Chapter Three
Shilo
Take over your grandfather’s shipping company, they said!
It’ll be easy, they said!
Lies. Fat fucking lies.
I sat at my desk at the butt crack of dawn staring at a slew of emails telling me nine kinds of ways that I was fucked, on the hook for an entire load.
In the middle of a merger and bankruptcy, a pet food company had lost track of a shipment of dog food. The damn thing was hauled across nine states into my warehouse, only to be told the company had nowhere to send it. Nor would the company be getting paid for it. Not only that, but I owed gas, wages, tolls, and taxes for…third-rate kibble.
It was always something, and during the winter parts of the year when business was slow, post holidays, it was a loss I hated to take. But… I glanced at another email with his accountant. Taxes needed to be done, and it was still early enough in the year to manifest a delightful write-off .
He checked the local shelters, thumbing through a few before he called.
The first one had too many numerical menus for me to truck with. The second one yielded more controversy than I wanted with a simple internet search, and the third, they answered on the first ring.
“Wallama County Animal Shelter, Ruth speaking.” A tinny voice on the other end had a hopeful quality to it.
“Hey! Hi, hello!” I fumbled the phone as the woman paused. “Hey, this is Shilo Warren from Warrenline Freight. I just got an abandoned shipment of dog kibble in and nowhere for it to go. You wouldn’t happen to—”
“We can’t buy it if that’s what you’re—”
“No, no, no! I wanted to know if you’d take a donation. If you have the room for it, I can drop the container and leave it there to unload, or you can hold on to the container until you’ve cleared it—”
“Oh my god. Please.” She sighed in relief and a pause stretched on, punctuated by doors opening and closing. “Yeah, and I think we have room in the storage if we pour it into the barrels in back. I’m the only one here today so—”
“I’ll bring someone. Can I come by now?” I checked the clock and my schedule. I didn’t have much of anything planned for the day. Overall, it was a great time. If nothing else came up, I could likely go home early for the day.
Write-off and a half day off. Win-win.
I grabbed the keys to the loaded truck and jogged out, pointing at my mechanic. “Blake, come on! You’re with me; we’re dumping the kibble off on the county shelter.”
“Righto, alpha. By the way, the missus wants to know if you’ll be home for the full moon party tonight. Kenny’s turning nine.” Blake, a wiry beta that’d been in a pack down south a few years back, stood and dusted himself off, stained hands brushing over equally dingy jeans. His ashen-brown hair stuck up at all angles. They’d left their pack when their son showed omega potential, wanting a better future for him.
“Wouldn’t miss it. If I get off early, I can run by the bakery and grab his cake.” I waggled my eyebrows at him and earned a sheepish shrug.
“Ain’t paid for it yet.”
“I know. I can grab a prezzie while I’m out, too.” Blake sagged a little in relief. I paid him well enough, but things were tough, still paying off his fees to his old pack, buying out his lot. Leaving a pack was expensive. Joining one even more so, but it was a little-known fact that mine didn’t cost. The land we lived on was in trust, a small packland, built out into a subdivision. We had no big projects or stakes or fancy resources for our members like some packs. We cared for one another, had a community center, childcare, swimming pool, and a free rein of the nature reserve to the south.
The shipping company paid for most of it, and we could give jobs to a lot of pack members. The only downside? I had to work, and I lived like everyone else, as an equal. To most alphas, that’d be a downside. They lived like mafia kings and followed whatever rules they felt like.
I ran a hand through my hair and stretched, making my way out to the truck, Blake at my back. “He still into dinosaurs?”
“Nah, he’s into those digital pet things now.” Blake chased me outside and hopped into the other side of the rig.
“Like what we had when we were kids?” I got into the driver’s seat and started the truck, letting the engine warm up.
“Nah, it’s some new thing now. They got clothes and come on phone apps. Miniatures and stuff.” Blake sighed heavily. “They’re cheap, so I like it.”
“That’s all you can ask is for cheap happiness. That, and snow days.” I laughed and put the truck into gear.
“You can call the cake his gift?” Blake elbowed me.
“Nah. Kids don’t understand that. What size shoe is he in?” I turned onto the road and made my way out. I didn’t need the GPS—I knew the general area and smelled the place a mile away.
“Three and a half.” Blake checked the mirrors and rested a hand on the dash, checking for something, a rattle or vibration.
“Better get a four, then. I’ll get him some cool shoes. Can’t go wrong with cool shoes.” I nodded, and Blake bobbed his head from side to side. Shoes could get expensive, and the name-brand ones were popular with kids, always. Any little thing that could help.
It didn’t take that long to get to the shelter, pulling into the cracked lot on the industrial side of town. Blake’s face seemed like it’d be a mirror of my own, twisted with disgust. The smell alone could choke a man.
I pulled up to the back door and put the truck in park while Blake went round to open the back to unload. While he did that, I jogged up to the back door to give it a few haphazard knocks.
A square-chested woman with short dark hair and a uniform so new it creaked opened the door, giving me a bright grin. In her hand was the saddest-looking fast-food burger I’d seen in a long while. As she pushed the door all the way open, the scent of fear, dog piss, and bleach slapped me in the face. “Ruth?”
She nodded.
“Just about to give this lil fella his last meal here before he gets put down, ’less you wanna adopt him.” She waved the burger at me and gestured at a cage with a shivering dog—no, wolf in it, chomping at holes in the fence, desperate for a taste of that awful fucking burger.
“Last meal? Put down? No! I mean, one sec. Yeah, I’ve actually been looking for a dog I j—” The dog met my gaze, mouth half open, mashed up against the grate. His tongue slowly retreated into his maw. “Yeah. I—he looks friendly.”
He didn’t smell afraid, the wolf in the cage. He smelled thickly of depression and acceptance. As he pulled back, mouth slowly closing, a thin string of drool stretched from the bar to his maw before snapping. A lone drop stretched from his maw and hit the floor.
I dropped my gaze to his chain, and attached to that a collar, one that had been outlawed for years.
He sat politely, watching me with cautious blue eyes. Maybe a little embarrassment, if not sheepishness.
“What’s his story?” I approached the cage and waved her burger off as she offered it to me to give to him.
“Found on the side of the road next to a terrible car wreck. Someone’s hand was still stuck to the end of the leash. Can’t get the damn thing off and nobody has the tools to do it.” She held the burger up to her face and sniffed it before wrinkling her nose.
“I have the tools.” I put my hand to the grate wall, and the wolf pressed his nose to my palm, his breath warm and steady.
“Need to have at least an acre for him to run or we can’t adopt him out.” She twisted her lips. “But I can fudge some paperwork. A home is a home.”
“I have an acre. Yeah, get the paperwork started. Here’s my ID.” I fumbled my wallet out, hands shaking as I handed the plastic to the woman.
The gray wolf inside the cage perked up, his ears lifting hopefully, head tilting in the cutest little tic. Those icy-blue eyes blinked sweetly before he licked my hand. A tiny whimper caught in his throat.
“I’ll get you outta here. I promise.”
“Ay, boss, where does she want this load of kibble?” Blake stuck his head in and froze, eyes wide. His watery brown eyes widened, the gold in them brilliant as he registered the wolf in the cage licking my hand.
As the father to an omega, the sight must have struck him hard. His mouth opened, and I raised a hand to silence him. “Blake? Go help her unload the truck. I’m taking our new little friend here home.”