not in the last half of her pregnancy. In her later pregnancy, especially if she was carrying a good sized litter, her belly tended to bump, if not drag the ground in a slow trot on all fours. This proved to be both uncomfortable as well as messy, but it was also when Wanda tended to be at her hungriest, so to goal would be to run the prey towards Wanda, wherever Wayne would carry and station her.

After the litter had been whelped and Wanda was fit enough to run with the pack again, to get back in shape, she would lope up and back through to party, going for those that strayed from the group. That in itself was a game of sorts, as the more back in shape Wanda became, the more pups that would spread out to a farther distance. At her finest, Wanda was quite capable of herding and keeping pace with all her kids, showing an awe inspiring mix of speed, stamina, recoil, acceleration, and grace.

And there was "Catch Bat", a sort of all-out vampires versus werewolves game that took place every once in a while at Dracula's castle. Though he'd never played it, and was a bit afraid to play it, Wayne had heard plenty of times from his brood and even Dracula himself, that Wanda was the best "Catch Bat" player anywhere.

Considering that Mavis and Wanda had invented "Catch Bat", and Dracula was extremely restrictive on who got to play it with Mavis, Wayne figured it was a rather bias award to bestow on his wife, but he wasn't going to question it.

Heck, Dracula would have probably killed Wanda, regardless of if it would have caused Mavis to hate him for centuries, if he'd thought Wanda posed any threat to his beloved daughter in playing that game behind his back. He was sure the rumors were more than such about Drac sucking dry other werewolves and monsters for either instigating an ill-timed game of "Catch Bat" on Mavis, or going too far in the game.

When Dracula had first been introduced to the notion that Wanda might be, even playfully, trying to snap at and possibly snap up his daughter, he'd venomously barred the she-werewolf from the castle.

As wound up and protective of his daughter as Dracula was, Wayne was genuinely surprised his wife was merely told to go home and not come back, but Wanda had whimpered home and bided her time sulking, wondering how Mavis was handling it, and taking care of the cave.

Back at the castle, despite his attempts at trying to explain how he was only trying to protect her, Mavis had in turn sulked and pleaded and basically thrown a non-stop tantrum, not wanting to do anything with him until she got Wanda back.

After weeks of this, Dracula really started to miss Martha, and realizing that for lack of her real mother being there, Mavis had latched onto Wanda with a bond that rivaled or even bested the one between him and his daughter. He couldn't help but admit that he, too, had at times wavered on the edge of professionalism in his desire to have Wanda there for her maternal ways. She was more than another hired help to Mavis, and growingly so, Drac as well. It was because of these thoughts that he might possibly attempt to seek the spark of Martha in Wanda, that he'd commissioned Wanda to paint that portrait of him and his beloved Martha to hang in his late wife's memorial room. He'd lost many things in the fire, things that couldn't be readily retrieved and carried out without raising notice, but he still had Martha's face and image etched in his mind, and it was nothing to put that face and image into Wanda's mind's eye.

It pained Dracula that watching Wanda paint too reminded him of Martha, but once it was done, he could see and reminisce about his eternal Zing whenever he wanted to, or needed to.

On the grounds that he be part of every "Catch Bat" game Mavis was part of, Dracula summoned Wanda back to the castle and reinstated her as Mavis's nanny. As Wanda's litter was also partisipants in the game, Drac also made the rule that from that point forward, no one but Wanda could go after Mavis, at least on purpose. Taking it as a cue that they could now go all out on bat Dracula instead of having to govern themselves with bat Mavis, the pups were perfectly fine with the rules.

At first on guard with the viciousness of the dozens of pups lunging, pouncing, snapping, and ganging up on him, Dracula eventually took his role as target to heart. Soon he was dashing around looping, twisting, ricocheting off walls and werecubs, and misting out of near bites. He even bit back, wing slapped some, froze others that just tried a direct frontal assault, and ultimately exhausted them through exertion and blood loss. He loved every minute of it, and when all was said and done, all of Wanda's litter than had come to partake in the game were snoozing soundly and happily, and would probably continue to do so until Wanda herded them home. That in turn, couldn't have made the castle staff happier.

Dracula was just gloating over this, when next thing he knew, a muzzle slipped around him, he was sucked back as the jaws closed, and powerful throat muscles constricted in undulation, drawing him down to the she-werewolf's waiting stomach.

Dracula could have easily misted back up, making Wanda burp him out, but instead he stayed solid and rode it down to plop heavily into a shallow pool of acid. Upon landing he was greeted by two glowing eyes and a giggle.

"She got you, too."

"I let her get me."

"Cheater… Hey! You've gotten fat."

"I got her cubs", Dracula said which a wry smile as he patted his blood bloated belly, eliciting a sloshing from within.

"I told you this was fun."

"I'm sorry I ever doubted you, Mavy Wavy. Sometimes I just don't know what fun is, even if it's staring at me with open maw."

With that, Mavis turned to mist and puffed back up Wanda's esophagus. Her ultimate escape was signaled by a hardy belch followed by laughing from both Mavis and Wanda, though a sheepish one from the later.

"Ooo. Excuse me… Oh, are you going to stay there long, Dracula. If there's a couple bedrooms available, I'd like to put my-", Wanda started, rubbing her slender tummy when all of a sudden it bloated up and ballooned out about a foot.

Wide-eyed, Wanda dropped to all fours with an eep, and she started belching up rolls of purple mist for almost a minute. As she did so, the floor was lost under a thickening, low-laying fog and some of the doors around her magickly opened. By the time it was all out, the dense fog was more than a foot deep, then all of a sudden it all imploded to in front of Wanda, the doors all slammed shut in the vacuum, and there was Dracula kneeling before her.

"Dad! Why'd you do that?", Mavis quizzed, quickly by Wanda's side as the she-werewolf hacked and wheezed.

"Just a last bit of fun, Mavy", Drac replied as he put a shoulder around Wanda and helped her up.

"But you hurt her."

"No such thing. She can take it, and besides, I helped her out. All her little ones are snug in the bed like she wanted."

Having caught her breath, Wanda looked around and saw that her cubs were all cleared from the floor. She opened the door to the bedroom beside her and saw that several of her cubs are indeed tucked into that bed. She was pretty sure if she was to check all the other rooms, she'd find the rest grouped elsewhere as well.

"Your father is just full of surprised", Wanda chided to Mavis as she softly closed the door.

Dracula secretly realized his daughter was probably as ready as she'd ever be to take care of herself against the humans. He had seen first-hand how "Catch Bat" could perfect his daughter's flying skills and defensive techniques. He had been, if not momentarily, resting with her contentedly in bat form inside Wanda's stomach, which meant she'd been learning to create resistive shields.

So as not to put it into their heads that this game had any bearing on the outside world, Dracula reminded them that only him and Wanda, regardless of how into the game she got, would stop and coddle his daughter ceaselessly if Mavis got distracted (or just wanted to spook him and Wanda), and didn't mist in time when caught between Wanda's teeth. Only Wanda was always ready to regurgitate the bats if, after being gulped down or sucked down, they were still for too long.

Humans, Dracula always reminded Mavis, and the entire werewolf family, were self-centered and relentless.