The Alpha Emperor’s Resurrection

41: Aurelia

When I answered the questions I was asked on the phone, I had forgotten how fragile humans could be. It was clear Scott needed help, but I didn't think he was close to death when I agreed to drive forty minutes to the closest hospital rather than insisting on an ambulance.

I could smell how weak the human was, and suspected Saga had caused some internal bleeding that might prove fatal, but there was nothing we could do for him without help.

"Has Saga done anything like this before?" I asked Robin as I glanced in the rear-view mirror at Scott as he lay across the back seat.

"Assault?" Robin asked, opening the window as he spoke.

I half expected him to pull out a cigarette, and I wouldn't have blamed him for it, but he was only trying to make the stench of a mortally wounded human easier to deal with.

"You know she won't be able to cover this up when he dies, don't you?"

"I thought you were familiar with our pack; Saga won't struggle to sweep this under the rug."

"So she has done things like this before?"

Robin took a deep breath and closed his eyes.

"Do you really need any more reasons to dislike her? She's not a bad person, she just does stupid s**t sometimes because she has never had to face any real consequences for things. But for what it's worth, no, she has never attacked anybody like this before. I don't know what got into her."

"My father," I responded without thinking, then blushed when Robin choked. "He got to her head. I may hate it that she's messing with him, but he isn't entirely innocent and I'm sorry that your friend is going to lose his life over it."

"Scott isn't going to die," Robin said rather forcefully. "That motherfucker is used to this s**t; Saga isn't the first person to put him in hospital and she won't be the last."

I glanced at the little animated car on the sat-nav navigating us to the hospital, then back at the human in the back of the car.

He wasn't going to make it to the hospital alive, and that was going to raise questions.

I flicked the indicator and turned off the sat-nav so it wouldn't try to correct me.

"Robin, your friend is dying. You do know that, don't you?"

He swallowed - he wasn't panicking or angry at me for giving up on getting Scott to the hospital, and I guessed that his upbringing had been harder at times than I assumed; he was used to following rather than leading in difficult situations.

"If she intended to kill him, he would already be dead. Felix knows about us, she had no reason to hold back. She was in control of herself, and she wasn't trying to kill Scott. If he dies..."

There was no if about it, and I sped the car up slightly. Robin didn't question that, either.

I drove to the edge of the forest Saga had found Caius in, without really knowing what had drawn me there.

It wasn't a feeling, or a premonition.

I could have used my powers to see a glimpse of our future and try to find something to help us, but it was draining enough at the best of times, and I was worried that it might put too much strain on my body - I was acting on instinct instead, and hoping I could rely on that.

When I parked the car, Robin looked at me with wide eyes.

"Baby, we can't just dump him here. I'm not going to pretend he's a good man, but I can't abandon him to die alone."

"I'm not asking you to do that," I said softly, hoping it would help reassure him. "If we go to the hospital he will die on the way, and we won't be able to do anything for him then. If humans see that he has died this will be a mistake that spirals out of our control. We will have to explain what happened; even if your sister has the money to avoid any repercussions most of the time, this will draw too much attention to us. What is going to happen if someone tries to talk to my father and finds out he has absolutely no documentation and doesn't legally exist?"

"People will want to know where Scott is, Aurelia. The rest of the band know that Scott and Felix came back with us, and people saw us with them at the end of the gig. I'll be the one called in as a suspect if his body is found in the f*****g forest, and aside from the fact the type of music we play doesn't exactly have the best track record when it comes to rival musicians literally f*****g murdering each other, I disappeared with no warning and it kind of screwed those guys over - it wouldn't be hard to convince people things escalated because of that and pin this entire situation on me. How do you think someone like me would cope in prison? How long do you think I would last before I had to choose between revealing what I am and killing myself?"

Unbuckling my seatbelt, I twisted around to look at Scott properly, then looked back at Robin.

"I need you to trust me -"

"-please don't put yourself or the baby in danger for this man, Aurelia. I would rather spend the rest of my life in prison than let you take a risk like that."

"The baby is going to be fine, and so am I, because I am not the one who is going to be doing anything: you are. I need you to trust me, and I need your help getting him into the forest before it's too late."