Diana managed to leave the town and found her way to the capital city of Fraco. She arrived there in the early evening and immediately located the army base. Once she did, she met some soldiers at the gate and she begged to be let in. Seeing as she was with a child, they allowed her in after a thorough search.
"Come with me, I will take you to an official who will take care of you." The guard said. "The person you say you are in search of, what relationship do you share with her?"
Diana was a little hesitant. "I... I'm in search of my dearest soul sister. We met during one of our travels and have become inseparable since then."
"Soul sisters?" The guard asked, chuckling. "And she is part of the army?"
"Er, yes," Diana answered. "I don't know by what name she goes here, but she is known as Julitta."
The guard led her to the base and then to an office that was separated from the main building.
"Wait out here for a minute." He said. He went into the office to inform the commander of her presence.
"Did you search for her? Is she safe? If she is, just take her to Julitta, I have so much to do." He said, waving the matter off. The guard shrugged and came back out.
"Come with me, I will take you to Julitta." He said. Diana sighed softly and still followed him. The guard took her to another separate base which was farther into the barracks. She was getting tired and the weather was getting cooler. "Follow her, she will take you to"
"Julitta!" Diana called out, having spotted the person she was searching for. She didn't need to walk around again. Julitta turned, having heard the familiar voice. She was surprised to find Diana there with the child.
"Diana? What are you doing here?" She asked, approaching. "I will take it from here." She said to the guard. The man nodded and left. She turned back to Diana.
"You have birthed already?" Julitta asked. "Since when? Has it been long? Is it a boy? What's the name?"
"Julitta!" Diana scolded, suppressing a laugh. "Can I rest first? The gates are very far from this base."
Julitta nodded. "That's right, come with me and I will take you to the place where you can rest. But, I hope you know that you can't stay here forever. You need to get a place to stay."
"When do you plan to return to your town?"
"About that..." Diana said. Her voice was soft and was easily carried by the wind. "I don't think I will be returning."
"What?" Julitta demanded. "Why? Did anything bad happen?"
Diana's mind was drawn back to the night when she had almost killed Maggie. She had turned to her werewolf form and couldn't control herself. Glimpses from her time in the forest flashed across her eyes and she could remember the pain she had felt. She shook her head instantly.
"Not exactly but I did figure out that I am somehow wanted." She whispered. "Come on, let's get to a safe place first and then I shall explain everything to you."
Julitta hummed in response, she went silent. She led Diana and the child to her dorm in the base. It was a place where only she slept until it was time to return.
Diana felt a little comfortable being there. The walls were made of hard bricks and it was covered with white curtains, giving it a calm feeling. There were four beds positioned at the four corners of the wall.
"Do you stay here alone?" Diana asked. She had to know if she was free to occupy one of the beds or not.
"Oh, I stay here alone. There aren't very many females in the army. Unlike the boys' overcrowded dorm, we have one room to ourselves and we still have some empty rooms in this dorm." Julitta explained. "You can stay wherever you want, that's my bed." She said, pointing to the one on the left side.
Diana took the one which was right beside Julitta's own. She took some clothes and laid them on the bed before putting Coco on the bed.
"Diana, how old is the boy?" Julitta asked.
"Two days old."
"He's too young to be taken out."
"I know-"
"Fraco weather is too harsh for him," Julitta said again, caressing the boy's skin with her fingers. "Look, they're getting hard. You need to use some oil."
"Will you hear me out, Julitta?" Diana demanded. "I came here for a reason."
"Oh, what's it?"
"Look, my neighbor brought someone or some people, I don't know 'cause I didn't stick around for a chat. I overheard her say I was a werewolf and they were coming to get me." Diana explained.
"Huh? That's silly! You're not a werewolf." Julitta exclaimed. She noticed how Diana quietened. "Are you?"
"Yeah," Diana said. "But look, I managed to keep it under control but the pregnancy changed everything, the tears, I had to heal. Then there was the full moon too!"
"Diana, you are a werewolf?" Julitta asked again. "Oh my gosh! You are a werewolf!"
Diana shushed her instantly. "Keep quiet."
"No no, look, you should join the army! You could be a commander! That will be awesome!" Julitta said.
"What? No! Look at my boy, Julitta. He's barely a week old and you want me to join the army?" Diana was horrified at the thought of leaving her son and beginning mad training. She never even joined the little training which Calhoun gave his servants as a form of self-defense, how could she join an army of humans?
"It's not that bad, I do it too," Julitta said with a shrug. "I understand the baby's aspect but, don't look so horrified."
Diana sighed. "I will just wean him, then I will apply for the post office job. I will get a small apartment here in the capital city."
"You should also hire a carer for him," Julitta said, pointing to the baby on the bed. "You never told me his name."
"Coco," Diana said.
"What the?" Julitta asked. "Were you pressured to name him? You bear such a fine name, Diana, yet you name him Coco?"
"So?" Diana shrugged.
"What's his father's name?"
"Calhoun," Diana answered without thinking. The moment she answered, she realized that she might have slipped too much. Calhoun was too known around the other kingdoms. What if his fame had spread to Fraco as well?
"Calhoun? I've never heard such a name before. It's so rare. What kingdom does he belong to?"
"Wisteria." She answered again without thinking. She began to mentally scold herself.
Julitta thought about it for a while, and she shrugged. "Not bad anyway. The name is unheard of here. Perhaps it will stand him out."
Diana nodded. She didn't know if she would live the rest of her life in Fraco. Perhaps if anything happened, she could easily slip away too. Working in the post office was a strategic one. She would always know whenever something was going to happen since news traveled mostly through letters.
"Not bad. It's alright too. Tomorrow, I'm free so we can go house hunting. After which we can go grocery shopping at the market, we can also get some clothes for Coco."
"Yeah. The ones Maggie brought, I left them when I was trying to escape."
"Maggie," Julitta repeated. "Who is Maggie?"
"Oh, the woman I told you about. The one who owns the pie recipe."
"Oh!" Julitta exclaimed as she remembered. "Maggie the pie woman."
Diana laughed. "Come on, it's late evening already and I have to sleep."
Julitta allowed her to have her rest. She knew that being a pregnant woman must have prevented her from sleeping well, so having delivered, she would always want to sleep. Julitta didn't know that it worked differently for werewolves.
Diana lay beside her son to sleep. Staring at his face, she wondered how his father would be doing. She couldn't ever stop to think of him. Perhaps she would have easily forgotten him if Coco had ended up looking like her. But now he looked like Calhoun, with golden-green eyes.
For a long time, Diana couldn't sleep. She was plagued with various thoughts that kept her wide awake. She couldn't digest the fact that there was a chance she had lost control over her wolf form, and if it was true, she was going to be in big trouble. The only way she could be safe was to return to Wisteria since werewolves were rampant there. She realized today that as much as the werewolves were unwanted, the army and the government only wanted them for the sake of power.
She still couldn't understand what the threat was that made them use the creatures they detested to fight. For Julitta to even tell her that, did it also mean that there were other werewolves in the form of commanders here? Did the government know that? Perhaps they did. And did the people know that the government was using them? Or were they also power-hungry people?
Plagued with these thoughts, Diana's eyes remained open until the early hours of the morning. That was when she was finally able to have a little rest. Julitta observed that she was awake for most of the night, so she didn't disturb her when she woke up. She simply wrote a little note, asking her to remain indoors until she returned.
Diana felt it was unnecessary because she wasn't planning to leave the dorm. Since she heard that werewolves were most likely unwanted, yet they were used, she wouldn't want to be caught. If she didn't want to die and leave her son, she would have to leave her son to live.
Diana bathed her son and herself in the tub which was made of metal and placed it in the bathroom. Once she was done, she fed the boy. She was also hungry. She opened Julitta's cupboard and she could only find canned food. There was beef and there were grains. She ate the beef without cooking it. It made her begin to feel an urge for more meat and the taste of blood.
Diana couldn't understand why the sudden urge. She had never been a werewolf to eat raw meat or drink blood. The closest thing to the blood which she had taken was the wine that Calhoun compelled her to drink. It was mixed with blood and although she felt slightly disgusted as a human, it also satisfied her wolf and the result was a primal urge for more. She had sworn to never take it again.
This was different. The beef was already slightly cooked and still needed to be cooked but she was too hungry. She exhaled softly. Perhaps it had to do with Calhoun. The urge only began after she mated with him. Was this the bonding that her mother used to tell her about? Did it also mean that Calhoun could feel what she was feeling?
She scoffed aloud. "Would he even admit to being my mate?"
Julitta entered right at that moment. "Who is your mate?"
"Oh, I was just thinking out loud, it's nothing to worry about."
"Cool, I got something for you to eat. It's pie and it had chicken in it. Since you love meat, I asked for chicken pie!" Julitta announced.
"Oh that's nice, let me have it," Diana said. She just wanted to eat something that would remove the taste of the beef in her mouth and perhaps calm her wolf.
"Oh, you already ate the canned beef. Did you heat it?" Julitta asked. "It's supposed to be cooked, you know? It's still raw."
"It's been slightly cooked, isn't it?" Diana asked.
"Oh, no no. It hasn't exactly been cooked. Processed, mashed, yes. But not cooked."
Diana sighed. That was why her wolf had that reaction. It wasn't cooked so she had eaten raw meat again.