-Months ago-

It had been a few weeks of their investigation and so far they've turned up on nothing. Alice was beginning to feel frustrated at her lack of progress, but Cole seemed to have patience on their work so that made her feel a bit better.

At the moment, Cole, who was still a panther, was lying by Alice in her office as she went through possible suspects. So far, she was drawing a blank. All these suspects were too disconnected from the victim to be the ones that did it. As Alice sighed heavily, Cole got up.

"I have an idea." He suddenly said, looking a little too eager. "You should kiss me. Perhaps it shall bring inspiration - a muse to help us in our darkest hour." He said, stalking up to her. "Or perhaps it will simply teach us about ourselves. Let's see what happens…"

Alice turned a bit red. Kissing animal boys was still a foreign thing to her so it brought feelings of nervousness and awkwardness. But, she knew it eventually had to happen, she wouldn't leave a poor man stuck as an animal. That'd be too cruel.

Cole leaned toward her, his panther teeth mere inches from her face, and there's a moment where he seems strangely urgent to draw closer. Alice swallowed hard and closed her eyes before leaning in, and it felt strange as she was technically kissing his teeth. But his teeth disappear behind a fuzzy lip, which poofs instantly into one much softer and more supple. "Well look at that..." Cole muses. "You are magical."

Alice opened her eyes and was not prepared to see who was before her; A fairly tall, kind of pale man with messy brown hair with panther ears and tail, and dull gray eyes. He was dressed in a disheveled white button up shirt with an equally messy red tie, with black slacks and black loafers. Alice turned extremely red as she took in his form. She found him very attractive.. Cole took notice of her red face and almost chuckled. He thought she was very alluring like this.

"U-um..A-Anyway..we should probably get to work.." she muttered as she went back to her desk, Cole sat by her, watching her every move.

"So." She started. "I've looked at all of our possible suspects and so far none of them seek to be..I guess..stalkerish?" She explained. Cole's eyes looked at her suspect list and he noticed something..his file was on the pile of suspects. Cole glanced at Alice with hard eyes. She suspects him? That's not good. Alice took notice of his staring and blushed.

"I-is something wrong?" She asked. It then hit her on what he might be staring at her for. "You're uh..probably wondering about why I have your file out huh?" She asked embarrassingly. "Well..I gotta cover all of my bases so I have to suspect even my one ally." She explained.

Cole didn't like that answer, he didn't like that Alice was suspecting him of this murder and wanted to have her trust in him. Otherwise…. No! He didn't want to think that…That was a thought he didn't like…

As the tension between them began to rise, she suddenly heard her phone ringing. She looked at the caller ID and saw that it was Nimh. She looked up at Cole. "I uh..have to take this." She said as she quickly left the room.

While Cole sat in her room all by himself, he heard a knock. He looked over and saw one of Alice's co-workers coming with flowers. He instantly recognized the co-worker. It was the same person he saw with Alice that night of the murder.

"Oh pardon me, I didn't know Alice had someone over..I just..wanted to leave these for her.." They said as they put the flowers on her desk. Cole immediately didn't like this person. Who do they think they are!? Giving Alice flowers like that?! Disgusting..

Before the coworker left they stopped and looked back. "You're..friends with Alice. Correct? Do you…know if she's single?"

Cole bit back a snarl that was growing in his chest. "No." He simply answered.

"Ah..sorry for the question, I just..never mind. I'll see her eventually." They said as they left.

Cole growled lowly to himself as his tail swished and curled angrily, his ears were flat as he stared at where they stood.

XXXXXXXX

-A few hours later-

It was the middle of the night. Only one person was out this late. It was Alice's co-worker. They had gotten swamped with work and had to stay behind. As they made a shortcut through the park, they heard a branch snap. Quickly looking at the direction of the snap, they called out. "WHO'S THERE!?" They yelled.

No answer. They laughed awkwardly. "I'm going crazy.." They said to themselves as they began to walk away.

It was a silent walk for a few minutes, nothing but the sounds of the leaves moving along with the wind and the sound of a nearby owl hooting away.

That's when they heard running footsteps. They quickly turned around but it was too late. They felt a sharp sting at their side and they stumbled as blood ran down their side. They were stabbed…and it didn't stop there. They were pushed to the ground and stabbed repeatedly in the chest. They cried as they tried to fight off their assailant, but they were too weak to fight them off..

"SHE'S MINE! MINE! MINE! MINE! MINE! MINE!" Their assailant yelled psychotically as they stabbed them.

They coughed up blood as they reached out their arm pathetically, and soon, their arm fell as they died. The last thing they saw was the small pinprick dull gray eyes of their assailant…

-The next day-

Alice and Cole were called in early in the morning, the reason? There was another murder… Alice stood at the crime scene, staring at who it was. It seemed like they were repeatedly stabbed. This was different from the murder of the other victim. This time it seemed like a person did it rather than an animal. Alice swallowed hard, this was becoming serious. Who knows, one day it's her coworkers, the next it could be her.. Cole took notice of the sudden paleness in her face. He came up to her. "Is everything alright, partner?" He asked.

Alice quickly shook her head as she snapped out of it. "Y-Yeah..Just getting too deep into my own head." She said.

Cole pat her head. "Your keen mind is matched only by your striking appearance. How this world of death and crime lured you in is anyone's guess." He said. "But you're in the game now, so there's little chance of escape. I would advise you to embrace the journey, and let it lead you wherever it may take you."

Alice blushed a little as she felt his comforting hand and nodded. After some chatter with the local cops and gaining intel on their latest victim, Cole suddenly got called away and had to leave, leaving Alice to fend for herself..

XXXXXXXX

-Hours later-

Alice had been called over to Cole's 'workplace' for a reason that Cole wouldn't say over the phone. As Alice entered his residence, her eyes widened. There, laying on the ground was some guy. He was handcuffed and Cole's foot was on him, seemingly holding him down. Cole turned and noticed her.

"I found our culprit." He said as he held down the 'culprit' harder. The man groaned as he tried to get free.

"H-How do you know that's our culprit?" She asked nervously.

"Check his phone." Cole said, pointing to a phone that was sitting by the man. Alice grabbed it and looked through it, she found incriminating messages and tons of photos of his victims and tons of photos of Alice.

Alice felt disgusted as she saw the many photos of her. She looked through the messages and saw that there were a ton of messages to some person detailing the deeds they did to win Alice's attention. Alice felt sick and couldn't look any longer and dropped the phone. Cole looked at her.

"It's your call with what we do with him. After all, it is your case after all." He said.

"J-Just get him out of here, call the cops, something to get him away from me!" She said as she felt sick.

Cole nodded. After 10 minutes the cops came, Alice handed them the evidence of the culprit and sent him away.

Alice looked at Cole as the cops drove away. Why did she feel like this case wasn't solved yet?

XXXXXXXX

-Present day-

"...And that's how Cole caught our culprit!" Alice said as she laid her head on his chest. Cole purred and rubbed her head.

The three sisters eyed Cole warily. For some reason they suddenly felt untrusting of the panther male. How could he find the culprit just out of the blue, when Alice had been trying and came up with nothing? Sure they can chalk it up to being lucky, but lucky enough for the culprit to meet one of the detectives at their own house? That seemed a little suspicious.

"Well…that's..cool! I'm so glad you caught them before Alice got hurt." Lilian said to Cole, chuckling awkwardly.

Cole nodded at her. "I would never let anything happen to her." He said as he kissed Alice's cheek.

The three sisters chuckled awkwardly as they watched him give affection to Alice. He seemed really weird to them now, now that they know his backstory with Alice.

Alice kissed Cole's cheek, and looked towards her sisters. "So. how's about we go out somewhere? Just the four of us?" She asked.

The three sisters looked at each other, then to Alice. "Hell yeah! Let's do it!"

Alice smiled and they all got ready and left.

Cole watched them pull out of the driveway and went upstairs to Alice's room. Typically when Alice left without him, he'd go to her room sometimes and steal things of hers to keep to himself.

Cole went through her room and collected little trinkets and pieces of clothing. He then noticed one of her drawers was partially opened and looked inside. Jewelry, papers..but then he saw something that knocked the air out of his lungs.

A positive pregnancy test.