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Dog had always known that someday he would have a Master.
It was, after all, the purpose of his existence. And it was in the very nature of his species. Hellhounds do not have families, so to speak. Nor, despite their canine-adjacent side, do they form packs in any conventional sense of the word.
When you come right down to it, a hellhound is really nothing but unshaped potential until it has received its mission, found and bonded to its exclusive and eternal Master, and been given its Name. Then, once bonded and Named, it is a simple matter of conforming to the requirements of the Name and doing its Master’s bidding in all things.
And, just as he had always known he would, Dog had indeed found his designated Master. His Person. His Boy. Best of all, his Adam.
The details, admittedly, hadn’t all gone exactly as he might have anticipated back in the time before he’d become Dog and adjusted to the demands of that Name. But still, the overall shape of things proceeded more or less exactly as expected. He had a Name, he had a bond, he had a Boy. Dog had attained that which was every hellhound's mission in existence… only rather better, because he had a vague feeling that most hellhounds didn’t get to chase squirrels or eat pieces of apple or play tag with their Masters on a regular basis.
Except that it didn’t stop there.
Because the thing was, Adam had friends. And the friends played with Dog, too. They pet him, they gave him treats, they pulled on his ears until Adam made them stop. They knew Dog by name, and he knew them by smell.
As a general rule, there are two categories of beings that a hellhound knows by smell on an individual level: its Master, to whom it is bonded, and its enemies, whom it hunts. The three other Them belonged in neither category.
And nor did the people whom Adam — and therefore, by extension, Dog — knew as Dad and Mum. Mum, who absently scratched Dog on the ears while she talked on the phone. Dad, who perpetually grumbled about That Beast Getting Fur Everywhere but also slipped food under the table when Adam was away at school.
He knew them all, and they knew him. None of them were Adam, none of them shared the same kind of bond with Dog as he did with his Boy. And yet, in some lesser yet nonetheless strong way, he still felt that the others were his, too … and he theirs.
Hellhounds do not work in packs. They neither find nor form families. It is a fact of their existence, a part of their very nature. They are lone creatures, bonding to one being and that one being only.
But after all, Dog had received his Name and adapted accordingly. And it was possible that he was no longer entirely — or, at the very least, no longer exclusively — a hellhound.