Diamond had finished eating her third large pizza and was cuddling with Alex on the couch. “So what happened to my tv step up?” Alex asked as they toyed with Diamond’s ponytail.

“Evaporated in the blast as the bomb was hidden among your tv set up.” Diamond said as she didn’t move her face from Alex’s chest. “I didn’t know how you would want to replace it with.”

Alex sighed and looked around the apartment, “True, the more advanced electronic stuff normally goes over your head.” Alex said and stopped playing with her hair. “Mind if I start putting my touch around the apartment.” 

“I thought you were already doing that.” Diamond shifted so she was straddling Alex’s lap. Alex moved their hands to grip Diamond’s muscular thighs and Diamond hands rested on Alex’s stomach.

Diamond could feel a bugle move under her butt as she rotated her hips and smirked as she remembered that her spouse was rarity like her but different rarity than her. 

Alex was born as an extremely rare case within the werebeast world, they are a chimera. In their case there are two zygotes that fuse together during early embryonic development. 

With the two zygotes from Alex making were two different genders and making Alex a natural born intersex werebeast. Normally a werebeast child born a chimera would have died due to body attacking itself but Alex was lucky enough their body didn't do this.

“Is my moon queen getting into a mood after the grand feast?” Alex cooed and Diamond moved Alex’s shirt up to see a smooth stomach. Diamond had noticed Alex had lost their muscles and didn’t know how to bring it up. “Dia, what’s wrong?”

Alex raised a hand up to Diamond’s face and Diamond moved into their hand. “What happened?” Diamond asked as she touched Alex’s stomach. She could feel some random old bullet wounds under her finger tips and Diamond could see Alex’s face relax.

“While the acid attack on a secret mission was not the only reason for my retirement.” Alex said and took one of Diamond's hands to move it to their hair. “There was a roadside bomb that hit our vehicle when traveling back and…”

Diamond started to feel under Alex’s hair and froze when she felt some hidden scars. She slowly traced them and they seemed to be small scars that didn’t go deep. “Silver scars?”

“The bomb had pieces of silver but it wasn’t the silver that caused me to go into a coma for three months.” Alex said and Diamond became alarmed by the fact that this was the first time hearing that. “The force of the bomb caused me to go into a coma and being in that coma made me lose most of my muscle mass.”

There were a few seconds of silence before Diamond grabbed the sides of Alex’s face, “Do not ever keep that kind of information from me.” Diamond said and Alex softly smiled.

“I wasn’t hiding it on purpose, Dia, I just wanted to spend time with you.” Alex smiled as Diamond’s hands moved back on their stomach. “Do you want me to regain my muscular build?”

Diamond paused and started to gently play with Alex’s stomach. “Hmmmm…no but I am jealous of you.” Diamond muttered and Alex was trying not to laugh from Diamond’s playing. 

Alex grabbed her wrists and Diamond didn’t fight them, “Well maybe in your fifties your metabolism will slow down.” Alex smirked and Diamond couldn’t help but make a loud snort.

“Try a hundred years old, and don’t mention my mother and the triplet’s ability to gain weight, all of them had gotten pregant…” Diamond trailed off as Alex moved their hands to hold hers and their fingers intertwined together. Diamond could see an apologetic look on Alex’s face and she realized her face must be twisted in a pained sadness. “Not your fault, just cards we have been given by fate.”

Alex sat up to hug Diamond close, burying their face into her neck and Diamond buried her face into their neck as well. She breathed in Alex’s natural scent of the sea and let out a low murring sound. She could hear them taking in deep breaths like her and she closed her eyes to relax and bath in Alex’s warmth.

A cell phone rang out and Diamond’s eyes flashed open to stare down the phone on the coffee table, it was her own phone. She cut off her growling with a loud huff and Alex laid back down to allow Diamond to lean over to grab her phone. 

Diamond pressed the speaker phone button when she saw Chris’ name, “This better be a good reason you are calling me this late, Chris.” Diamond growled with a harsh tone.

There was a pause before she heard Chris let out a loud sigh and even over the phone she could tell he didn’t want to make this call. “We got another body, Belle believes it’s connected with Katie’s case.” Chris said grimly and Diamond got off Alex. “I’m already outside in the truck.”

“I’ll be right down.” Diamond said before hanging up and kissing Alex. Alex took her hand and Diamond could feel the want to stay but she couldn’t.

“Good luck, and return safely to me.” Alex whispered and Diamond gave them a small nod before slipping out of their loose grip.

The snow was just starting to come down as Diamond and Alex got out of the truck and Alex led the way to the tape off area. Diamond had closed up her jacket and buried the lower half of her face into the fur lining of the jacket. 

The tape off area was a ditch with rocks on the slope and CSI crew was working fast due to the snowfall. Diamond was walking in Chris’ steps as they got under the tape and she noticed he was following other footprints too.

“Nix already took the body away?” Chris asked Belle, who was rocking on her feet as she watched over the CSI crew working. 

“Yea…there was no id on the body and the scent of whoever did isn’t showing up, just like Katie.” Belle said and Diamond just looked at the imprint of body in the snow that had gathered in the ditch

“No foot prints from the killer?” Diamond asked as looked around to see no footprints and she crouched down to get a view of the body imprint. Diamond noticed the body must have been thrown into the ditch and rolled down to the bottom of it. “How much snow was on the body?”

As Belle thought her answer Diamond narrowed her eyes to use her druid touch sight, she could see the magic of the artifact at work and trying to erase the scent it covered. “No fresh fallen snow on the body,” Belle finally answered and Diamond bolted to stand up straight.

Belle and Chris flinch from the movement and Diamond started to violently take off her jacket before throwing it to Belle, who caught the jacket without trouble. Diamond took in deep breath as she made her throat muscle shift under her skin and felt her clan, the Luna’s clan, magic flow through her bones.

Diamond let out a roar through her changed throat and she saw the magical pulse that pushed outward from her roar. The pulse destroyed the magic of the artifact and pushed the falling snow away as if a dome of wind pushed it away. For a second the snow stopped falling on them but returned falling onto them after a minute passed.

“S-Shit.” Chris’ voice cut through the silence and Diamond noticed that he had fallen on his butt, along with a few of the CSI members. “S-So that’s the famous Luna Clan roar.”

“Why didn’t you do that before?” Belle whined as she rubbed the side of her temple and Diamond rotated her head as she shifted her throat back. The shift back hurt after using her clan’s roar and hurt even more due to silver scaring on her throat. She touched under her shirt’s high collar to check her throat and when pulled her fingers away, it was just sweat.

“The artifact’s magic had settled at Katie’s body but here it hadn’t had the time to settle yet.” Diamond said as she crouched and took in deep breath and in the corner of her eye saw Belle doing the same. “There.” The scent was a strong rotten smell and still covered the killer’s true scent, Diamond would need time to filter out the rotten smell later.

Diamond bolted up again after locking on the scent and took her jacket from Belle as she followed the once hidden scent. As Diamond put on her jacket, Belle was in lock step with Diamond and Chris had gotten up to follow from a few feet behind not to get in the way.

The scent led them down an alleyway a few feet away and they stopped as it was a dead end alleyway. Diamond started to look up to see if the scent went up to the fire escape but didn’t catch any hint of going up.

“Diamond,” Belle said and Diamond spun around to see Belle and Chris looking down. She followed their gaze and saw a very old cast iron manhole cover. “It’s one of those old city covers, explains the rotten smell over the killer’s scent, old sewage.” 

“Old city covers?” Chris asked as Diamond crouched down and the scent was all over the cover. “That’s right, I remember Nix telling me that this city was built over an older city sewer and subway tunnels.”

“I’ll get the CSI to dust it for prints and any other test they could think of.” Belle said and patted Chris’ shoulder. “I don’t have to tell you not to go down, right?” 

Diamond felt Belle’s eyes on her and stood up, “It’s a labyrinth down there, even with our advanced senses, it’s a danger to travel blindly down there.” Chris nodded to Diamond's explanation and Belle had left to get the CSI crew. “Tracking is almost impossible because of the stale sewer air.”

“I guess we don’t have to check out the Red Mist list anymore,” Chris said and Diamond raised a brow. “Rich and prideful snobs wouldn’t use old and stinky sewer ways.”

“I’ll be able to filter out the sewer scent from the killer’s scent but it will take time.” Diamond slid her hands back into jacket’s pockets and stepped to the side when the CSI crew came around the corner. Chris followed suit in giving the CSI crew room and jerked his head to gestured to move out of the alleyway. 

Once out of the alleyway Chris’ phone went off and he picked it up, “Are you already done with body already, Nix?” Chris asked and Diamond raised a brow. Even with a head start with the body, Nix wouldn’t have gotten to the Y-section yet and at best she would still be collecting evidence from the body by now.

“No, but something odd has happened, the body started smelling like a sewer.” Nix said and Chris looked at Diamond with raised brow. “You wouldn’t know why that happened, like destroying the artifact in some way?"

Diamond stopped in tracks, “Luna Clan roar ca-” Diamond cut herself off and crossed her arms to start thinking. “That’s wrong, the roar could overload an artifact if feedback is just right and while the roar has one kilometer radius…they would need to be close to the center point for the artifact to be destroyed."

“The roar is not dome effect but sphere effect, so if they were underground they would still be hit…this body was very fresh.” Nix said over the phone and Diamond could pick up more from her tune, it sounded like Nix was disturbed by something. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he was still close enough for your roar to destroy the artifact but far enough that it wouldn’t be safe for you to go hunting in the sewers.”

“Sounds about right,” Chris said and nodded to the truck. Diamond followed his lead and started to travel to the truck. Diamond slightly perked up when Nix dropped something and cursed something in different language, causing Chris to freeze. “What is it?”

Nix let out a hiss of words in that different language once more and Diamond guessed it was Romanian. “Come here with Diamond,” Nix finally said. “And hurry.”