Page 48 of Israel

They all laughed. The cage door swung open, and she called to him but he knew he couldn’t go to her; the men with the knives would cut him to pieces. And then the woman turned into Selina, and Ashley was in another cage, and she was trying to shift but she couldn’t and she was getting weaker and weaker and the men were laughing and his cage was getting smaller and smaller, and he’d never get out and he couldn’t breathe and the laughter went on and on and he knew he was going to die…

Israel woke up, sweating and panting and fighting the sheets. For a second he thought he’d been closed in a coffin, his air cut off. And the laughter was still going on…

Fuck.

He was in his bunk in the tour bus, and the laughter was Enzo and Julio and Carlos drinking and playing Exploding Kittens with Alicia and Tiffany.

He still couldn’t breathe. He slid out of the bunk and into the hallway, which was almost as claustrophobic as the bunk, barely wide enough to walk down without turning sideways.

Ashley was in her bunk with the curtain closed. Israel stumbled into the rear lounge and pulled the curtain across after him.

He had to keep moving, but there wasn’t even room to pace in here. His wolf was growling the way he always did after the nightmares. It was a constant snarl deep in his chest, and he felt like he was being clawed to pieces from the inside out.

He had to get off this bus.

He couldn’t get off the bus. If he did, his wolf would shift and run. He’d throw the whole tour off schedule, and they’d never be able to explain it to the humans.

If he did that, if he exposed himself, he could never come back.

He’d have to leave Ashley, and that couldn’t happen. Even though she probably wanted him to.

Take her away with us! His wolf snarled.

He couldn’t do that either, but his wolf was in no state to listen. It would make her unhappy, Israel said.

She’d be with us. She’d be happy. We’d be free.

We have to stay with Ashley, and she has to sing, Israel said desperately. Making her stop would make her sad.

And taking her away would bring her family’s wrath down on them both. Even if she wanted to go.

His wolf just snarled and raged. Out, he started in a low howl. Out, out, out…

Shit. Israel slammed the window open and leaned his palms against the wall above it, trying to breathe. Humid summer air rushed in along with the choking smell of exhaust, mixing with the interior bus smell of sweat and bathroom stink and takeout food and too many bodies in a small space.

He swallowed vomit.

Think about Silverlake, he told his wolf. The smell of the pine forest. The fresh taste of the mountain streams. Miles and miles of places to run…mountaintops where you can look down on the whole world… He was filled with a longing so acute it was painful.

If he were home, Kane would run with him. Fight with him if he needed it, bleed him if he had to.

But Kane had Rachelle now. And Israel had no one.

He focused on breathing in, breathing out. Breathing in, breathing out.

But he felt like he was choking. The wall felt like bars under his hands, and the stink smelled like the foul, soiled blankets on the bottom of his cage. Everything stank, and there was the woman with evil eyes staring through the bars. She was going to bleed him and torture him and he had to get out…

The howl rose up from deep inside him, and he had to choke it back. Everyone in the bus would know what he was. His fingers turned to claws and dug gouges into the wood paneling above the window.

Fuck. He was going to shift. He felt his skin rippling and his muscles seizing. No. No. No.

He was surrounded by evil angels with knives.

“Israel?”

Someone grabbed his arm and he jerked away, his lip lifting in a snarl, his canines sharp and dangerous. “Get away from me.”

It was her. The nightmare woman.