The Dark of Twilight (Twilight Shifters Book 1) by Kate Danley

that despite the sound on the other side, that she was alive.
    "You were brave," he said.  And he meant it.
    "It would have killed me if you hadn't been there," she said, her voice trembling.
    "I need you to be even more brave," he continued.  "There are frightened people here with no training and I need you to show them they are going to survive.  I need you to be strong for them."
    She nodded again and swallowed down the fear tearing through her body.  They had made it into the chapel.  There was only one door out and in.  They were safe.  She was safe.  Finn pointed at the pews.  "I am injured.  Can you get them to block the door?"
    She wiped her sweaty hands on her fancy green pants.
    "Quickly," he said.  "There will be more wolves coming."
    She motioned to two of the older men.  "You.  Grab an end.  You.  Grab the other end.  Move the pews now!"
    Having something to do seemed to calm everyone.  A woman offered Finn her jacket and helped him to bind his arm.  Aein looked over as he pulled up his shirt.  His skin was punctured by a bite mark wider than her stretched hand.
    Finn found a match and lit the tall tapers on the altar.  Just having something to chase away the darkness, even as the wolf's claws tore at the oak door, helped.  The flat, painted faces of the gods looked impassively down upon them from the ceiling.  Their eyes were blank.
    "What happened?" asked Aein.
    Finn looked out the window.  "You weren’t there?" he asked.
    Aein shook her head.  "I was downstairs.   I left after we talked and went... it doesn't matter. How did these creatures get into the stronghold?"
    "These aren't creatures," he said.  "They are people."
    The word felt like a slap to her face.  Was he joking?  She turned and looked at the ones he had saved.  None of them were denying him.  Some were even nodding.
    "We were eating supper.  There was nothing to prepare us.  But people began writhing as if they were possessed.  I was sure they were going to die.  But then... they transformed.  They transformed into these monsters.  There was no pattern.  Your people.  My people.  Some sort of spell took hold and turned them into this."
    Aein could not believe her ears.  She shook her head in disbelief.
    "I don't believe you," she replied.  "People don't just turn into—"
    Her words were cut off as the wolf threw himself against the door again. 
    "It is true," he said.  "Every word of it."  His face hung slack.  "My own sworn brothers and sisters.  Fighters I have stood in battle next to all my life."
    "How?" asked Aein, her mind still not able to grasp what Finn was saying.  "How?"
    "I don't know," he replied.
    Her mind was swimming.  There was no way he was telling the truth.  She looked down at his hands, stained with blood, at the massive wound in his arm which still wept.  She prayed to the gods that it was not true.

Chapter Nine
    A s the night wore on, the sounds of the screams slowed.  The cries of the wounded faded as they succumbed to eternal rest.
    Gods be with them, Aein whispered silently.
    She looked over at Finn.  The bleeding of his arm had stopped and now he was dozing fitfully on and off.  He suffered so much blood loss.  If they were free to roam, she would have brought him immediately to the herbalist for healing.  Now it was anyone's guess if he would be spared or if it would fester.
    She had seen dogs go mad before.  There was some sickness which made them foam at the mouth and attack anything in sight.  To be bitten meant you had the disease.
    She looked over at Finn.
    But these wolves were unlike anything she had ever seen.  So strong.  So powerful.  And she had heard them before, she had seen what they did before.  If only Lord Arnkell had listened to her, she thought.  It had to be the same creatures that attacked the guards in the swamp.  But people?  She could not believe they were people.  How did they get here?  How had they followed her home?  Could