For Your Paws Only (Supernatural Enforcers Agency #2) by E A Price

suggested that he be suspended. What the fuck? His own wolf howled in irritation.
    When the Director summoned Cutter to his office, he failed to mention the fact that a member of Internal Investigations would be there. No, the fact that a particularly cut-throat, asshole of an agent called Harvey Blue was sitting in and interjecting with his less-than-helpful insights was a nasty surprise.
    Cutter had more dealings with Harvey than he cared to mention, back when they were both in Ursa and now also in the few weeks that Harvey had been in Los Lobos. Internal Investigations dealt with complaints or cases of misconduct of SEA agents. Cutter tended to get a lot of complaints regarding his heavy-handed approach to crime, and Harvey relished taking him to task over it.
    “Does he really need to be here?” hissed Cutter through gritted teeth.
    “I have every right to be here,” said Harvey, smoothly and smugly while completely ignoring the death glare being leveled at him by Cutter.
    The Director remained stonily impassive; the only giveaway that he was repressing an urge to throttle them both was the slight twitch to his eyebrow. “Harvey is just here to ensure that procedures are followed and that there aren’t any conflicts of interest regarding you and Sadie Beauchamp.”
    Cutter threw up his hands in disgust. “What conflict could there be? Yes I met her a few times, she was a potential witness on a case me and Clayton worked on back in Ursa but she didn’t know anything and nothing ever happened.”
    Harvey’s eyes gleamed with interest as amber seeped into them. His wolf was pushing to the fore, and Cutter’s did, too, ready to fight if necessary. The two wolves had never come to blows before, but it had been a close call once or twice. Harvey seemed determined to get Cutter kicked out of the SEA for some reason, or perhaps arrested. Okay, maybe there were one or two reasons he could use – Cutter’s anger management issues, the fact that he was prone to violence, his lack of respect for authority – but it seemed to be more than that. There were agents in the SEA who were much worse than Cutter, mostly they worked in tactical where they could work out their anger issues on doors and random shifters who totally deserved it, but Harvey seemed to have a grudge against Cutter. There didn’t seem to be a reason for it. Hey, maybe Cutter pushed in line one time and got the last cupcake that Harvey wanted. Who knows?! Not that Cutter really cared; he could live with being hated. Being hated was a normal fact of life for him – he was okay with it.
    “This would be the Maroni case?” asked Harvey, keenly.
    Cutter kept his face as blank as possible, for once trying to hide the thundering emotions that resided inside him. From experience, he had learned to be wary when talking about that particular case. “Yes,” he stated plainly.
    “When was the last time you saw Sadie?”
    He tried to hold back his frustration. “Three years ago; back when I was investigating that case.”
    “Why would Clayton want to talk to her?”
    “I have no idea,” Cutter ground out. “As I have said before, dozens of times now, I didn’t even know Clayton was in town.”
    “Do you think someone killed Clayton and tried to kill Sadie over the Maroni case? Do you think Clayton uncovered something about that case and he needed to talk to Sadie about it?”
    The questions slapped him in the face and even halted his prowling wolf, but, in honesty, he was starting to think that was the case. But why now, after three years, he had no idea. He could only think that maybe Clayton had managed to dig something up, something that apparently he wanted to investigate further in Ursa and something that involved the now-missing Sadie Beauchamp.
    “I have no idea,” answered Cutter honestly. His eyes flicked away from the obvious disbelief of Harvey to the poker-faced Director. In this instance, the snake shifter wasn’t giving anything away.