Chapter 1

The cold metal of the table pressed against my fur, a strange sensation for a body I didn't recognize.

My name was Sarah, but my eyes saw the world from a Greyhound's height.

Mark, my husband, stood over me.

His voice was soft, too soft.

"She's been so aggressive lately, doctor. We don't know what else to do."

A lie. I hadn't been aggressive, just terrified.

Trapped.

The vet nodded, his face grim.

I tried to bark, to scream my name, but only a whine escaped.

Just moments before, or was it an eternity, I'd been in my own body.

Mark had given me a locket, an old family piece, for the anniversary of his ex-fiancée Olivia's death.

As I put it on, he' d slipped my simple silver bracelet onto Lucky' s collar, the rescue Greyhound he' d brought home.

Then, darkness.

Now, I was Lucky.

And in the vet's waiting room, I'd heard Mark talking to Chloe, his sister, my supposed best friend.

"Olivia's back, Chloe. She's in Sarah's body. It worked."

"And Ethan? He'll finally have his mother."

Ethan. Olivia and Mark's son. A son I never knew existed.

A son they planned to raise using my life, my body.

Olivia, in my body, had then called Mark, her voice, my voice, full of joy.

"Mark, darling, I'm pregnant! It worked, I'm pregnant again!"

My body could conceive. It always could.

Mark' s vasectomy, his contentment with a child-free life, all lies.

The vet approached with a needle.

Panic seized me. I thrashed, a real snarl tearing from this dog's throat.

It was too late.

A sharp prick, then a creeping cold.

The world faded.

Then, light. Blinding.

I gasped, sitting bolt upright.

My hands, they were my hands.

I was in my bedroom, the sun streaming through the window.

The air smelled like us, like home.

The door opened.

Mark stood there, smiling, a leash in his hand.

At the end of the leash was a nervous, skinny Greyhound.

"Sarah, honey, I want you to meet Lucky. I know you've been down, I thought he might help."

It was the day. The day he brought Lucky home.

The day my first life, the one I just died in, began its end.

I was back.