What was going on? How could this have happened to him again?
Something struck him hard in the back of his head.
One moment he was lost in the dark, and in the next he was in his bed with Aimee leaning over him, her features contorted by her fear and worry.
Aimee started to pull away as Fang shifted from wolf to human, but the panic in his eyes riveted her. His breathing ragged, he held on to her hands as if they were a lifeline for him that he was afraid she'd remove.
It made her ache for him. "Are you all right?"
He grabbed her and pulled her into his arms where he held her in a crushing embrace.
She frowned as she realized he was shaking all over. Scared for him, she wrapped her arms around his body to help as best she could. "What is it?"
"Nothing."
But she knew better. Something had happened to him again. Something he didn't want to share.
Fang held her close, letting her scent and arms anchor him back in the world of the living. Closing his eyes, he tried to settle his nerves and his breathing. He felt like an idiot for acting like this. . . .
But the trauma of the Nether Realm was still raw and biting. He never wanted to go there again. He never wanted to go to sleep without having a way to come back.
Shell-shocked and weak, he wanted to feel safe again. But he seemed to have no control over himself anymore. No control over anything.
It was a feeling he hated.
Aimee pulled away to look at him. She placed her hand to his cheek as she searched his eyes with her gaze. "You've been asleep for two days. I was beginning to worry that you were lost again."
He stared at her in disbelief. Two days? Had it really been that long. "What?"
She nodded. "Today is Thanksgiving and you've already slept through most of it."
Fang shook his head as those words sank in. How had that much time passed and he not known it? It seemed like he'd only just lay down to rest.
Aimee scowled. "Did you not hear when Vane and his mate came in to talk to you a little while ago?"
"No," he lied, not wanting to admit to her how close he'd come to slipping back into the comatose state he'd been in before. "Are they still here?"
Both of her brows shot up as she cocked her head suspiciously. "You didn't hear the commotion in the connecting room a few minutes ago?"
"What commotion?"
She gestured toward the wall where a giant mirror was mounted-strange how he'd never seen through that in his sleep. Only through the door. "Vane's mate, Bride, beat your mother down in the next room when Bryani came here to kill you. Bride actually caged her during the fight . . . did you really sleep through all that?"
He was aghast at what Aimee described. His mother had come for him?
Was that why he'd seen Alastor?
But the most incredible part was that a human had defeated their mother . . . that took courage and strength. And a giant boatload of stupidity.
"I guess I did."
She shook her head. "I've heard of heavy sleepers before, but dang, wolf. You're special." She stepped back. "Vane and Bride are still downstairs if you'd like to see them before they leave."
That he had mixed feelings about, but his brother needed to know he was alive and back in the world of the living. At least for the time being.
At the rate he was going, he could be sucked back into hell in a heartbeat.
Without a word, Fang dressed himself in a long-sleeved black shirt and jeans before he got up and almost fell again. He caught himself against the bedpost, despising the fact that he was still weak. He needed to be in fighting strength as soon as possible.