The Alpha Emperor’s Resurrection

7: Caius

I awoke with a start, my body wracked with pain, and groaned as I tried to stand.

My limbs were shaking unsteadily, and I stumbled around, trying to orient myself as I slowly regained my senses. Each step I took was agonizing, and I was blinded by the pain, but I was able to determine one thing; I was in my wolf form.

My legs collapsed beneath me, and I closed my eyes as a wave of nausea swept through my body. I let out a pained whimper, and my ears picked up the sound of something coming closer. Someone coming closer...

I opened my eyes to see who it was, but my vision was still out of focus, and it was so bright that my head throbbed in agony. Blinking hard, I gradually began to make out the figure of a person... a woman...

Her scent became overwhelming as she knelt down beside me, and I tried to move away so I could work out who she was.

She was a giant of a woman, but her features were delicate and feminine, and her nude body was unmistakably that of a young woman with full breasts and a slender waist.

I looked into her fiery eyes and she smiled. She had to be a goddess - she was divine.

Diana? Artemis?

The goddess said something. I didn't understand her, but she wasn't afraid of me and as I began to regain my composure, I was sure that her scent was that of a she-wolf.

It was different to anything I had known before, but her striking appearance was just as unique, and I had heard of White Wolves with hair like ice and eyes like embers - there was something special about them...about her...

I wanted to talk to her, because I still wasn't sure what had happened or where I was, but when I tried to shift back to my human form, my head felt like it had been run through with a sword, and I blacked out.

The exquisite young woman was still by my side when I awoke - I hadn't considered the possibility that she could be the one responsible for my pain, but as my vision came back into focus, I began to question who she was.

She was wearing a flowing white gown that barely reached her knees and the style was unlike anything I had ever seen before.

"Vestal?" I asked.

I hadn't meant to ask the question aloud; I had barely been aware that I was no longer in my wolf form.

She furrowed her brow slightly, and looked at me closely.

"Vestal..." she repeated, slowly.

Her accent was thick enough that it was clear she wasn't from anywhere I had ever been.

Of course, she wasn't a Vestal virgin; she was a White Wolf, not a human priestess, and the sacred virgins would never attend a man alone. She wasn't even wearing their uniform; there was no reason for me to think that's what she was, it was just something that had come to me on instinct in a moment of delirium.

"You speak Latin?" I asked, slowly, as I tried to sit up.

I nearly threw up from the pain, and I sank back down and closed my eyes again.

It took her a while to answer me, and when she did, she spoke slowly.

"I read Latin. I have never spoken it. Do you speak any other languages?"

Each word was spoken with an air of uncertainty, and I had no doubt she was telling the truth; she knew my language in its written form only.

"Do you know who I am?" I asked, a smile pulling at the corners of my lips. I could speak countless languages - I just needed to know which was hers.

"A wolf. Alpha, or high ranking. Injured."

She reached across me and carefully touched my forehead, and I opened my eyes to watch her. Whoever she was, she was gorgeous, and she didn't try to hide it.

She pulled her hand back slowly and turned away.

Perhaps she was a healer - if I had been injured there was a chance someone had known I needed to be treated by someone with knowledge of how to heal wolves.

I closed my eyes again in an attempt to focus my other senses so I could figure out where the strange woman had taken me after I blacked out in the forest.

The scents were unlike anything I had been around before; the way she was dressed, and the way she spoke, made me wonder whether I had been taken to another territory, but I still had no memory of what had happened before I awoke in the forest, and I didn't really have any idea of what was going on.

When the woman returned she helped me to sit up and I discovered that my vision was too cloudy to make out anything in the room. She was all I could see clearly, and it made me reconsider the thought that she may be a goddess or supernatural creature of some kind, even if she was a wolf, too.

She passed me a vessel with water - a cup made from glass unlike anything I had seen before; it was clear, and the water it contained smelled different enough that I was certain I was nowhere near Rome. The techniques and materials they had access to hadn't reached my Empire.

I drank thirstily, and handed her the empty cup when I was finished; I had been parched, and the water had only made me realize that I was in desperate need of nourishment.

"Food, please," I said, trying to use simple words and speak as clearly as possible to make sure the woman understood me.

She rolled her eyes, and sighed.

I had already decided that she was someone important, even if I didn't know exactly who she was, and this was evidence that serving strange men was not something she usually did; I suddenly felt that the act of bringing me a glass of water was something I should have considered an honor, and I regretted asking her for food despite the fact I was famished.

The woman was used to being worshiped, and I was inconveniencing her... she hadn't abandoned me, though.

Either she knew who I was, sensed that I was more than just Alpha, or high ranking, or she felt a sense of duty to aid me because I was a wolf like her.

She muttered something under her breath, and disappeared again.

I tried to orientate myself again, but the cup of water hadn't helped my vision and I knew better than to attempt anything as strenuous as standing up.

When she returned again she did not come bearing food; she had something in her hands, and she stared down at it for a moment before looking back at me and speaking slowly, but more confidently than before.

"I found you in the forest. Do you know what happened to you?"

I wished that I did. I had no idea, and my memories were clouded; I was suffering from severe memory loss, but that wasn't going to be a satisfactory answer.

"Do you?" I asked, partially hoping it had been a trick question.

She stared down at the object in her hands for a moment before she responded.

"Do you have a Pack?" she asked, ignoring my question. She didn't consider it worth acknowledging, and I couldn't blame her for that.

"I have a Mate." That hadn't occurred to me before... "And a daughter..." my heart raced as I was overwhelmed by the thought that they might have been caught up in whatever had happened to me. "Were there others with me?"

She shook her head, and I tried to stand up, as if I was strong enough to go hunting for Talia and Aurelia when I could barely see and I had no idea where I even was.

"Don't be foolish," she snapped.

There were thoughts running through her mind in a language that I had never heard before, and she was making no effort to keep them private. It was doing nothing to ease my concern, but I was sure there was something she wasn't telling me.

"What happened to them?"

Another long pause; this time it was nothing to do with her need to find the words to answer me, and I didn't need her to answer me to know what the response was going to be.

"I apologize."

Apologize was not the word she needed; she was sorry, but she had nothing to apologize for.

"What happened to them?" I repeated the question, because I was sure she had an answer, and that she was withholding the truth from me when I deserved to know.

"Time." Time? Another word that she had used incorrectly, but I didn't know what she really meant. She looked down again, trying to find a way to correct herself. "Time has passed," she said finally. "A long time, I think."

I sat in stunned silence, trying to process what she was saying.

"You don't know who I am... who they are?" she shrugged again, and I smiled. "Time is not an issue. They are probably alive."

"Not time," she snapped again. "A. Long. Time."

I nodded; I understood. I didn't really believe it, but I understood.

"They are probably alive."