Read Online Moon Rise (Twilight Shifters Book 2) by Kate Danley - Free Book Online Page A

stifled the urge to call out to see if anyone was there.  She didn't want to attract unwanted attention.  The tension was so thick, it made her want to run and hide like a mouse.  Neither Lars nor Finn made a sound.  Even their horses seemed to step lightly. 
    The road led to the campground where she and Lars had spent the first night, the night when he first transformed into a wolf and killed the guard.  He had been trapped here the rest of the time, slowly going insane. 
    But while the fog had kept back from them during their journey, this time it blocked their way completely, cutting off the road like a curtain.  Lars pulled his horse to a stop.  He tugged at the neck of his armor as if the metal was cutting off his breath.  Aein reached over and gripped his hand, asking silently if he was able to go on.  Finn waited as Lars wrestled his feelings under control.  Finally, he nodded and all three of them stepped into the mist.
    At first it was just white and grey.  Then came the sounds.  The snuffling, breathing sounds.  Then the noise of angry jaws snapping and biting.  It was just a trick of the fog, she told herself.
    "That was me..." Lars's voice cracked.
    And then they were through.  The campground sat before them, the wooden road gone as the land rose above the marshy waterline.
    "They're dead," whispered Aein in horror.  "They are all dead."

Chapter Eight
    A ein choked back the bile as it rose in her throat.  She needed to be strong for Lars, she told herself.  She fixed on him, but as their eyes locked, she realized he was telling himself the same thing.
    The campground was littered with bodies.  Their heads were twisted on their necks and their stomachs had been ripped open by something with sharp claws.  The doors had been ripped off the wooden sleeping shacks to get at the people inside.  They had been dead for some time.  The stench of the rot sat heavy in the air.  Flies and maggots were making a meal of these guardsmen, these loyal people who had faithfully served Queen Gisla.  They had not been killed by some wild animal for food, they had been killed for the joy of death. 
    Finn sat on his haunches, unable to stop himself, and lifted his muzzle to the sky, letting out a plaintive howl.  He had known them all, Aein realized.  He served with these men and women.  He would have been the one to send them to this doom.
    She ran forward and wrapped her arms around his body as he continued to cry in the only way his form would allow. She glanced up.  Lars was picking his way through the carnage.  He opened his hands and placed them against four evenly spaced slashes in the tree.  He could not spread his fingers wide enough to fit in the marks.  It was a monster who had done this, something so huge it could rip into the trunk of a tree with a swipe of its paw.
    Aein thought of what Finn and Lars had been before they’d eaten the berries.  They had been driven by this same instinct to destroy.  Whatever did this was not just some animal, it was a creature of the swamp.
    Lars tied the horses to a far tree, giving them enough lead so they could eat what they could of the sparse grass.  Finn finally stopped howling.  He leaned his whole weight against Aein, whimpering with every breath.  Lars crouched down beside him.  "We have to burn the bodies before the sun goes down," he said, his emotions masked beneath the stone surface of duty.  "Bodies in the swamp have been known to rise."
    She brushed back Finn's filthy mats of muddy fur.  "I need you to find safe water for us to clean ourselves in.  We will handle this," she promised.
    Finn wobbled away, as if each step caused him pain. 
    "Come on," said Lars to Aein.  "We have to do this."
    They began gathering wood and got the pit started.  Once the fire was crackling, there was no putting it off any longer.  Aein and Lars, picking up and pulling what they could, drew the bodies to the fire.  It had been so long since they