Unbound: (InterMix) Read Online Free PDF

small gray streak bounding up
     the hill from the west.
    It was the ugliest dog in creation, some unfavorable terrier mix the color of dust,
     with stumpy legs and a head like an anvil. His fur looked perennially greasy, even
     when Rob took the time to wash him in the basin. Deaf as a rock to boot. But sweet.
    “What’ve you been up to, then?” He crouched to receive the dog’s spirited arrival,
     rubbing his floppy ears. The animal routinely disappeared for a day or more at a time,
     but he’d been finding his way back for two years now.
    “You’ll be excited to hear we’ve got a guest.”
    At the moment the animal was more excited about a treat. It trotted to the edge of
     the yard and gave one of its wheezy near-barks. Rob got to his feet, following. He
     shifted the boards, unlatched the barrel’s lid, and sliced a strip of venison from
     the nearest hunk with his pocket knife.
    He peeled a long ribbon and tossed it to the dog, chewing on the rest as he secured
     the supply. They stood in some facsimile of companionship, working through the tough
     fibers.
    Useless though it was, he loved the dog.
    He
owed
the dog. It had likely saved his life.
    Three years ago, after his wife left him and his father passed away, Rob had come
     up to the Highlands on a whim, knowing in the back of his head he’d chosen it as the
     spot where he’d likely take his alcoholism to its natural conclusion. Drink himself
     to death in the only place he’d ever known any real joy. He’d booked a cottage not
     unlike the one he owned now, sobered enough to drive, and gone north with a few changes
     of clothes and a tinkling bootload of bottles.
    Perhaps five miles from his destination, the dog had appeared.
    Rob had been lucky to even spot it through the drizzle and the gin haze. It had been
     facing the other way, frozen in the road as though waiting for someone. Rob had slowed
     his car, gotten out. The dog had felt the slam of his door or his footsteps or caught
     his scent, and turned. Its tail had given a single, wimp wag, but the closer he came,
     the more it cowered. It was skin and bones, soaked from the rain. A creature as lost
     and pathetic as Rob had been, and that was no small feat. He’d lured it close with
     half a leftover sausage roll, and it had let him pet it. And being marginally drunk,
     Rob had scooped it up and taken it with him to the cottage, rabies be damned.
    The dog had kept him lucid that week, if not sober. At first it had shivered with
     anxiety whenever Rob had come near, and made more than one panicky mess on the floor
     in the couple of days it had taken to trust him. But after that, it had been his ugly
     little shadow. And somehow, watching the dog grow stronger and put on weight had been
     more compelling to Rob than drinking himself into oblivion. It had been a long time
     since anything had needed him. Depended on him.
    He’d brought the dog home to Leeds the next week and had it checked out by a vet,
     then took it back to the Highlands a year later when he moved for good. It was just
     the sort of companion Rob wanted. The both of them made of blood and bone, but mercifully
     unable to communicate beyond the simplest exchanges. Plus by the time Rob had left
     society, any creature that was excited to see him had become a rare thing indeed.
    The dog’s head jerked, attention locking on a trio of crows loitering farther down
     the hillside. It stared for a long moment before bounding off on its business, leaving
     Rob to accept the reality he’d managed to misplace for a few minutes—he had a guest.
     A wounded, nauseous, human guest he really ought to be checking on.
    He tidied the yard and cast the mountains a final glance, letting that cold rock root
     him in this place. Those snow-streaked peaks had been here forever, and they’d remain
     long after every human on earth had crumbled to dust. Much the way Rob would remain,
     long after Merry left to rejoin the race Rob had dropped out