Emma's POV

As soon as the little boy with his adorable face dozed off into a sleep full snore, his confident and devoted father closed the Dr. Seuss book that he read to him, a smile plastered across his face, and took his sweet, loving time making sure the book was perfectly placed upright on the shelf before kissing Liam delicately good night on his forehead, tucking him in and leaving the door open ajar to go back to his room.

I took kindly to the couch downstairs, mindlessly staring up at the ceiling, often wondering how I got to this point. How could I possibly think there was any chance of having a date with him in my line of work? In my dangerous world and unique abilities?

With his shaggy brown hair, reminiscent of Shaggy from Scooby Doo—my favorite childhood cartoon—I often found myself wanting to run my fingers through those creamy caramel locks and pull his luscious lips to mine. Yet, despite my Shaggy fangirl tendencies, I knew I couldn't jeopardize the mission for my own desires. Still, I couldn't help but wish for this mission to be over.

No, I shouldn't have asked him out on a date when I had. I shouldn't have made this involvement romantic, falling for him in any way my animalistic side was telling me to. I was just supposed to talk to him and gain information as a human undercover, or at least that was the idea. The word undercover clogged in my throat. I was undercover alright. Just in other ways.

I was already falling for him by living with him. I was already falling for him by being with him. As a damn dog under his roof, living with him and his son was becoming something more out of a dream. It made what I had with Sheila and Frank more evil than I could have ever foreseen. There was no way they were my future from my past. The scars of claws left marks that would shadow me forever.

In my head, I thought, it wouldn't take long to make Blake fall in love with me as a human. I could have both him and the mission accomplished, right?

Did that make me sound cocky all of a sudden? Not possible, not after the lust I was given all my life. Love at first sight could be our kind of love. No, simply just the kind of love I was hoping for. But the way I felt about it, the more I wanted it. No, first sightings of love could be heart breaking, earth shattering. He couldn't even recognize that I was the German Shepherd he lets sleep at Liam's bedside or the dog he lets eat next to him at the kitchen table. Should that have offended me? No, not really, because the part of me that wants to see where this goes with him is willing to take risks.

I wanted to be human again. I thought my only chance was when no one was home, and I was right. Shortly after waking up to a fresh, fateful morning, and a sweet, wonderful aroma of milky butter and flour swallowing my senses, Liam gave me a kiss wetter than my canine tongue on the nose and took off for what could only be to a friend's house. For a split second after, I thought I was being left with Blake to watch me. But as it's a day off for him, he probably had shopping to do, so he eventually left, too. I had the whole place to myself.

This was my chance to get out. I wanted to be human again. I thought the only chance presented itself loud and clear the moment the car lights flickered on, the engine ignited, and Blake drove out of the lot.

Shifting and contorting my bones in ways unimaginable, the pain incomprehensible, and the screams silent by submission in the process, I wanted nothing more than to be in my human form again and out of the skin I was trapped in, but I also didn't want to draw attention to myself.

I couldn't alert neighbors to a strange noise next door, could I?

Silence was the only key to victory, and I held my breath with everything in me until the pain subsided and I was no longer a four legged creature. Fully naked and cold to the core from the quiet twists and emotional bends of my bones snapping and breaking in place, my skin radiated from the touch of air as I faltered out of the room.

If I could feel this way about who I am and what I was, I could only imagine how this amazing family would feel when the part of them that is human is rudely taken from them by this curse, the most important part of their lives forever disrupted by Raphael and the clan. It's how it happened to me and the same way it happened to so many others...and will keep happening until someone decides to stop it.

When they adjust to their new lives under the direct leadership of someone else as Skinwalkers (because they have no other choice), every instinct inside of me dreadfully knows Blake and Liam will grow to despise me for what transpired, what took place. Not dreadfully, but painfully.

What Blake saw while standing in front of and looming over the warning flashing on the news of the flat screen TV was exactly what it was. That excruciating gloominess in his gleam staring at the ferocious killings was irreversibly caused by what I was most afraid of: our killer nature. What our kind existed to do.

Any of those not accepted into Raphael's clan or approved by the Skin Council, a group of elders that oversee the young people serving in the clan and only visit on rare occasions, were ripped apart from the inside out, stripped of any and all of their freedom, and disposed of somewhere the police will find them. This included the bodies and remains of traitors within the clan that refused an order or tried to escape. All were shredded to bits.

That could be him and Liam. That could be me. No one was safe from betrayal.

Only after Blake's curiosity of who left the television on when we all arrived back from the vet's office did I suddenly remember that Liam left it on, his unique fascination of the news and crime reports at such a young age surprising me.

I still don't know what kind of life I was truly giving this family, what kind of life I was giving myself. I shouldn't have cared about them, but I did. We ended up tangled somehow, like a twist of fate.

If they became like me, Skinwalkers can change anywhere, anytime. Skin walkers can infect anyone with a single bite. Otherwise, they're basically a werewolf's cousin, but without the full moon holding them back. Silver is the only thing that will drop them, and if not that, then they will chow down on hearts like Snausages, a dog snack.

The only reason the process of recruitment was made in this day and age was to carry on the tradition of the ancestors that came before us. If not to eternally please them, then to serve them. I was to play puppet to a system that didn't fully respect or get to know me, the very system run by that of the clan Raphael rules over as the Alpha, the ruler in charge, recruiting only those that fit the description of what could be a good soldier, a good skinwalker, making a bounty hunter out of myself and others (or dying otherwise).

The more humans we turned into one of us, the more deadly and savage we became. We were enlarging and expanding an army for a grander purpose unknown. The system collecting and rounding up our numbers: whoever had the most recruits had the most freedom. They were able to move at free will among the council, part of their inner circle. The system had more to offer over time and everyone serving the clan in secret was lenient towards those with the most freedom. Our clan was slowly destroying that reputation we stood upon for centuries from our ancestors.

The tales that existed in our world were always meant to scare people. It wasn't completely wrong, but it wasn't completely true, either. Skinwalkers taking the faces of humans to possess and disguise themselves among the living: FALSE. From what I learned about our kind, we could never take on the disguise of a human's form, only the animal, or dog, in which we have picked at first turn.

Forget everything you know about us from previous teachings, because it existed to show how mad and insane we have all chosen to let ourselves become to keep our species alive and together. We never wanted to go extinct or lonely in a world insistent on purging us, so making humans into beasts like us was the only way. The most sadistic way, but what they thought was the only way.

I never fully agreed to this life I was given by Raphael and never fully accepted our killer nature, the life of a Skin Walker, and the life I still never come to accept until I was forced to live in it due to Sheila and Frank. The parents they were to me never ceased to eradicate my mind. I could never forgive just as much as I could never forget.

As a puppet not on one of their strings anymore, yet a puppet on the strings of another, I wasn't a machine to be controlled. I didn't want to be a slave to any more deceit and lies. I vowed to make a difference. I was choosing not to do this for them or myself, I was choosing to do this for something far greater than all of us. A chance to start fresh where Liam and Blake could be a part of that.

I took a shower to rid myself of any filth, or at least that's how I felt after my first time shifting, allowing the warm water to caress my human skin for the first time in what felt like forever.

Afterwards, I went through Blake's closet, hoping he had anything that looked presentable to wear. I shuffled around and found a box hidden in the back labeled 'donations' and inside was an old AC/DC shirt and jeans.

I quickly put them on, grabbed his old pair of vans, and headed out the back door. But I wasn't going to Raphael's without spying on Blake for a little. Catching a whiff of his scent, I needed more information, because I had nothing to report.

I hid behind a register to avoid Blake when I first entered the sliding doors of the store. He was just down the aisle around the corner and I was freaked about him seeing me in my human form.

It's not that I looked like Queen or anything, right?

Anyways, he was in the meat section looking at some sausages in the fridge. It made me hungry, salivating at the mouth. Drooling, I didn't quite master the dog to human transformation quite well and I was suddenly at the other end of the aisle, smelling the bacon.

I was spying on him to the point where I was standing an inch away, hearing and feeling a thud land on my foot. I gasped voicelessly, reluctant to not expose my cover.

He immediately apologized, which was the nicest thing he could've ever done. He didn't once look at me though as he was picking up the meat product that had fallen, which was a bummer.

Being undercover wasn't a problem. Not when my swirling honey stone eyes reflected in his finally and he was looking back at me just as admirably. He was unaware that I was wearing his old clothing and vans out of his closet...so far.

God, I was doomed; my cover was blown. I was stupid. How could I get away with this? He'd probably think I robbed him. Uh oh! 

But one look at those teddy bear brown eyes and I was in awe of him. He calmed me and got me thinking that I really did want to kiss him, but I couldn't...I couldn't actively pursue him like this. I barely understood the complicated feelings swarming deep inside wanting him, let alone continue this. But as we got to talking, we clicked instantly. With a pen, I left my number on his palm and ran off in a hurry.

I did that... I made more plans to ruin his life. Out of breath and on my way to Raphael's warehouse, I wanted to puke my guts out. If he fell for me as much as I fell for him, what would happen? There was no good coming from what happened. No good when Raphael was expecting me with a full report. I had to push Blake in the back of my mind. For my sake and his.