He shifted his gaze. “It’s not up to me. It’s up to—”
“Thaddeus, yes, I know,” I snapped.
His Adam’s apple bobbed as he gulped. “I’m sorry. He’s the one that turned both Blaise and me. We owe him our lives, Lilith.”
“I feel like I barely know anything about you.”
“Would you like to know more?” He met my gaze with an intensity I hadn’t seen in his eyes before.
I nodded. “I want to know all of it.”
He scratched the back of his neck. “All of it?”
“Please.” I placed my hand on his thigh and gave him an encouraging squeeze.
Letting out a harsh breath, he grasped my hand. “I was twenty-three when I was turned, but I’m three-hundred and twenty-six years old.”
Shock rippled through me, but I forced myself to relax. Blaise told me Thaddeus had turned them three-hundred years ago. It was hard to wrap my mind around it, though, because we looked around the same age.
“I grew up in poverty.” His voice wavered. “I was forced into military service as an Ensign. I fought in England.”
He paused, getting a far-off look in his misty eyes that made my chest squeeze.
“What’s an Ensign?”
“A foot soldier.” His hand flattened over his chest.
I reached over and placed my hand over his, squeezing.
He blinked, adjusting his gaze toward me. “I grew up in London. The only people who did well there were the nobility. My father was a proper wanker,” he spat the words with malice I hadn’t thought he could muster up.
Sorrow clogged my throat as I gripped the hand on his chest tighter.
“My earliest memory was stealing a loaf of bread from some cart. We were well skint and barely ever had anything to eat. My sisters were starving, and I just wanted them fed.” He shut his eyes so tight his eyelids wrinkled. “I got the bread to the alley we’d been living in, but Gerlick—our bloody father—went into a rage when I didn’t offer him the whole loaf. He beat me unconscious.”
I sucked in a breath, vision blurring with unshed tears as I stared at him. His eyes were shut tight and bottom lip trembled.
“When I came to a day later, he was out begging for food again, and my sisters were huddled in a corner, bloody and crying.” His voice cracked. “They didn’t eat any of it.”
“How old were you all?”
“I was five, I think. Alice was a year older than me, and Cicely was two years older than me. Our mother died giving birth to me, and it was a bloody miracle us kids survived what we did. I’m still not certain how.”
Pain shredded my insides for him. I couldn’t fucking imagine what he went through as a child.
“Cicely tried to take care of us, but Gerlick didn’t like that. He beat her every time she’d try to stand up for one of us. When I was eight, I started taking up that role. She’d been beaten so many times, she’d stopped communicating or interacting. She ate, slept, did whatever work she could find in town, but that was about it. I think he broke something up here.” He tapped his temple with his free hand. “Alice was proper frightened. She never talked. I think she was mute. A learned behavior to survive, I think.”
It was no wonder with their upbringing. I wasn’t sure how Kai still had a heart and morality.
“Troops came to town when I was eleven, and Gerlick threw me their way. They promised to provide rations for my family if I came with them. Cicely stared into the horizon like usual, and I couldn’t get her to talk to me. I told her I was leaving, and I kissed her head. Alice wouldn’t let go of me when it was time to go. She sobbed like I was dying. Gerlick raised a hand to her, and I went toe-to-toe with him for it.” He let out a dark chuckle. “The bastard backed down, and I swore to him if I found out he laid another hand on either of them, I’d bloody kill him.”
“What happened after you became a soldier?”
“I got sick,” he said, opening his eyes. “I went twelve years fighting senseless battles, killing people who didn’t fucking know what they were fighting for, and I wasn’t any better. Then, there was a smallpox outbreak in our troops. They dug a hole in the damn ground,” he gritted out. “And our command threw the sick in and went on. I was on the top of the pile, blood, and maggots covering the dead and the living. I was prepared to be killed in battle, but by smallpox in a death hole?”
My body went numb as he kept talking. I couldn’t imagine Kai going through all of that.
“I had a fever, chills, rash, and vomiting. I felt myself drifting off. I was cold, and the pain subsided. I knew I was dying,” he said. “But then, a crazy bloke yanked me out of that hole by my wrist.”
