June 10, 2004 – 20:20
Liam stepped between Frank and Paolo, and glanced at the other guard.
"You touch him, and I guarantee you that your head will roll before you see the colour of your dungeon wall."
Beta Carlito and Sarah ran toward them.
"PAOLO! CHORRACE! BACK DOWN NOW!" said Beta Carlito.
"But he's human," said Paolo.
"Don't you see they both passed the wards? His mate made our wards. He's under Alpha Collins's protection, just like Blue Thunder is," said Beta Carlito at the two guards before turning his attention to Frank. "Apologies about that. Follow me, I'll take you to the packhouse."
Liam and Sarah were following them.
"I get it, thanks to this senseless witch-hunt and faction war, we're all on edge with trust issues."
"For real! My wolves are on edge with trust issues, yeah, but your mate must be even more."
"Elementals definitively have it worse than us. They're getting killed out there," said Liam, holding Sarah's hand.
"Yeah, no joke. Blue is coming here to dodge another capture-to-kill party," said Frank.
When the game ended, Coralis didn't linger around and headed toward the back tunnel exit. In case he'd be followed if Clara and her crew couldn't find Coralis, Sebastian had decided to go with her to the Red Crescent pack and leave from there. Coralis shifted into Cheetah as soon as she exited the players' area, but Sebastian wanted to let the bulk of people pass before shifting to his wolf form. He waited with his hood lowered below his eyes.
Cheetah walked along the black wall of the tunnel, unseen by anyone. Once outside, she quickly crawled underneath a shrub and watched the people walking by. A few minutes later, she saw a grey wolf coming out of the tunnel exit between two couples. Bastian, the nickname given by Hector to Sebastian's alternate form, bolted into the shadows of the trees as soon as he was outside, and Cheetah ran after him.
She struggled to keep up with him, as her mini-panther version was slower than his wolf. When she was satisfied that she was far enough from anyone, she shifted into her full-size panther and caught up to Bastian.
Knowing the Red Crescent pack never saw him in his wolf form, he shifted back to himself when they arrived by the gated fence. The fence was rudimentary and made out of round logs, low enough to allow wolves to jump over it easily, but also high enough to be seen by humans.
Coralis had designed the wards so that humans who were not marked by a werewolf, nor accompanied by one, nor blood related to one, would feel confused when passing the fence and turn around. She recently redid them with Sebastian to make them stronger and harder to dissolve and breach.
"I'd be considering portalling my ass back home if my apartment wasn't warded against portals, to be honest. I should have asked Stephanie to come here with Emma after work."
"She's here already. I couldn't tell you before we left because there were too many people. I told Frank that you'd follow me here in your wolf form, just in case they'd follow you instead, and leave when danger was gone. He probably called his sister, because he messaged me back saying she would follow Emma here," said Coralis after shifting form.
"Of course, he did. I suppose that's how we know that you and I are truly family now," said Sebastian, chuckling. "Our mates are definitively working together in making sure to have our asses covered."
They jumped over the fence and met with the two guards. They nodded at them.
"I don't like to hide from a fight, but tonight didn't feel like the night for it. The last time, I flew above way too many human cities. If they learned that they couldn't catch me when flying, I'm sure they had a different idea in mind. Either Clara would have followed me from afar to find out where I lived, or there would have been more of them with a nasty gas or something. They would have come prepared."
"Or force you to use a powerful spell to repeal them, one that could have been seen by humans if they looked up to the sky."
"Yes, or that. When I flew Sonylla out of that building, while she threw fireballs at her pursuers, we were above forests, lakes and clearings. At most, we scared off human campers if a burned one crashed on the ground beside them… Holy gods from above, I hope we didn't."
"It's not like you had a choice. I don't think you did, or Emery would have said something about it, and you know it would have been all over the press. They only pinned the burned-down building on Sonylla. If campers would have reported burned people falling from the sky next to them, you know it would have been pinned on her too," said Sebastian as they arrived at the packhouse.
Alpha Collins and his beta were waiting for them outside.
"I hear you're playing dodge-the-capture-to-kill party tonight," said Beta Carlito.
"It's becoming a casual activity of mine lately. Thanks for letting me hide here for a bit," said Coralis.
Sebastian and Stephanie left in the morning. For the remainder of the month, Coralis did not go home. When she was in town for home games, she stayed in a guest room inside of Red Crescent packhouse, and Frank often met her there, catching a ride with Liam.
Not wanting to jeopardize the security of his apartment wards, Sebastian slept there after their games, and Stephanie had her work schedule adjusted so that she'd work the nights he had a home game.
July 21, 2004
Even if she knew that her troubles weren't over, Coralis was glad to see the end of her flyball career, even if it wasn't something she wanted to do. She was about to leave Argentina after her team won the semi-finals when her hologram went off. She tapped on it to answer it, and High Mage Finnas's holographic image came out.
"Blue Thunder, I don't know what you did to ensure that Clara Holia couldn't find you, but it's a good thing she never did. She was planning on handing you over, and she wasn't working alone. She has been apprehended this morning and is locked up in our cells."
"Do you know to whom she was planning on turning me in and who else is working with her?"
Her teammates had left already, except for Sebastian.
"We don't know to whom, but we know that some of our former recruits who were trying to kill agent Sonylla Windflame inside that building in Calgary are still alive. We believe that they will attempt something after the final game this Thursday, so we will have agents there just in case."