“No. I was picked.”
“Picked?”
“Handpicked,” Sebastian pipes up and I focus on him for a moment.
“Handpicked? By what means?”
CK speaks again. “Bloodline, mostly.” He shrugs evasively.
“Oh, please, modest much?” Sebastian scoffs. “Bloodline and being Quam Optime. Better than the best, the cream of the crop, the crème de la…”
“I think they get the point, Bastian,” CK snaps at him.
“The best at what?” Coles asks, forgetting his anger in the sight of such intrigue.
CK frowns at him and says, “It doesn’t matter. It makes no difference now who my father was or when my birthday was or how accomplished a warrior I was. I was thrust into this.” I can see his lack of consent riles on him, but I look at Sebastian as he looks at me and we both open our mouths to be the first to ask the question, “When is your birthday?” We ask it in unison, glaring at each other.
CK glowers at us. “I said it makes no difference now.”
“You just hate giving up information about yourself,” Cole says suddenly. “What’s the big deal?”
Silence.
“You as well, Liv. I have no idea when your birthday is.”
“Well, I don’t celebrate it, Cole. What am I going to do, put a thousand and seventeen candles on a cake?” I ask wryly.
He chuckles. “No, I suppose not. Still, I’d like to know.”
“Seventeen? You were seventeen when Constantine turned you?” Sebastian asks out of the blue.
Startled, I turn to him, “No, I was sixteen.”
“Sixteen?” he repeats in disbelief. “You turned her when she was sixteen?” he asks CK, who looks mildly embarrassed.
“So what?” I say, confused.
Ignoring me, he says, “What happened to the over-eighteen rule?”
“What over eighteen rule?” I ask, now even more confused.
Sebastian turns to me. “Our sire has a policy of only turning people over the age of eighteen. Or at least he did,” he says pointedly.
I look at CK. “Why over eighteen? It’s only recently that became ‘adult’ age. We all grew up way quicker than that back then.”
CK straightens his suit jacket cuffs to show his discomfort. “I didn’t want to be lumbered with a bunch of children. It was a personal choice,” he says haughtily.
I’m beyond hurt by his confession, asking, “Children? Is that what you thought about me?”
“Christ, Aefre. Do you even have to ask me that?” he asks, exasperated. “You had already been married for two years when I met you. Hardly a child. Do you think I would have gone anywhere near you if I thought that?” he adds, highly insulted that I appear to think so little of him that he would defile a child.
I think about it for a moment, which angers him further. “No,” I say eventually. “I don’t suppose you would.” He looks slightly mollified. “But what was your plan?” I ask, having a massive sense of déjà vu. “Were you just going to hang on until I became of age?” I continue, saying the last three words with a showy hand movement to which Sebastian snickers.
“That is kind of a moot point, my dear, seeing as the alternative was to leave you to bleed to death. And besides which, I know I would have turned you sooner rather than later because of the…” He stops at my horrified look.
“Because of the what?” Cole asks, annoyed.
CK smiles then, his features returning to one of smug arrogance as he becomes aware that I have not told Cole about the baby.