The Alpha Emperor’s Resurrection

11: Saga

I was shocked when my brother arrived back at the Villa with Aurelia in tow.

It wasn't because I had doubted his ability to find her, or that I didn't think she would still be alive - I just hadn't expected her to look anything like the woman standing awkwardly in Robin's shadow.

I didn't need to go to the effort of reading her thoughts to know he had found the right woman; as soon as she sensed her father, she pushed past Robin and ran over to the room.

"I think I found her," he nodded to the room, as if it wasn't obvious already.

"She's pretty," I offered, hoping to coax something from him. "I was expecting something different. Caius looks too young to have a daughter that age."

"If she's as old as she claims, I'm not surprised he doesn't look old enough to be her father."

"Was she alone?" I asked, casually.

"You're just going to gloss over the fact you f****d the guy, then?"

I narrowed my eyes at my brother.

"I was curious. Don't act as if you haven't been thinking the same thing about his daughter."

He rolled his eyes, but I was surprised to realize the thought hadn't occurred to him until I mentioned it. He just saw her as an attractive woman in her mid-twenties, he hadn't considered the fact she was probably more skilled than anyone he had hooked up with before.

"I don't know where her mother is. I didn't think it was appropriate to ask," he shoved my suitcase towards me, and leaned casually on his own. "I assume you still need me to donate my clothes to the guy so you can control yourself around him?"

I growled, a warning for him to let it drop, and he raised his hands defensively.

He knew there was no point in trying to embarrass me, and I wasn't in the mood to be antagonized.

"We need to decide what we're going to do about this."

"We? Are you seriously going to pretend you care what I think, Saga?"

I growled again, but he did the same back. I couldn't intimidate him that way.

"I value your opinion."

"Right. And I'm sure you will continue to value it right up until the point it differs from your own."

"And you will continue to do what I want regardless, because you are too scared to go back alone and face the depressing reality of your own insecurity and inability to take any responsibility for anything whatsoever."

I had possibly been overly critical with that response, but I wasn't going to let him shame me for sleeping with Caius.

"At least I have a reality, dear sister. I don't live in a fantasy world."

"Perhaps you should. You'd be less of a grumpy asshole."

He laughed, dryly, and told me to go f**k myself, but he didn't leave the Villa again.

"I assume you've decided where everyone will be sleeping?" he questioned me, with blatant sarcasm in his voice.

It was a genuine question, despite that.

"Upstairs, second on the left."

He retreated to the room with his suitcase, and I was left alone with a growing feeling of uncertainty that I couldn't pinpoint at first.

It was only when I caught myself glancing at the door of the room that Caius and Aurelia were in that I realized what was bothering me.

I needed to know whether his Mate was still alive.

“Saga…” Robin called down from the top of the stairs a few minutes later, and I felt my chest tighten.

I really didn’t want him to tell me I was wrong to sleep with Caius when he hadn’t even seen the guy and he couldn’t possibly understand what I had been feeling.

He called my name again, sharply, and I retreated upstairs so he could get whatever was bothering him off his chest. There were things I wanted to talk to him about, anyway.

He tossed some of his clothes at me as soon as I reached the foot of the stairs, and I let them drop at my feet.

"I hardly think–"

"–that's an overstatement," he laughed.

Insulting my intelligence was one of the few things Robin could do to actually get under my skin, and it was impossible for me to overlook even though I knew he didn't really think of me as vacuous.

I leapt halfway up the stairs in a single bound, fully prepared to fight him if he didn't back down; it wasn't so funny to him then.

When he took a step backward, I took a deep breath to calm down.

"Your scruffy ripped jeans are hardly appropriate attire for a former Emperor of Rome."

"I'm sorry; I'll remember to pack a spare toga with me the next time I follow you on one of your stupid trips, in case this happens again. Go and take him a spare bed sheet if it's that much of an issue for him to dress in something that won't make him look like an utter f*****g joke."

I didn't have a response.

The only thing I considered inappropriate about the clothes he had provided was the fact that they smelled strongly of him. I didn't like the thought of the man I had just hooked up with smelling like my brother. I highly doubted Caius would appreciate it either, assuming his daughter didn't take him away before I had a chance to see him again.

"Do you at least have sweatpants or something?" I asked, hoping I wasn't about to be called spoiled or entitled for it.

Robin groaned and gestured towards the room he had left his things in.

"Go and look for yourself. You'll be critical no matter what I suggest."

I felt bad, but I went through to the room anyway, and he followed after me. I started to pick through his bag as he lay on the bed and ignored what I was doing.

"How did you find his daughter so quickly, anyway? Do you think she knew he was around here somewhere?"

Robin continued to ignore me - at least, I assumed he was ignoring me, until he sat up and shrugged.

"That's not the impression she gave me. She didn't believe it was him until we got back here, I don't even know why she came here, to be honest."

"Really?" I paused for a moment, and my brother looked painfully unaware of what I had seen immediately. "You can't think of a single reason she might have come back with you?"

"Hope? Curiosity?"

"Thirst?" I laughed.

He rolled his eyes. He didn't think it was as obvious as I did.

"She's not my type."

"I wasn't aware you had a type," I teased. He didn't need me to make him feel any more awkward, but I was still bitter about him teasing me.

"I don't owe you a conversation about my love life, Saga. She's attractive, but I'm really not looking for anything complicated, or meaningful, and I can't see her being interested in a casual fling. And you were wrong to sleep with that man. We don't even know who he really is - what if there is something wrong with him?"

"There's nothing wrong with him physically, I can tell you that much."

Robin wrinkled his nose at my casual comment, and I managed to stop myself smiling at it.

"You could at least have waited until we know whether his Mate is still alive. What do you think he's going to tell her? How will she feel if she finds out the first thing he did when he came back after all that time was to succumb to your advances?"

I groaned performatively and closed the suitcase.

"He'll probably tell her everything is in working order. And I didn't seduce him - we acted on instinct. You should try that every now and then, you'd be a lot less insufferable if you weren't fighting so hard to suppress yourself all the time. And before you try to insult me, I am not saying that to hurt your feelings. I'm being serious; you need to stop worrying about everything all the time."