The Alpha Emperor’s Resurrection

19: Aurelia

Robin was clearly uncomfortable discussing our relationship, but he had been the one to bring it up, and I couldn't pretend there was nothing between us.

He made me feel more than I had for a long time, and those feelings had caught me off-guard.

I had expected a pleasant distraction at the end of a stressful night, but there was so much more to him than I had expected and I wanted to learn more about him - he was a mystery, and I was enjoying figuring him out.

I had looked at the account he messaged me from again after the first night we spent together, and everything about him was at odds with the image that he portrayed of himself there.

He was a musician - entirely unsurprising in retrospect, because he definitely looked like a rock star with all the tattoos and piercings I found so inexplicably appealing.

When I was curious enough to watch one of the tutorials he had posted online it became apparent why he was so skilled with his hands, and I was surprised that he hadn't mentioned his talent.

He didn't even have a guitar with him, and I was curious why he didn't seem to be bothered about something he was clearly so passionate about.

"Baby girl?"

My cheeks burned - I shouldn't have told him that was what my father called me.

I had been standing in silence for long enough that he felt a need to get my attention, and my heart melted despite logic telling me he probably used pet names for a lot of women.

He had Alpha energy, even though he didn't seem to think that himself, and I liked hearing him call me that because I was convinced it was his dominant side influencing him.

Or perhaps I was reading too much into it - maybe this was the entire reason I had needed time away from Talia. Because she always made such relentless, disparaging comments about the people I liked that I didn't have a chance to develop the warm feeling that I had for Robin.

"You must be hungry," I sighed.

He smiled and nodded, tossing the cigarette away, and I felt a wave of warmth wash over me as he put his arm around my waist and pulled me into him.

"I'm starving," he whispered, and I found myself wanting to get closer to him.

I kissed him, and he held me tightly against him for a moment before he stepped away.

"We should talk..."I sighed.

"Talk? That's not exactly what I had in mind."

I knew exactly what he had in mind, and it was not something he should be doing in public.

"We need to talk," I insisted. "I'll satisfy whatever primal urges your wild heart desires after that, but we can't just ignore the conversation we need to have."

He sighed, but nodded as he picked one of the menus up from the table he had been standing beside.

It didn't matter what the place served - I would rather have spoken privately, but that wasn't really an option when as far as Robin was concerned the conversation was going to happen now or it wasn't going to happen at all.

He flagged down the attractive young waitress with elegantly executed roses tattooed on her forearms, and I felt a pang of jealousy when he smiled at her with the look I was all too familiar with sparkling in his eyes.

She was probably better suited to him than I was - she wasn't thousands of years older than him, and the fact she asked him if she could take a selfie with him made it clear she knew who he was and admired his work.

I felt like I was invisible - my golden blonde hair and mainstream fashion choices were not the sort of thing anybody would expect him to find appealing, and she probably thought I was from his record label or something.

He ordered his drink in clunky broken Italian, and I felt my gut twist when the young women looked at me.

I asked for plain tap water, because I was feeling bitter.

"You're not nervous, are you, baby girl?" Robin teased me.

"Don't be ridiculous. Why on earth would I be nervous?"

"Because..." he paused to smile at the waitress, and I finally realized he wasn't even remotely interested in her. He was trying to wind me up.

"I am not going to let that arrogant Alpha streak you have get to me," I murmured as I looked into his eyes.

He was amused. He always was when I used that word to describe him.

"Well then, let's get to it." he said, taking a sip of his drink. "What was it that you wanted to talk about?"

"You know what. Us...whether there is even an us or not..." I responded, lamely. "You've definitely been considering it, Robin, and... I haven't felt like this in a long time."

"I didn't want a relationship. That's part of the reason I left with my sister..."my heart sank, but he reached out to take my hands. "I have thought about what we might be like together, though. To be perfectly honest, I'm not really sure what I want any more."

I couldn't blame him - sleeping together was an impulsive decision, but the fact things would be particularly complicated if he pursued me had been on his mind, and I had learned a lot about him from the way he was thinking about it.

That was part of why I was sure he was supposed to run a pack of his own - he was more considerate of his actions than his sister was by far, and that was more important than the kind of skills she had been born with. She was more suited to independence than leadership, whether she was willing to accept it or not.

"We don't have to decide anything right now," he said, and I suspected he was telling himself that more than me. "There's not exactly any rush, is there?"

That wasn't why I wanted to talk to him, and he knew that.

"We can't keep acting as if we're in a relationship." He nodded and squeezed my hands before releasing them; he couldn't hide his disappointment, but he had been expecting me to say something like that, and he didn't try to argue about it. . "It's too hard to live like this, knowing that it might not go anywhere."

“Does it have to go anywhere?”

I sighed, and stared down at the glass of water I had ordered out of spite.

“I don’t think we have any control over that,” I murmured. “It isn’t up to us - I can’t stop myself caring about you..”