The Alpha Emperor’s Resurrection

2: Aurelia

I had given up expecting Talia to visit Rome with me centuries ago, but I always asked her when I was planning on visiting.

We never went more than a few months without speaking to each other, and we witnessed the world change beyond recognition as our kind faded into obscurity - we had lived among other wolves, once, but for generations, it had been just me and my mother living in a world that was not built for our kind.

We moved countless times, learned countless languages, and immersed ourselves in countless cultures; but in all the lives I led with my mother, one thing remained the same.

Returning to Rome was not an option.

She hated the city, even though she had found happiness with my father, and she seemed to enjoy the life we led there with him when I was a child.

It didn’t matter that everybody she had known there had died a long time ago, because it wasn’t about the people, it was about what the place represented.

At least, I suspected that was what the issue was. She refused to talk to me or anybody else about it, no matter how many times she was questioned.

I only told her I was going to spend the summer in Rome because I wanted her to know she was free to do whatever she wanted to for a few months; I expected a lecture about clinging onto the past, or a sarcastic comment about me running away to find a Mate - a joke that had never been funny.

As far as my mother was concerned, there was no man good enough for me.

Whenever I found love, which had not happened for many years, she reminded me ceaselessly that my father had been the most powerful man in the world when I was born, and that he had given that power up to raise me; I owed it to him, and to myself, to be discerning about the people I let into my life.

I never loved anybody the way she seemed to love my father, and she refused to accept that any of the men I loved deserved the title of Mate.

According to her, I would feel foolish for using the term so blindly if I ever found someone I truly loved. And in her defense, she never called any of the men she spent more than a few months with her Mate, either. She respected the title, and the feeling, and she felt that we were too different from the other remaining wolves to form any meaningful connection with them.

We were different; she wasn’t wrong about that. We were the only wolves left from a bloodline of near immortals. Our longevity felt more like a curse than a blessing at times; Talia and I were destined to live on as the world changed around us, whether that was for better or worse, and she felt that we were better than other wolves because of it.

I was the only person she saw as an equal, and that was only because she was arrogant, and I reminded her of herself, even if my golden-brown eyes and warm skin tone had come from my father.

But I wasn't her equal - we weren't the same. Talia had been born a human, but I had no human blood flowing through me, and I had a power that even she didn’t know about; I had inherited that from my father, too.

When he realized that I sometimes caught glimpses of the future the same way that he did, he told me that I couldn’t tell anybody else. For two thousand years, my secret had been mine alone, and my mother didn't know that I was going back to Rome again now because I was chasing a feeling I caught in a premonition.

It wasn't even a full vision - I just had a feeling when I thought of Rome again that I could only describe as love, and I couldn't push it aside. I needed to go back there again.

I was shocked when she told me she would be coming with me, and I had been so sure that she would brush me off again that I was strangely disappointed when she didn’t. It wasn’t as if her presence was going to ruin my plans, but Talia could be exhausting, and I needed a break from her sometimes.

But I had asked her to come with me, and it would be awkward if I told her I didn’t really want her there after so many years.

She didn’t ask me why I was going back, but I knew she was questioning it, and part of me assumed she was only willing to endure the city because she wanted to keep an eye on me.

We arrived in the city on an early summer evening, and it felt exactly like coming home; it didn't matter that the streets were different, or that the people I had known were long gone, because Rome was where my heart belonged.

The air was balmy, and the full moon was bright in the sky by the time we got to our hotel; we left our bags in our rooms and headed out to explore the city at dusk when the streets were quiet, and it was just the two of us.

Talia had gone quiet, and I assumed she was lost in her thoughts, but I was so happy to be back in the city that I didn't care.

As we wandered the streets, I frustrated Talia with carefully moderated stories about my childhood in Rome, and pointed out the places I remembered visiting with my father.

Eventually, we reached the Colosseum and stood in the shadows of the looming structure, the golden light of the moon reflecting off its marble walls. It felt like a dream; something I hadn't expected I would ever experience again.

I looked at Talia, expecting her to be bored, but her eyes were misty, and a gentle smile was tugging at the corner of her lips.

I finally felt like she understood why I had come back and why it had been so important to me for so long.

"He would be proud to see this," she murmured. "He was always proud of the Arena."

I smiled at my mother; I had been trying to figure out what had possessed her when she decided to come back with me, and she had just given me an answer.

She was here for him - chasing the same memories she had been avoiding for centuries.

"We should come back tomorrow. It might be fun to visit the Colosseum as tourists, I'll bet they don't even know half of what really went on here."

Talia sighed deeply and smiled.

"I think that would be nice," she said softly.

We both knew that the memories might be bittersweet, but the trip was going to be much more than just nostalgia; it was a chance to honor the past, and as we walked back to the hotel together in a comfortable silence, I thought of the feeling...the premonition that had really drawn me back.

I thought it was the prospect of romantic love that had been calling to me, but I was already questioning that - perhaps it wasn't romance that I needed. Perhaps this would be a chance to heal my strained relationship with Talia.