Page 3 of Lost and Pound

So, frankly, unless someone wanted to “adopt” me, I wasn’t getting out. My only out was at the end of a needle, just another number in a fucked-up system.

I wondered how many other shifters had met their end this way—trapped in an animal shelter. Other packs tagged their members with RFID chips for that exact purpose, but my father’s pack didn’t. It wastoo expensive.

The alphas got it done, though. Some betas the alpha deemed important enough.

A lone employee walked by, their beige uniform swishing as they did. I tracked them, ears perking when they stopped. With a gentle sigh, they stared at me, a baleful expression lingering. “Wish I could keep you, buddy.”

Wish you’d make that mistake.I’d kill to be put in someone’s backyard for five minutes.

The lonely clipboard that hung on the wires of my cage rattled as she checked the papers, flipping through them. “Today’s your day. Got any last requests?”

I glanced up at her. I couldn’t tell her that death was preferable to the life that was set before me. That is, I didn’t mean I wanted to die, but if death was my only option… I couldn’t fight it. I could attack and kill a human, try to escape when they opened my cell, but without thumbs, I couldn’t open a door. Without theright kind of pedigree, they wouldn’t even show me to humans that would be dumb enough to leave a gate unlocked.

“Mickey D’s burger it is.” She huffed and opened a Velcro pocket on her cargo pants and pulled out a cold, stale, paper-wrapped burger. Not only was it so cold it threw off only the barest of scents, but it also reeked of freezer burn. Likely a donation bag of burgers they kept on hand for this occasion. What I wouldn’t give for a fresh, warm one.

As she held the burger up to the grate, my nose betrayed me, twitching rapidly. It’d been a long few weeks of horrible kibble and tepid, barely potable water. Long few weeks since I’d seen a bath or toothbrush either.

I climbed to my unsteady paws and loped the four or so feet to the metal grate, eyeing stains of unfathomable origin and rusted spots peeking past the industrial beige paint. A barely audible whimper escaped my maw as I opened my mouth and neared the burger. There, I inhaled the scent of bread, cheese, and—debatably—meat. My gums stung with the tang of my salivary glands, tongue outstretched. And, at the last possible minute, she jerked the burger away and turned, distracted by a rhythmic pounding on a metal door.

Fuck! No! Get back here last meaaaaal!I whimpered and buried my face against the grate, biting at the air, tongue outstretched.

And then it hit me, a scent over the burger.Alpha.

I glanced over just in time to see the employee, stale burger still in hand, turning in the hallway, tailed by well over six feet of beautiful, broad, and sweet-scented alpha.

Unmated. Powerful. Backed by a pack.

Worth the risk.

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 delightfulwrite-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—”

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