"Yes, I do," Mirabeau said quietly.
"No you don't," Teddy said at once. "Tiny's right. This isn't a damned vampire movie. Drina there has needles. She can just pull some blood out of you and shoot it in Tiny, and, hey presto, it's done."
"That won't work," Drina assured him. "It would just be blood. No nanos would be in it. Or, at least, not enough to start a turn."
"What?" the old man asked with disbelief. "How would that be possible?"
When Drina sighed, it was Harper who explained. "Think of the nanos like rats in a pet-store cage. The shop owner opens the cage and reaches in, and all the rats run to the corners of the cage to avoid being pulled from their nice safe home. Nanos do the same when anything punctures our skin, whether it's a needle, or a knife, or fangs. They are programmed to keep their host body at their peak, and they can't do that unless they stay in the body. That is why you will not find nanos in tears, urine, sperm, or any other material that naturally leaves the body. So if you stick a needle into any one of us, the nanos would immediately evacuate the area to avoid removal."
"No, no, no," Teddy said firmly. "From what I understand, our Elvi was turned when some vampire fellow was injured in an accident and bled into her mouth."
"A wound such as the one you're talking about, or like Mirabeau ripping her wrist open, is like someone tearing away the side of the rat cage and turning it to dump the contents. It's large and unexpected. The nanos in that area will be caught by surprise and get swept along in the blood that flows out. At least at first," he added dryly. "If the wound isn't big enough, or she's too slow pressing it to his mouth, she will have to do it twice, or even more, to give him enough nanos to get the process started."
"Barbaric." Teddy grunted and shook his head. "I don't know why you just don't mix up a batch of those damned nanos and keep them for turning people."
"Because no one's been able to replicate the process," Drina said dryly.
"What?" Teddy peered at her with amazement. "You people made them. You should be able to make more."
"Not us," Drina said with amusement. "Our scientists did, and they tested them out on guinea pigs first."
"You mean none of your scientists tried it themselves?" Teddy asked with disbelief. "I find that hard to believe. It was their idea, and they'd surely want to be young and healthy forever too. It's probably why they came up with them in the first place."
"Perhaps," Drina said mildly. "But apparently they weren't willing to risk trying it themselves until they'd perfected them on others, and Atlantis fell before they decided they were perfected." She shrugged. "They all died in the fall. We have today's scientists trying to replicate the process, but they haven't yet been successful."
"Is this how you two were turned?" Teddy asked Dawn and Leonora with horror.
Both women nodded silently.
"Barbaric," Teddy repeated with disgust, and then sighed and glanced to Mirabeau. "Well, then I guess you'd best get to it."
She nodded, but Tiny was still holding her arm, and he asked uncertainly, "Are you sure you want to do this, Beau? It sounds painful."
"Not as painful as the turn," she said solemnly. "And I'd go through this and a lot more to keep you as my life mate."
Tiny sighed and reluctantly released her wrist with a nod. Mirabeau didn't hesitate or give either of them a chance to reconsider or agonize. The moment he released her arm, she whipped it up to her mouth. Her fangs were out by the time her wrist reached her teeth, and she bit into it as viciously as a dog, not just puncturing the flesh, but tearing into it and then ripping away a good-sized flap so that it hung from her arm like a torn pocket. Even as blood began to spurt from the open wound, she was turning it to press against Tiny's mouth.
"I'll get bandages," Harper muttered, and headed for the door to the adjoining bathroom.
Drina nodded absently, but her attention was on Tiny. Despite knowing what was going to happen, the violence and suddenness of it all appeared to have caught him by surprise. He instinctively tried to pull away when Mirabeau pressed the wound to his mouth, but caught himself almost at once and allowed her to do it. Still, he choked a bit as the blood coursed into his mouth, no doubt unable to subdue his natural repulsion at the thought of drinking anyone's blood.
"You have to swallow. Try to relax," Drina said quietly. Tiny met her gaze over Mirabeau's arm. Seeing the distress in his eyes, Drina instinctively slid into his mind to help, soothing his thoughts and making his body relax, so that he could swallow as much of the blood as possible before the nanos made the bleeding stop.
Inside his head as she was, Drina knew when the gushing began to slow. It quickly reduced to a trickle, and when it stopped altogether, she released her control of him.
Tiny immediately removed his mouth from Mirabeau's arm and sank back on the mattress.
"Are you all right?" Mirabeau asked with concern, hardly seeming to notice that Harper had returned with bandaging and was tending to her wound. "Tiny?"
Nodding, he raised his head and forced a smile. "I'm fine. You?"
His gaze slid to her wrist, but there was nothing to see now that Harper had bandaged it. Still, he grimaced at the swath of white and then sighed and asked, "How long does it usually take to start?"
"It differs for different people," Harper murmured, setting the roll of cotton bandaging on the bedside table. "With some it starts right away, and with others it takes a while before they notice a difference, and then it's sometimes just a slow onset that builds up."
"How do you feel?" Mirabeau asked worriedly.
Tiny smiled wryly as he took in the circle of concerned faces around him. But shrugged. "Fine. I don't feel any different. I guess I'm going to be one of those slow-buildup kinda guys. I-" He paused, eyes suddenly widening, and then began to convulse on the bed.