Page 49 of Israel

His claws scraped on the paneling as he pulled them loose. He knew his eyes were flashing full gold, feral and wild. He growled and faced his attacker.

Ashley. Fuck. One tiny part of his mind that was still coherent recognized her. Warring instincts rose up inside him.

Get out.

Protect her.

Get out.

Protect her.

He stood frozen between the two instincts, his breath coming in sharp pants. His hands flexed and fisted, flexed and fisted, his claws digging into his palms each time he clenched them. Blood began to drip down onto the floor.

He saw Ashley’s eyes widen. Before he realized what she was doing, she was right in front of him, his hands cupped in her small, soft palms. “Shh, shh,” she murmured. “Don’t hurt yourself. It’s all right.”

It wasn’t all right. He might hurt her, and he couldn’t. He had to protect her at all costs.

“I have to get out.” His voice was a hoarse, ragged whisper.

“I know,” she said, her voice low and soothing. “I know. Too many people. Too many smells. No space to move. No space to run, or breathe, or fly.”

She understood. The tension in his muscles eased a fraction. “I can’t breathe,” he said. He closed his eyes. “There’s bars all around me, and the people. Hurting me. They’re going to—they’re going to—”

His voice broke and his throat choked with tears. He clenched his hands again, and his claws dug deeper. Blood helped. Blood always helped, blood and pain. He couldn’t cry. He couldn’t think about the loneliness and the fear, because then he’d crumble into tiny pieces, and he wouldn’t survive.

“Shh, shh,” she said again. She sounded like she was comforting a child. He felt like a child, fourteen again, skinny and scared. His hands were slick with blood, and he could smell it, the coppery scent filling his nostrils and blocking everything else out.

Her hands were gentle, soft except for the guitar calluses at the ends of her fingertips. He could feel them on his skin, feel everything like his skin had been thinned to nothing, and every touch bruised his soul.

Her hands were slick with blood now too, but she didn’t pull away. Instead, she gently pulled his clenched fingers open, unmindful of the razor-sharp claws that extended from them.

“It’s okay. You’re okay.”

He was still growling, he could hear himself, but his muscles were no longer twitching with an imminent shift. Slowly, his vision began to clear. The bars disappeared, Selina’s face and her knives and the hideous tendrils of her mind digging into his brain.

He took a deep, shuddering breath. “I have to get out of here.” It was a low, growling whisper.

“All right,” she said. “If you really have to, we’ll talk to Avery. In a minute, okay? We’ll get him to stop at a rest stop and you can get out and run.”

“I can’t leave you. I have to protect you.”

Even he could hear how ridiculous that sounded right now. He could barely keep his shit together. He couldn’t protect anyone, even himself.

She didn’t laugh. “I know,” she said. “You’re my bodyguard. I’m counting on you.”

A tiny tendril of warmth sprouted in his chest. She probably didn’t mean it. She was probably just trying to calm him down.

But he wanted her to count on him. Even if he was a fucked-up mess and she didn’t want to be his mate.

“Here, sit down for a minute. We should clean you up before we go up front and people see you.”

She reached behind her and grabbed a t-shirt from a stack on the junk bunk just outside the door, and a bottle of water from the case on the floor in the corner next to her.

Then she sat down on the leather seat under the window, grasping his hands and pulling him down gently with her. He sank into the seat. He was starting to shake with reaction, and he was still growling low in his chest. He couldn’t seem to stop, or think.

“Just breathe,” she said, as if she could read his mind. The air from the window rushed past his head, cooling the sweat on the back of his neck.

She slid part of the t-shirt onto his thigh, underneath their clasped hands. Without letting go of him, she twisted the cap off the bottle of water with her teeth and poured some it over their hands. Then she began gently wiping the blood away with the rest of the t-shirt.

He could see the cuts beginning to heal already. His claws were still manifested, but Ashley paid no attention, pouring more water onto the cloth and wiping in between his fingers.

He couldn’t stand it, her being so kind but not loving him. He pulled away from her, curling up on the seat and trying to focus on the rush of air coming in the window, still feeling like he might throw up any minute. He huddled into the corner, not her to look at him. His hands were still bloody, his claws still out. His chest rumbled with the soft, snarling growl he couldn’t stop.

She shouldn’t see him like this. No one except Kane had ever seen him like this.

She would never love him now.