The Alpha Emperor’s Resurrection

27: Caius

Aurelia seemed exhausted when I finally had a chance to speak to her, and I was worried that Talia had been right to suggest that pregnancy was not safe for her.

"My sweet girl," I smiled at her warmly and she tried to return the gesture. She was sitting at the table in the kitchen with a full glass of water in front of her, and I thought back over the past few weeks in my head until it dawned on me. "You need to tell Robin you're not feeling well. He is your Mate, he should be helping you."

"He isn't my Mate, and I'm fine, daddy."

"You aren't fine," I sighed and went over to the sink, reaching for the potted mint plant on the window ledge behind it.

I tore some of the fresh growth from the plant, and crushed the fragrant little green leaves between my fingertips before dropping them into a cup and turning the kettle on.

"It's morning sickness, this is perfectly normal. And I'm going to see a human doctor in a few days; things are different now, remember. We'll have plenty of support - things aren't as dangerous as they used to be."

"Of course," I smiled lamely. "You know what you're doing, I'm sure."

She laughed, and it startled me.

"Did you know what you were doing when Talia was pregnant with me?"

"I don't think–"

"–nobody knows what they are doing when they have their first baby, or their second, or third - and if they think they do, they're wrong. I know there are a thousand things that could happen, and I've seen nearly all of them with my own eyes at some point. It's too early to tell how this will go, but I'm not going to worry unless there's something to worry about."

I finished making the mint tea and set it on the table in front of her.

"This used to help your mother. I'm sure there are better things to help you now, or that you're going to tell me it's bad for you, but I don't know what else might help you other than finding your baby's father so I can ask him to explain exactly why he isn't here with you when you need him."

Aurelia smiled, but I didn't know what she found so amusing when I was being completely serious.

"Are you going to demand he take me as his Mate, too?"

Of course, I wasn't going to do that. I didn't want him to lay claim to my only daughter just because he managed to get her pregnant within a week of meeting her. She could do better than a boy like that - I had always pictured her finding someone with the power and influence to give her everything she could possibly dream of. It wasn't that she needed anybody to provide for her; she had always been a kind, gentle girl but she was more than capable of fending for herself. I just felt that she deserved someone special, and Saga's step-brother was far from special, as far as I could tell.

"Aurelia…" I sighed.

"Robin is buying us some food, daddy. You have to stop acting as if he's going to abandon me at every given opportunity - he would never have left at all if he had known about the baby. I want to be happy about this without anybody making me feel like I'm making a mistake. It's bad enough that Talia won't speak to me without you making me feel like I'm a naïve idiot."

She was right, and I felt guilty for taking away the happiness that she had been denied for so long.

As she brought the cup of mint tea to her lips, I sat down opposite her.

"Do you think you're having a girl, or a boy?"

"I think I'm having a miracle," she smiled. "We can find out, though; not yet, but in a few weeks. When we get to see the baby, the doctor should be able to tell us."

"That's…"

I wasn't sure what I was supposed to say, but her eyes were glimmering and there was a spark in her that I hadn't seen since she was a little girl.

"They can take a picture," she offered as an explanation. "Not like the ones Saga has shown you, but we will get to see the baby and the doctors will be able to check that everything is OK."

"I wish I could do something to help you," I said, softly.

She sipped the mint tea, and smiled.

"This was a help."

"I meant something more noteworthy than making you a drink, baby. It wouldn't have mattered who did this to you if I still had power - I could have given him a job with decent status, and set you up with somewhere to live.”

Aurelia sighed, and I realized I was only making her feel worse.

“You don't have to treat this as an unmitigated disaster. Robin didn't do this to me, because we're not talking about an injury; I'm pregnant, not wounded. And he already has a job, daddy; we have enough money between us that he won’t need to work if I ask him to stay with me. I know that nobody was ever going to be worthy of me in your eyes, but Robin is a good person and that is what matters to me; he is kind, and loyal, and he makes me feel safe. What would truly help is for you to stop treating me as if this was a regrettable mistake, because that isn’t what it is to me.”

I closed my eyes for a moment and exhaled; she was being far more reasonable than I deserved.

“I’m beginning to see that."

I really could see that, but Talia had seemed so sure that it was a mistake. The fact she saw it as a disaster was the only reason she had come back, and I trusted her implicitly. But the fact I couldn’t ignore the way Talia felt was starting to cause tension that Aurelia didn’t need.

For a moment, I wished that Talia hadn’t come back.

I had missed her more than I could say, but missing her might have been better than feeling like everything was fractured and irreparable. Things were still tense and rather awkward between us whenever we set eyes on each other; I didn’t know much about what she had been through without me, and I wasn’t sure what I was to her anymore.

I still had feelings for the woman I had left behind, but I needed to get to know the woman she had become in all the years she had lived without me, and I wasn't entirely sure I wanted to when it was becoming clear that her reaction to Aurelia's pregnancy was at least somewhat unwarranted.

But it felt unfair of me to cast her aside entirely when she was probably still shocked that I was back, and upset by the fact I had developed complicated feelings for Saga.

Talia had never resented my meaningless encounters with women in the past, but the fact I had slept with Saga truly bothered her.

We hadn’t addressed that, and I was hoping I wouldn't need to.

I didn't know whether she was hurt that I hadn’t waited for her, or if she was upset because she saw Saga as a threat - I just hoped she didn't resent me for it.

I f****d another woman because the world felt alien and unwelcoming to me, and I needed to feel normal - that was what I told myself when I felt a need to justify something that I wouldn't have questioned in the past, anyway.

But that wasn’t all it had been, and Talia wasn’t stupid. She could see that I was attracted to Saga, and that we enjoyed each other’s company.

The fact I had slept with her a second time after Talia had come back was a mistake.

Talia had pushed Saga in exactly the wrong way, and they saw each other as rivals. Talia's actions meant it was a competition, and I had managed to choose a side because I was so easily tempted when Saga decided she wanted me.

The fact I had apparently entangled myself with the one woman as headstrong and assertive as Talia was making everything infinitely less easy to resolve; it wasn’t so easy for Talia to feel superior to another wolf, particularly when the wolf in question was so confident.

Their first real interaction had not exactly been a positive one, either - Talia was sure that the outcome was a foregone conclusion; she didn't think Aurelia would consider keeping the baby, and she definitely hadn’t counted on Saga defending her brother; for some reason she had underestimated Saga. She had assumed she was dealing with a self-absorbed i***t.

Talia had never been quick to forgive, and it felt like there was such a vast void between us that trying to reach out to her was an insurmountable task. A task that I didn't even want to attempt, because whenever Talia was around everything felt oppressive and unpleasant. When she was gone....it felt like we were a fledgling pack, and that everything was within our grasp.