"Quin. What a nice surprise. Didn't expect you in so soon." Eliza stood up from the desk as Quinton entered the warehouse office.
"Just thought I'd check on supplies." He smiled warmly at the older woman as he picked up the clip board hanging on the wall and looked over the request sheet. "Rubber sheets?" He raised an eyebrow, questioningly.
Eliza softly chuckled. "One of Sara's pups has been having accidents. She's worried he'll ruin the mattress."
"Ah." Quinton hung the clip board back on the hook and grinned. "I suppose that's something I'll have to deal with at some point."
"Oh yes, I almost forgot. Congratulations on your mating. I must say, there are quite a few disappointed omega's around here, but I'm happy for you. I always thought it was time you settled down and had a family."
"Well, the mating is only temporary. We just needed to secure a place in Black River for Caleb and his pup but I intend to be in the boys life as much as possible. Even if only as his cool uncle Quin."
"Only temporary? That's a shame. To hear Annie talk, the two of you are suited to each other."
Quinton sighed, running a hand through his dark hair. "I'm not sure Caleb is ready to even start thinking about taking on a new mate this soon. He only just lost Rhys."
"Well, either way, I'm glad he has you in his corner. From what I hear, the young man could use all the love and support we can offer. It's a dirty shame how his old pack treated him."
"It is." Quinton agreed. "He definitely deserved better."
An unspoken sense of solemnness hung in the air between them before Quinton finally broke the uneasy silence. "So, anything you need signed?"
"Just a few vouchers for building supplies. Shamus wants to get the new roof on his barn before winter hits." Eliza shuffled around the papers on her desk until she found the documents she was looking for and handed them to Quinton. He looked them over, signed them, and handed them back to her.
"If that's all." He said, "I'll go have a look around the warehouse."
Eliza nodded. "That's all I needed." She smiled as she sat back down behind the desk. "I'll have the order reports sent to your office at the end of the month."
"Sounds good." Quinton gave her a quick nod then excused himself from the room. The warehouse was one large storage area about the size of a small discount store. The open space was utilized by arranging multiple shelves throughout that held anything from canned goods, to discounted clothing items. It very much resembled a thrift store with an assortment of second hand items as well as new.
One shelf near the front of the building was used to store personal orders until they could be picked up or delivered. The majority of items were things that were common place, everyday items, that every pack member had access to. Orders would be called in to Eliza for items needed and the price would be deducted from personal accounts. Specialty items could be ordered as well however, those took longer to procure than the other items.
Pack members were, of course, allowed to shop in town if they wanted though many chose not to as the humans weren't always agreeable to having shifters in their stores. Quinton held several contracts with locals vendors who supplied the pack with inventory though they charged an arm and a leg. Quinton had no choice but to pay the outrageous prices though since finding humans who would actually sell to him wasn't the easiest of tasks.
Quinton would love to have the pack more self sustaining so he wouldn't have to rely on humans for so much but that wasn't an easy feat to accomplish. The pack had no manufacturing plants and frankly, no room to build any. The land utilized for farming was far smaller than what they actually needed and they yielded mostly vegetables, as there wasn't enough room for live stock other than a few chicken coops.
With the growing number of families in the pack, most of the space was used for housing. Before long he'd have to seriously consider expanding pack lands but that was such an ordeal. He'd have to get permission not only from the shifter council but also the human government, who kept close tabs on the growing shifter population.
Quinton didn't think it would be long before humans started imposing limits on shifter procreation. The last thing they wanted was for the shifter community to begin outnumbering the humans. There had already been talk of population control. What they had in mind for that, Quinton had no idea, but he knew it couldn't be anything good. If human-shifter relations didn't improve soon, they could find themselves embroiled in another civil war.
It was a concern for sure, but not one that required his immediate attention. If it did happen, it wasn't going to be for quite a few years. He hoped anyway. His more pressing concerns took the forefront of his mind, For now his main concern was figuring out how to juggle being pack Alpha as well as a mate, and step father.
It seemed odd to think of himself in that regard. Rhylan is his nephew but in this new role he also has to act as a father to the pup. Much the way he had to step up and be a father to Rhys when he was still young. Being a father to a temperamental teenager wasn't easy. They had butted heads far too many times for Quinton's liking but that was just how siblings behaved and teenage alphas weren't known for being easygoing. They were aggressive and often volatile.
Quinton had gotten into some knock-out drag-out fights in his day but Rhys was worse. He often speculated that Rhys felt he had something to prove, growing up in his older brothers shadow. He wondered if that was why Rhys was always so impulsive and at times, reckless. Quinton was the rational one. The one who always thought things through before acting but Rhys would just charge in head first, consequences be damned.
In a way Quinton almost envied Rhys's spontaneity. He envied the freedom to do as one wanted and come and go as one pleased without the constraints of responsibility. Living life on the whim of ones desires wasn't something that Quinton had the luxury of exploring. Not when he was responsible for the welfare of an entire pack.
When he was younger, maybe Rhys way of life had held some appeal to Quinton but as he grew older he'd come to realize that he was right where he was meant to be. He was meant to be a leader and maybe, being someone's mate wasn't such a bad thing. He wasn't a young pup anymore and most of the pack had been nagging him to settle down with a nice omega and start a family. Maybe Caleb wasn't the one he was meant to spend his life with. Their arrangement was only temporary but at least it would give him some good practice for when his true mate did reveal himself.
In the mean time though he'd be the best mate possible. Caleb deserved to be taken care of for once. Even if he wasn't the one Quinton was meant to have, he could make his life a bit more comfortable. He was pack now after all, and Quinton was responsible for all pack members, young or old. That's what a good Alpha did. They took care of their own and Caleb was his now, at least for the foreseeable future.
Quinton made his way through the isles of supplies, just glancing over everything, seeing what was low, or what was in over stock (no use wasting resources on things people weren't using) when he stopped in front of a small table near the very back of the building. It was just your average folding table, something they sometimes used when room was limited.
Quinton was used to seeing things like used clothes or a few random nick knacks that someone had purchased but then didn't want or even things that were donated. A couple of the older women often hand made reviving blankets and donated them for whoever needed one. In the winter one might find knitted gloves, hats, or scarves, and every so often you could even find home made art.
These types of things were usually placed near the office so pack members could come by and look through the contents themselves to see what they might want, but as it was still early Quinton figured the warehouse staff just hadn't gotten around to setting the items out yet. Lucky for him, he thought, that he was the first to see the table.
Immediately something caught his eye. Something that he wouldn't often find sitting in the back of the warehouse, because it wasn't something that was common place in shifter society. It was a hemp cord with a white-gold half moon hung in the center of it. Quinton picked the necklace up and held it in his hand. It was a little strange to see something like that in the pack because most shifters didn't wear any form of jewelry as it would break during shifting or worse, get fused into the skin.
It just wasn't practical to wear such things and a lot of shifters felt that necklaces were too similar to the times before the war when humans would put collars on shifters in an attempt to control them. This necklace, however, felt less like a restraint and more like an homage to their heritage. Quinton didn't know why, but he could suddenly see himself slipping the necklace over Caleb's head and the half moon resting against the space between his chest and neck.
Quinton could imagine Caleb wearing it, the gold shimmering against his delicate flesh as the sun hit the metal. Of course he couldn't wear it all the time, but maybe on special occasions, when the need to shift wouldn't be an issue. It would be different because Quinton was sure Caleb had never had anything like it. No one did. It was unique in shifters, but then Caleb was unique so the idea of something different suited him.
Quinton smiled when he thought of the look on Caleb's face when presented with the small gift. He was sure that Caleb would appreciate it, even if it wasn't a gift that would be normally given a mate or even a potential mate but then again, they weren't actually courting, were they? It was just a gift. From one friend to another. A 'welcome to the pack' gift. Of course Caleb would like it.
