Page 47 of Bitten By Mr. Darcy
“I suppose I could,” he said. “I know how.”
“Why don’t you?”
“It’s frowned upon, for one thing,” said Mr. Darcy. “Vampires are always having conversations about it, about how everyone is always wanting to make new vampires, and how every new vampire is a threat to us, because it makes us more vulnerable to discovery. It always ends up with some musings about how, if vampires got their way, every human would be turned and then we’d die out because we’d have nothing to drink and sustain us.”
“You can survive on the blood of animals?”
“No,” he said. “But it’s all foolish, for I don’t think it would go that way, even if vampires did turn humans on a whim. The truth is, it often goes badly.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, if one doesn’t take precise care with the turn, leaves the human without vampire blood for too long, their body healsand reanimates, but their mind is permanently damaged. They become a raging, thirsty beast, running amok and biting people.”
She gazed at him solemnly.
“I think,” he said, “with you, with our bond, there’s no concern there. I should feel you through it, through all of it.”
She looked away quickly.
“Ah, we were not speaking of turning you, I see,” he said. He cleared his throat. “There are other concerns, though I suppose no one knows if turning vampires makes the sire go mad sometimes, or if vampires who have already gone mad sometimes start making far too many new vampires.”
“What do you mean?” she said.
“Well, the Bingleys’ maker was quite old when he did what he did. He made them all within days of each other. He made Caroline first, and no one knows quite what happened, but he then made six other fledgling vampires and after that, he locked himself and all seven of the new young ones up to face the sun. Bingley and the other two clawed their way to freedom, but the rest weren’t so lucky. Caroline has a burn on her ankle. It’s a bad scar.”
“What happened to yours?” she said. “Your sire?”
“Accidental death,” said Darcy.
“Was he different after he turned you?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t know him before. But I barely knew him at all. I consented to a tryst with him, and he bit me in the course of it, and it felt rather wondrous, as I’m sure you are aware of, and then I would have let him do anything to me. I don’t know why he turned me. It was a strange thing to do, for he barely knew me at the time. Maybe he thought the way I sucked his cock was inspired. I can’t say.”
Elizabeth was stunned again. “You… with a man.”
“I was human, then,” he said with a shrug, as if this was an excuse. “Doyou wish me to make you a vampire, Lizzy?”
Her breath caught in her throat.
“It would solve certain problems. I would no longer be able to harm you in that way. I could not drain you of blood.”
“But you wouldn’t like my blood in the same way,” she said. “Would you? I would not be your sirensong.”
“No,” he said. “You would not.”
“And the bond?”
“Severed,” he said.
“So, we wouldn’t feel each other.”
“Well, there might be temporary bonds between us, from blood drinking. If we were at each other often enough, it might seem as if we were bonded,” he said. “We might be at first. We’d grow tired of each other eventually, however. Vampires always do. The Bingleys, who stay together, have all manner of long-buried slights and angers that plague them. Caroline and Bingley, they torture each other, truly.”
“And she and you,” said Elizabeth. “That is some long-buried pain which she cannot let go of. That could happen to us?”
“No,” he said. “I don’t think so.”
“You loved Caroline once.”
