Looking at the clock on my office wall yet again, I sighed loudly. Not even two minutes had passed since the last time I looked.

"Hey, you need to chill, dude," Eun-Woo chuckled as he sorted through some papers. My partner was the perfect counterpart to me sometimes; he could sometimes be the impatient and impulsive one who wanted to go in guns blazing, while I tended to be more cool, calm and collected. I liked knowing everything about a case before I made a move, which made me the perfect person to go undercover on reconnaissance missions. "Jiminie, you, out of anyone, should know that time passes quicker if you're doing something productive. So, how about you come help me wade through these files on the shelters running throughout New Kanoa before I just go and start knocking on doors."

Since meeting with Taehyung and receiving his statement, Eun-Woo and I had been working around the clock on trying to locate and identify the shelter that the alpaca hybrid was in. Without knowing the name, who ran it or even where in the country it was, the two of us were looking into each and every hybrid shelter in the whole country. It was hard work, but that was what I needed to distract me from the meeting I had on my schedule in just under three hours.

My partner and I settled into our semi-comfortable swivel chairs, a stack of papers in front of each of us, along with an extremely large takeaway cup of iced coffee for me and triple shot vanilla frappe for the gorilla hybrid. Working in silence, all that could be heard was papers shuffling, pens scribbling, the occasional sips through straws and many, many frustrated groans.

Sometimes one of us would start to get excited, until we saw the shelter didn't fit our parameters. Taehyung had told us that he lived in a different part of the shelter for a few years as a cria until his owner realised he was good looking and would be a prime candidate for the breeding farm, which was located on the same property. Apparently, the shelter and the breeding farm were separated by an outdoor play area. Taehyung said that while in the play area – where he got to roll around in the dirt for an hour a day – he could see some dense forests in the distance behind the buildings, and he couldn't hear any outside noise.

So, armed with the knowledge that we were looking for dwellings with two or more buildings, a fenced area where hybrids could play, was surrounded by forests, and was far enough away from other houses or towns to be in a quiet area, Eun-Woo and I could eliminate anything that didn't fit those specifications. We were thankful that with each shelter's dossier, an overhead satellite photograph was also included.

Two hours later, I was left with five possible hits: two up in the mountains in the north of the country, one just south of Samta along the Cobron river, one outside of Devlin, and one on the river that bordered the Republic of Amon, Tamesis, and Talman. Just as I was putting pins in the map on the wall, Eun-Woo came over and gave me the locations of four more places he'd found that matched the specifications.

"Blue are the ones you found, while reds are mine," I explained. Having a colour coded system was one that Eun-Woo really liked to use; he said it would make it easier when sharing information since we both hadn't read the dossiers on all the shelters.

I was about to outline where I thought we should go from here when my partner gasped. I turned to look at him and he simply pointed at the clock.

"Fuck, I'm going to be late if I don't hurry," I groaned as I left everything where it was.

"Good luck, Jiminie," Eun-Woo said, handing me my light jacket and patting my back in support. "It will be okay. You'll soon find out if you're just Cara's mate or if you're part of a group bond. Either way, everything will be okay since you're both her destined mates."

I was amazed that I'd been able to successfully keep my mind off the fact that I was meeting up with Cara and Yoongi today. There was always some trepidation for hybrids if they found out their mate was already mated to someone else. Bonds in multi-mate groups could work one of two ways – either all were mated together, or each hybrid was mated to a single person and not the others.

I was thankful that the café Cara and Yoongi had chosen was just down from the police station, so as I briskly walked there whilst enjoying the summer sun and cool breeze, I thought about which dynamic I would prefer. I had never found males attractive, so if Yoongi was also my mate it could be a little awkward; then again, it would also be awkward if Yoongi and I were both mates to Cara but not each other.

Fuck, it's too confusing!

A little tinkle rang out as I opened the door. The smell of baked goods and coffee was masked by multiple layers of hybrid and human scents. I closed my eyes, focussing on the one I was looking for. As a type of fox hybrid, I had a very good sense of smell, so I could track scents easily.

I smiled as I located the dreamy vanilla cream scent mingled with notes of strawberries. I couldn't wait to add my chocolate scent to hers; as a mate group, we would smell like delicious chocolate covered strawberries dipped in whipped cream... or like an elevated Neapolitan ice cream.

"Hi, sorry to keep you waiting," I apologised as I wandered up to the table. Cara looked gorgeous as usual, even if she had some fatigue painted across her features. The man sitting beside her was handsome; his pale skin made to look even fairer with his black hair and dark grey ears. Setting eyes on him and taking in his scent, I instantly knew what our mate dynamic was and by the look on his face, he did too.

"You're okay, we just got here ourselves," Cara smiled brightly, oblivious to the silent conversation the other man and I was having. As I took the seat on the other side of her, she made the introductions. "Jimin, this is Yoongi Min, my mate. And Yoongi, this is Jimin Park, my... other mate?"

I giggled softly, glad to see I wasn't the only one nervous about the whole thing. I extended my hand across the table, shaking Yoongi's hand, the action confirming what we'd come to realise. "It's nice to meet you," I said warmly. "Shall we order and then we can talk?" I suggested, exhaling in relief as they agreed.

The time spent perusing the menu and Cara placing our orders with the waitress at the counter allowed me to process what was happening. Yoongi and I were both Cara's mates.

But we were not each other's.

☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆

"...So then, how's everything going to work?" Eun-Woo asked me the next morning over coffees. When he had come in an hour after me, I'd told him how the meeting had gone and briefly explaining our group dynamic.

"We're gonna spend time getting to know each other. Cara and I as mates, and Yoongi and I as friends."

"Do you think that you two could be platonic mates?" he asked, sipping on his drink. "And if you are, do you think you'd be okay with that?"

I thought seriously about what he'd asked. Could I be platonic mates with a male hybrid? Especially one who was the destined mate to my destined mate? I nodded slowly. "Yeah, I think I'd be okay being platonic mates with him. I mean, it won't be sexual and there would definitely not be a romantic bond since neither of us are attracted to men."

Eun-Woo nodded as he listened intently to me. "I think that's a very mature and sensible plan you've come up with. You're all thinking with your heads and not your emotions or egos," my partner declared, coming to clap me on the back on the way to stand in front of the map we did yesterday. "Now, I was thinking about this last night. Instead of us swapping dossiers to read, I think it makes more sense to present them to each other. That way there's one of us seeing things objectively with fresh eyes. What do you think?"

I thought it was a great idea, and in fact I had come up with a similar one this morning in the shower. "I'm going to expand on your idea if I can," I said, moving to stand beside him. "Captain Bang has been saying that he wants to bring in someone else who can help us. He knows of a consultant who specialises in hybrid trafficking rings. I think we need to have him here too if the Captain can get him onto the case."

A couple of hours later, the three of us were seated in a conference room. Sehun Oh was an outside consultant who worked for the Samta police department on a need's basis. He was the leading expert on hybrid trafficking rings. It was unusual for a human to be an expert on such things, but Sehun explained that his adopted hybrid brother had been a victim of a sex trafficking ring.

I knew that like me, Eun-Woo was relieved to have someone like Sehun working with us so we could hopefully wrap up the case sooner rather than later. After all, the lives of innocent hybrids were in our hands.

Looking around the room, I was proud of what Eun-Woo and I had been able to do in the time it took Sehun to get to the precinct. Placed in front of the long table were three large moveable whiteboards, with the map we had used to show the shelter locations placed on the middle one. The whiteboards either side were for the dossiers – one for likely possibilities, the other for shelters that we needed to investigate more. It was easier to see everything if it was laid out in our 'war room'.

Alongside Sehun joining our team, we also were assigned by Captain Bang an assistant. Sana Minatozoki, a quiet mouse hybrid that had been working in the department for several years, was extremely organised and hardworking. She would be her to help with note dictation, as well as any other clerical work. 

The one difference between Sana and the other assistants though, was her very high EQ, which I knew would be helpful whenever we were interviewing victims. Originally from Acheron in the neighbouring country of Talman, Sana had literally swum across a river to escape the persecution she'd faced in a sex trafficking ring. She understood what many of the victims went through and she was able to connect with them on a different level.

Eun-Woo and I were extremely grateful that out of all the assistants in the precinct, we ended up with her on our team.

‧͙⁺˚*･༓☾ ⋆͛♡⋆͛ ☽༓･*˚⁺‧͙

The four of us looked at the now filled whiteboards hours later. Because of all the discussions going around the room, it felt like not much time had passed and an entire day had gone by all at once. I sighed, stretching my arms over my head and groaning in relief with the faint 'pop' as my joints realigned after sitting for so long.

"So, out of the three probable possibilities," Sehun said, grabbing his now diluted iced coffee and walking to the whiteboard on the right, pointing to the 'x' located just outside of our city, "this one fits the best with the description that Taehyung gave you. The other two are close and I think we should keep looking into them. However, I think we need to appoint Lady Tremaine House as our prime suspect and investigate accordingly."

Lady Tremaine House was one of the dossiers that were on my list. During our presentation, I told the others how it was located about 30 minutes SSW of Samta, which made it close enough for staff to dump their injured hybrids on our doorstep. While the shelter had initially been started by Madonna Tremaine, after her passing three years ago, her estate – including the shelter – had been left to her son, Manson Tremaine. Mrs Tremaine was a well-respected person in the hybrid rights movement but that was all we knew about her and there was very little information about Manson in the dossier; so, learning about the Tremaine family was one of our first tasks, as well as doing recon on the shelter itself.

Together, we came up with a game plan. I'd dig into Lady Tremaine House, as well as Madonna and Manson Tremaine, while Sehun and Eun-Woo both took one of the other two possibilities each. It was going to be a long couple of days filled with a lot of hard work but hopefully it would all pay off.