Jim Butcher: Blood Rites

Thomas came back from the store later that day. "Got the puppy a bowl and a collar and food and so on. Nice little guy. Real quiet. Don't think I've heard him whine at all." He tousled the puppy's ears. "You decide on a name?"

The puppy cocked his head to one side, ears tilted up with interest, dark little eyes on my face.

"I never said I was keeping him," I said.

Thomas snorted. "Yeah. Right."

I frowned down at the puppy. "He's tiny. He's grey. He doesn't make much noise," I said after a minute. I dropped to a knee and held my hand out to the little dog. "How about Mouse?"

Mouse bounced straight up in a fit of eager puppy joy and romped over to lick my hand and chew gently on one of my fingers.

Thomas smiled, though it was a little sad. "I like it," he said.

We started putting groceries away, and it was the strangest feeling. I was used to being alone. Now there was someone else in my personal space. Someone I didn't mind being there. Thomas was all but a stranger, but at the same time he wasn't. The bond I sensed between us was not made weaker by being inexplicable, no less absolute for being illogical.

I had a family. Hell, I had a dog.

This was a huge change. I was happy about it, but at the same time I realized that it was going to be a big adjustment. My place was going to be pretty crowded, pretty fast, but once Thomas got into his own apartment, it would be more normal. I don't think either one of us wanted to be tripping all over each other every time we turned around.

I felt myself smiling. It looked like life was looking up.

I had started feeling a little crowded already, sure. But I took a deep breath and brushed it back. Thomas wouldn't be here too long, and the dog was certainly a lot smaller than Mister. I could handle a little claustrophobia.

I frowned at a giant green bag and asked Thomas, "Hey. Why did you get large breed Puppy Chow?"

Version 1.0-scanned, OCR'd and spell-checked from mass-market paperback first edition. This is the sixth in my complete series of Dresden Files scans.

Version 2.0 -September 6, 2004-proofread and corrected by The_Ghiti from first printing (deadtree release date: August 1, 2004). Sorry this one took so long. I thought I had pre-ordered it from Amazon, but it never arrived, and it took me a couple of weeks to even realize it hadn't shown up. I usually correct obvious errors in the original, as I regard bookz as new editions, not mere "reproductions". If you find OCR-related errors, please fix, increment version number by 0.1 and re-post.