For Your Paws Only (Supernatural Enforcers Agency #2) (20 page)

He rearranged her slightly, so she was straddling him and resting her head in the crook of his shoulder. “Things are better now. Now I talk to my boy on the phone, and I visit when I can. But after that, I knew I wasn’t meant to be anyone’s mate. How could I be with someone that I could hurt?”

Lucie stiffened in his arms as a sliver of disappointment eked down her spine and deflated her inner animal. “Is this your oh-so-subtle way of reminding me that there’s no future for us?”

“Lucie…”

“Don’t. I already told you; I care about you, but I’m fine with whatever we have right now, you don’t have to worry about me. But, to be clear, I’m not afraid of you. No matter how much you’re pushed I know you wouldn’t hurt me, right?”

She traced a finger around his collar, grazing his skin, and he shuddered ever so lightly.

“No, I wouldn’t… not permanently anyway.”

Hmmm, not the most romantic declaration but she’d take it… for now. “I’m sorry about your son.”

Cutter shrugged as he started running his hands up and down her back. “His name’s Dean, and his stepdad's a good guy. He’s better off with him. I’m not exactly a good dad. Annie said I’m incapable of being firm with him - I just keep giving him treats when he’s naughty.”

Lucie let out a hoot of laughter. “You, not firm? Merlin’s beard!” The idea of the Agency’s grouchiest wolf shifter – a crown that took a lot of grouchiness to obtain – was just downright hilarious. “How old is he now?”

“Four,” he muttered.

She could tell he was a little put out by her humorous reaction… which just made her laugh even harder. Boy, how would he be if they had some terrible little ankle biters running around?
Literal ankle biters – she was a menace when she was young
. She felt a twinge and her hedgehog snuffled. Not that she was certain they would have any kids…
sigh
.

“Do you miss your wife?”

Cutter looked at her like she was insane. “No, definitely no. I’m sorry I don’t see Dean more often, but it’s better than him seeing the worst of me.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Fuck, don’t feel sorry for me!”

“You’re right – I’m not sorry at all. Happy now?”

“Very.”

“Good.” They sat in silence for a few minutes before Lucie had to put a stop to that. What was the point of having a mouth if you didn’t flap it around? “You thinking about Clayton?”

Cutter grunted. “I have this feeling like I’m missing something important, but I don’t know what.” He was sitting, pondering as Lucie started humming. “What was the name that Avery gave to you earlier?”

“Oh? Umm, Bruce Knightley, I think.”

“Bruce… Bruce Knightley.” He rolled the names around his mouth before his whole body went rigid, and he shot to his feet. “Mother fucker!”

Chapter Nineteen

Lucie held up the freshly printed picture. “So this is Bruce Knightley?”

Cutter plucked it from her hands and studied it distastefully. Lucie fidgeted on the hard kitchen chair. When he leaped up from the bed, she had taken a mighty tumble to the floor and, frankly, her ass still smarted. He apologized profusely, rubbed her cheeks repeatedly and even went so far as to kiss it better. At that point, he got a gleam in his eye, and she put a pin in their activities while he explained what had him so riled.

Seeing her squirm, Cutter pulled her onto his lap. One hand massaged her behind while the other clutched at the photo.

“Officially, yes, but he never went by that last name. I knew him as Bruce Connors. He preferred his mom’s last name.”

At Cutter’s insistence, Lucie called Jessie on her cell phone. Surprisingly, Jessie was at work and Lucie chastised her for working such long hours, and then felt like a heel for asking Jessie to help her with something work related. Jessie didn’t mind, and she e-mailed Lucie a picture of Bruce Knightley.

“We kind of grew up in the same pack,” explained Cutter, grimly. “Bruce’s dad was a real piece of work - treated Bruce’s mom like crap. He wasn’t allowed to join our pack. Every so often she’d turn up black and blue dragging Bruce with her, they’d stay for a while, and then his dad would show up and his mom just ran right on back into his arms.”

Her heart twisted. “So, this is the Bruce who got you a job in Maroni’s gang and then tortured you?”

His eyes narrowed even more. “Yes.”

“That… that butthole!” exploded Lucie. Her irate hedgehog was definitely in agreement on that.

“Whoa, steady, language,” commented Cutter, surprisingly amused at her outburst.

“I thought he was dead.”

“I thought he was too, but if his DNA is showing up at murder scenes, he’s probably not quite as dead as I thought he was.”

“So maybe he’s the one who tried to kill Sadie.”

He nodded. “It would make sense, I did try to rip his throat out, he might have had a bit of trouble healing that and he might have scars.”

Lucie jumped up, ready for action. “We need to show his picture to Sadie, if she can identify him, maybe we could take this to the Director.”

“Maybe.” His amber infused eyes didn’t stray from the photo. Perhaps he was trying to divine his location just by looking at his image or make Bruce’s head exploded with his mind –
either way
.

“You don’t sound excited.”

Cutter opened his mouth to bare his fangs. “I’d rather find him and rip his throat out again.”

His wolf was close to the surface, perhaps too close. He might not be able to think rationally. She needed to calm him, so she resumed her seat on his lap and kissed his neck, nibbling on his collar bone and nipping his chin.
Ah, the sacrifices she had to make
.

He tried to remain stoic, but he crumpled at her teasing onslaught. “Fine, we’ll do it your way, call Primrose, and let her know we’re on our way.”

To show that there was no shame in defeat, she gave him a thorough kiss before grabbing her phone to call Primrose. There was just one problem – Primrose didn’t answer. Lucie kept trying, but she didn’t get an answer.

“Maybe she’s in the bathroom,” she suggested uneasily. “Or maybe they’re both asleep – it’s getting late.”

Tersely, Cutter told her to try again. She did. No answer.

“I don’t like it; I’m going over there,” he declared.

“I’ll get…”

“No.”

“But…”

Cutter gave her a ‘don’t fuck with me’ stare. Usually, she’d ignore it and just carry on with whatever she was doing, but for some reason she actually thought he meant it this time.

“I don’t know what we might be walking into, and I sure as hell am not willing to risk you.”

“But…”

He softened but only marginally. “Please, Lucie, stay here. I love how stubborn you are – even though it bugs the hell out of me, but please, do as I ask. I don’t want to lose you.”

Son of a motherless goat!
How could she say no when he admitted to loving a part of her and then actually came out with something sweet.

“Okay.”

He pressed a kiss to her lips. “I’ll call you as soon as I know something.

“Just be careful,” she pleaded, following him to the door and wringing her hands.

“I will.”

He gave her one last meaningful look fraught with some emotions she really didn’t want to identify at that moment. Maybe later, when she had him in her bed and completely at her mercy. For now, she looked to the skies and begged the hedgehog deity to watch over him.

But in the meantime, perhaps some more earthly help would come in useful.

*

Cutter raced to the storage depot. His wolf was furious at leaving Lucie behind, but even the unreasonable beast knew it wasn’t a good idea to bring her along. A thought reinforced when he arrived to find the fence hanging limply from its hinges and the guard in the office shot dead.

He abandoned the car and proceeded on foot to Primrose’s storage lockup. The rest of the facility was eerily silent, making the cries and yells from Primrose’s even more conspicuous.

Moving quickly and silently he sidled into the lockup. Sadie was huddled in a corner, crying while Bruce kicked a naked Primrose. She must have tried to shift, but he overpowered her. He was too bent on his task, too enthralled by the whimpers she admitted, and the pain he caused to notice Cutter’s arrival.
Sick fucker
.

Cutter didn’t even bother to pull out his gun. He wanted to enjoy this; he didn’t want it to end too quickly. A sentiment his itchy pawed wolf agreed with. The sooner they got started, the better.

“Bruce!” he roared.

The other wolf stopped and slowly turned to look at him. He wasn’t nearly surprised enough to see him.

“Cutter,” he rasped, his voice only a distant whisper of what it used to be.

Cutter surveyed the angry scars on Bruce’s neck. They really looked like they hurt. He should have taken his fucking head off.

Bruce smirked. “About time, I was beginning to think I’d never get a chance to kill you. I mean I would have been happy just to gun you down in the street, but my brother reckoned that would look bad for him, so I had to wait, and it has been fucking hard.”

Cutter looked between the two women. Sadie didn’t appear harmed – just shaken. Primrose on the other hand looked bad. She had managed to crawl over to Sadie, and the two hugged. Every instinct he had told him to rip the wolf apart - his own beast was virtually tearing himself apart to get out – but he didn’t want anyone else to get hurt.

“Why now?” Cutter growled.

“Why not?” Bruce ran his tongue over his fangs as his eyes sparkled amber. “You know how long I’ve been wallowing in a fucking Mexican hospital waiting for this to heal?” He stroked his scars. “I lost three years of my fucking life thanks to you; they say I’m lucky to be alive, I don’t feel lucky.”

“Should have stayed dead then.”

Bruce chuckled horribly. “Everyone thought I was, my brother saved me though, got me to safety.”

“How’d you find them?” Cutter inclined his head at Sadie and Primrose.

“You’re not the only one who’s been talking to Marie’s boyfriend. My brother suspected the girlfriend was Primrose, so he had a tracker on her car, and when he found out she stole that medicine, he figured it out and had me come down here to sort the mess out.”

Cutter’s muscles twitched and grew. “Your brother works at the SEA?”

Bruce smirked. “You have no idea, do you?”

“He our surprise mystery guest tonight?”

The other wolf’s expression turned downright feral. “Nah, he has his hands full on the other side of town dealing with a prickly little brunette.”

Cutter tensed as red-hot rage poured through him. Bruce just babbled on, apparently uncaring as to the danger he was in.

“This isn’t how I wanted it to go down. I had plans to kill Lucie slowly in front of you. But then this bitch had to ruin it,” he sneered at Sadie. “She should have died when she was supposed to. Still, never mind, killing you will still make me feel better.”

Cutter was barely listening. His wolf howled ferociously, and his blood boiled.
Lucie
. His Lucie. No, he wouldn’t let her down – she needed him. He roared savagely as his muscles and bones started twisting and reshaping themselves. He didn’t even try to fight the shift.

Bruce’s eyes widened slightly in fear. Fucking stupid wolf! He had no hope against Cutter to begin with, but now that he had threatened his female he’d be dead within seconds. He lunged at the other wolf with a bloodthirsty snarl.

*

Lucie fretted. She paced, she tried to watch TV, she ate a whole box of
Fortunate Charms
– they were a cheap knock off breakfast cereal of which she was an addict – but nothing could soothe her or her worried beast.

She made the right decision in calling for backup. He may want to run around playing action lone ranger wolfman or some gobbledygook like that, but she wasn’t giving him the opportunity to get killed – he still had to give in and admit he loved her – he wasn’t getting off that darn easily!

She almost jumped up the wall in her agitated state when Greensleeves flooded her living room. Jeez, was that Cutter?

She ran to the door and opening it she… froze. What was
he
doing there?

“Hello, Lucie.” It was the II agent, Harvey Blue, smiling genially while pointing a gun at her. “Get back in the house.”

Chapter Twenty

Cutter growled and swiped at Bruce, who whined and tried to limp out of reach.
Pathetic
. Their fight must have lasted all of ninety seconds, and his opponent could barely stand. The other wolf was a masterpiece of cuts and bites; there was barely an inch of his thick fur that wasn’t matted with blood from his many wounds.

With a pitiful huff, Bruce dropped to the floor and painfully rolled over, baring his belly in an act of submission. Cutter prowled around his prone body. Would the honorable thing be to let him live? This woeful wolf that had tortured him and killed fuck knows how many others. Did Cutter care about honor? No, he cared about Lucie – and time was ticking on. He needed to get to Lucie, and the easiest way to do that was to kill Bruce. It was the most efficient way to ensure that he was taken care of.

Perhaps sensing what was coming, Bruce shifted back to his human form. He panted and began pleading for his life. Cutter’s wolf ignored him and prepared to rip out his throat – and this time he’d make damn sure he was dead.

“Cutter!”

The wolf growled as Wayne barreled through the door. The gator shifter had a gun trained on Bruce. “I got it.”

Cutter growled at him. The miserable excuse for a wolf shifter was
his
to kill.

“Cutter,” snapped Wayne, forcefully. He pulled out a set of handcuffs. “Step back and let me put these on. Please?”

With a monumental effort, Cutter backed away and wrenched control away from his animal. He shifted back to human, ignoring the blood streaks over his naked body.

Wayne slapped the cuffs on Bruce, who was groaning in pain. The gator shifter gave him a totally accidental kick that set off a fresh set of moans. “Lucie called me; she was worried.”

“Lucie’s in danger.”

“Go, I got this.”

“Call her; warn her,” he ordered as he started running.

For three years, he had wondered what he would do if he ever got his hands on Bruce. At the time he thought Bruce was dead, so they were just fantasies. He enjoyed thinking of the ways he would make the bastard scream, and inflict some of the pain he had felt. The old Cutter would never have left him alive for Wayne to deal with. But that was the BL portion of his life –
Before Lucie
. The only thing that mattered to him at that moment in time was her - he wasn’t going to lose her. He couldn’t bear it. He finally admitted the truth that he had spent a year running from.
She was his mate.
And lord help anyone who stood in the way of him claiming his mate.

*

Harvey checked his phone and scowled. He was stood over Lucie as she sat on her couch; his gun waved aimlessly in her direction, but he wasn’t focusing on her. Maybe she could rush him and take the gun. Women on TV did it all the time. And women on TV also fought crime and chased bad guys in four-inch heels. In other words, TV wasn’t based on reality.

She was perhaps a little miffed that Harvey hadn’t bothered to tie her up. Was she really so harmless that she didn’t even rate being tied up? Maybe it was the fact that her favorite color was pink, or the fact that she liked to knit that made her seem so non-threatening. Yeah, she did have to admit that she probably wouldn’t get very far against a wolf shifter. Well, physical strength wasn’t going to help, so maybe she needed to distract and conquer him with her rapier wit.
Raspberries!
She was going to die. Her hedgehog took the opportunity to curl up into a ball – she was too timid for her own good. She had to do something. Maybe if she stalled for time, Cutter would come back and rip this guy to shreds.

“You’re the mole, right?” she blurted.

Harvey grunted, and she took that to mean yes, I am the scum sucking, traitorous hound that doesn’t deserve to breathe the same air as other SEA agents.

“You fed information to Maroni.”

“I see you are well informed, has Cutter been whispering sweet nothings into your ear as he fucked you?”

She flinched at his language – which was odd because Cutter swore like a sailor, and that never bothered her. Her reaction amused Harvey, though.

“Or are you his crime-fighting partner? His little sidekick – Robin to his Batman,” he sneered.

She preferred to think of them as Mulder and Scully but, you know, without the aliens. Not that she was going to get into that conversation with him.

“You sold out your fellow agents…”

“It wasn’t quite like that…”

“Then what was it like?” How on earth could he justify what he did?

“Like I have to tell you. What did you do with the picture Jessie e-mailed you?”

Lucie blinked at him in surprise and Harvey gave her a superior smile.

“It seemed prudent to monitor Jessie’s communications,” he explained, smugly, “given her loyalty to Cutter. Unfortunately, I couldn’t tap her cell phone without her noticing. E-mails though, technically belong to the agency. I guess the picture was for Cutter. Where is he right now?”

“I don’t know.”

“You’re lying,” he said, blandly. “Tell me the truth, or I will really make Cutter suffer. You’ve seen his scars; a lot worse things can happen.”

“He went looking for Primrose.” She conceded the truth to him; she just didn’t go into all the details.

Unease pooled in her stomach as his face brightened. Oh no, it was never a good sign when the bad guy looked pleased.

“With any luck my brother will have already killed him.”

“Your brother?”

Lucie jumped as he burst into laughter. “You really didn’t figure it out, and to think I was worried about Cutter. Bruce Knightley - my brother. Different mothers. He’s the reason I informed to Maroni in the first place. The dumb fuck owed the man thousands in gambling debts. In return for his life, I had to feed that pig Maroni information. The things you do for family. Not that it was hard to do. Maroni, in spite of Bruce’s debt, gave me plenty of money – the information was worth more than any gambling debt.”

She pursed her lips. “You outed Cutter when he was undercover and got those agents killed.”

He wasn’t remorseful in the least. “I had no idea Cutter was undercover until my boss got drunk and spilled it to me. Worse than that, I found out an informant in Maroni’s crew was going to out me. So I gave Maroni Cutter and killed the informant.”

“You didn’t have to kill that tactical team!” She bit her lip – what was she saying?
He didn’t have to kill anyone!

“That wasn’t on purpose – I set the bomb to destroy the house, I didn’t know they would be there. Bad timing.”

She gaped at him – like a fish caught in headlights. “That’s all you can say? Bad timing?!”

Harvey shrugged unconcernedly.

Since he was feeling so chatty… “What about Clayton?”

“I suspected Clayton knew something when he pulled some files from the archives. My old boss let me know. He keeps me up to date on things on the proviso that I don’t mention his drunken slip about Cutter to anyone. He’d get fired for that.”

Harvey lowered his weapon; his finger was still on the trigger, but it wasn’t pointed at her.

“I didn’t really think much of it until I saw Clayton in town – I just saw him by accident outside a Hola Sunshine of all places.” He shook his head ruefully. “So I had my brother follow him. My brother has spent the last three years recuperating in Mexico, and he is more than keen for a little payback. Dumb eagle never knew he was being followed. Knowing that he was meeting up with that whore Sadie, I decided it was time to take out Clayton and Sadie and have Cutter take the blame. I tried to get Cutter arrested back in Ursa, but it wouldn’t stick. Fucking asshole has more luck than a bloody leprechaun.”

“Did Clayton and Sadie even know anything?”

He snorted. “I doubt it, I asked Clayton but the stubborn fuck refused to tell me anything. I think he was just grasping at straws. But I wasn’t willing to risk prison. Do you know how many years I’d get for the deaths of those agents?”

Not enough, she thought heatedly.

“As for Sadie, she knew even less, but I couldn’t risk her staying alive, so my brother tried to kill her – not successfully,” he let out a growl of irritation, “but by now I’m sure he has righted that.”

He gave her a smile –
ugh, it was horrible
. “I have to say I am impressed that Cutter managed to get away after I shot him twice. We figured he’d come running to you, but we thought we’d give you two lovebirds a few days together before we killed you. It would make your loss even more devastating for him. Sadly, the photo sped up our plans a little.”

Harvey had a moue of distaste on his face. “My brother had this big idea to torture you in front of Cutter, to make him suffer, but luckily for you, it’s going to be a shot to the head. Cutter will have the blame for that too. Lovers’ spat, maybe?”

“There’s just one problem with that,” she said quietly before her eyes slipped over his shoulder as if looking at someone who wasn’t there. “Cutter!” she yelled.

He spun around, raising his gun and firing wildly at her refrigerator. Poor thing never hurt a fly!

But Lucie took the distraction to shift, her limbs shortened and she shrunk to her tiny beast. Immediately, she burrowed under the couch cushions. Thanks to Delmonte, the back of her couch had a small hole that the huge cat somehow managed to squeeze into. Another reason, other than Cutter’s blood stains, why she was getting rid of it.

She scrabbled and scrambled to get inside as he yelled, bellowed and roared and started tearing apart the couch. His claw-tipped fingers scraped dangerously close to her belly.
Oh, fiddlesticks, this was a bad plan!
She didn’t know how long she could hide.

Lucie squeaked as windows crashed, and she heard a pair of ferocious roars. Lord the house was under attack!

*

Cutter drove like a madman – or mad wolf. He had a few cop cars chasing him at one point, but he drove fast enough and erratically enough to shake them. Lucie’s little compact could really move when pushed.

As he neared her house, he saw the ambulance and the SEA cars. His wolf howled in agony as his chest tightened to that point that he thought his heart might explode. The Director and Jessie were standing outside with twin grim expressions.

He jumped out the car and ran to them, ignoring the fact that he was naked and splattered in dry blood. They didn’t seem to notice either.

“Lucie,” he choked out.

“We haven’t found her yet,” Jessie informed him, softly. “The scent of blood…”

The squirrel shifter appeared to be on the edge of tears, and the Director laid a hand on her arm in comfort.

Cutter watched as paramedics pulled Harvey out of Lucie’s house on a stretcher. His hands were handcuffed, but it was clear from the deep gashes lacing his body that he wasn’t going anywhere.
Fucking Harvey, he should have known
. Avery and Isis trailed after him wearing matching blankets and sporting twin feral expressions.

He ignored them all. He didn’t care about anything other than finding his hedgehog.

“Lucie? Lucie?” he bellowed as his wolf pushed at him to hurry.

He sniffed; he could scent her delectable blueberry scent. He let his nose guide him; he ran into the house throwing people out of his way. He threw himself at the couch, the frame was intact but the cushions had been mauled and stuffing was strewn across the blood-splattered room.

“Lucie?”

He strained and heard a snuffling. He almost cried with relief as a tiny hedgehog ambled out of a hole in the couch. His wolf roared in happiness as he snatched up her prickly little body in his hands, cradling her tiny frame. Her white tipped points tickled his palms.

“Fuck, Lucie, you are never allowed to scare me like that again, do you hear me?” he barked a little more forcefully than he intended.

The hedgehog’s nose twitched.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” he sighed, rubbing her rounded tummy.

He was never going to let her go.
Mine
.