The Alpha Emperor’s Resurrection

My mother used to tell me that Rome was founded by wolves. For twenty-four years, I thought she meant the myth of Romulus and Remus, the twin brothers raised by a she-wolf. I grew up imagining those boys suckling at her side, watched by the gods, destined to build an empire. But for two thousand years, I’ve known the truth. Rome really was founded by wolves. Not the kind that hunt beneath the moon, but the kind that wore crowns and laurel wreaths, that stood on marble steps dripping with blood and ambition. They ruled the empire for generations, and no one ever realised what they truly were. I was one of them. Cursed with immortality the day the Emperor stole my humanity, I have watched centuries fall away like sand through glass. Rome, the city once at the very heart of the world, crumbled into dust like every mortal dream before it until only remnants of the place I knew remained. What had seemed eternal proved as fragile and temporary as any life. I learned to see beauty in that fragility. In every empire that rose and fell, in every fleeting culture, in every brilliant flame that burned out too soon. I refused to grieve what I could not save, but to honor it. Grief would have made immortality unbearable. And when I was still a young woman, I swore I would never let the eternity I was destined to live out turn me cruel. For centuries, I kept that promise. I watched my people change. Wolves who had once walked openly among humans slipped into shadow and isolated themselves to avoid detection. They abandoned their thrones, their marble homes, and vanished into the forests and mountains that had once feared them. Their power waned, and their names faded into legend without humans ever knowing they had lived alongside us. The rituals that bound us, the sacred transformations once offered to the few humans like me who were chosen to join us, became secrets too dangerous to keep. When that knowledge began to die, I let it. Some things deserved to fade. Eventually, I left the packs I had once called family. And eventually, my own kind forgot about me. The bloodline of immortals I belonged to passed quietly into myth. When the wolves I left behind finally realised their power was dying centuries later, it was already too late. In their desperation, they tried to bring back the old ways. They meddled with the fragments of what they barely remembered, and what they created was… monstrous. Half-wolves. Half-men. Creatures trapped between forms, driven by hunger, unable to control their shift so that they mutated beneath the full moon. They tore through the forests and cities alike, destroying everything they touched without ever revealing their nature. And still, I did not intervene. It was not my place to fix the mistakes of those who had forgotten who they were. I watched from the shadows as their numbers grew, until they became a true threat to what little remained of my kind. It hurt to see them slaughter wolves born of purer blood. But pain is part of eternity. I told myself that if I stepped forward now, they would only hate me for surviving when they had lost so much. The world changed again. Humans built cities that shone brighter than the torches of Rome. They conquered the earth, the skies, even the stars. And still, I remained. Immortality doesn’t stop the inevitable; it only makes you watch it slower. I learned to live quietly, drifting through the centuries as the names of gods and kings turned to dust. Sometimes I lived among mortals; sometimes I disappeared for decades. The years blurred into one long breath of silence, and in that silence, I found a strange kind of peace. Except for one thing. One person. One love that refused to die. The Emperor. Losing Caius was the only death that ever scarred me. He was the reason I became what I am: a wolf, and his former Courtesan. I had hated him once. Hated him with a passion so fierce it could have burned empires to the ground. But that hatred turned to something else, something deeper, something that still wakes me at night when I dream of his hands, his voice, his scent. I can still remember the way his power filled a room, the way every word he spoke made men tremble and women forget to breathe. He made me feel alive in ways I had never thought possible. And even after two thousand years, I can’t forget him. I took lovers after his death, hundreds of them over the centuries, but none of them stayed. Their faces blurred, their voices faded, and their names slipped away like smoke. None of them were him. The ache of that truth is carved into every lifetime I’ve lived. The memory of raising our daughter together—those few fleeting years of happiness—still haunts me. No matter how much time has passed, that wound never truly healed. If I could change one thing, I would ask for a single day more with him. Just one. To show him the world he never got to see. To tell him that our daughter, Aurelia, carries every piece of him that was ever worth loving. She doesn’t need my protection anymore. Truthfully, she never did. But she still plays the part of the daughter I once lost, and I still let her. When she looks at me with those eyes, his eyes, I can’t say no. That’s how she convinced me to return to Rome. She called it nostalgia. A chance to see the city where she was born, to walk its streets as tourists and marvel at the ruins we once called home. But the truth was mine alone. I wanted to go back too. After centuries of staying away, I was terrified that my memories of Caius were fading. And the thought of forgetting him, even for a moment, was more frightening than eternity itself.