Chapter Three
IT WAS MADDENINGLY awful.
Elizabeth and Jane were kept in the sitting room, but given a seat on a couch. Caroline left, still chortling to herself, with a parting shot that there was to be no drinking without her, and then she was gone. The others went back to playing cards!
Elizabeth could not believe it.
She sat next to Jane, and she was sifting through everything she had seen and heard and felt and all the things she had forgotten and she was forming some sort of idea, something she shrank from, for she did not wish it to be real or factual.
It should not be, in fact. Surely, this was a dream.
Surely, she would wake from it by and by.
Surely, it would be her and Jane in bed together as the morning light streamed through the windows, and she would say, Oh, Jane what a strange and awful dream I have had. Surely…
They were monsters of some kind, some kind of demon-things that drank blood.
She had heard tales of these sorts of things, maybe even read a few odd poems here and there about it, but she could not remember what the monsters were called.
They were animated dead corpses. They drank blood. They had… teeth.
She remembered Mr. Darcy’s sharp teeth, the long curve of them.
But it was all very strange, because when she remembered that, she hadn’t felt frightened, only a very sweet and bursting feeling, all through her body. When he’d had those teeth stuck into the skin of her neck, it had been overwhelmingly pleasurable, in fact.
Which made them the worst sort of monster, of course, the kind of monster that could trick you, so that you didn’t know you were being hurt, could kill you without your ever registering you were in danger.
She was horrified.
We must go, she thought. Indeed, how was it she had acquiesced to sit here at all?
Well, there was Jane, after all. Jane was not responsive and Jane would not move.
Maybe I must go alone. I can run for help, go to Papa, and tell him what is happening—or not the monster bit, just that the Bingleys and Mr. Darcy and Mr. Hurst—
Oh.
He would never believe her, would he?
Well, maybe not her father, then, maybe she would get the farm hands first, send them first, and then get her father to go, and she would just say Jane was in danger, and her father would come along, and—
She got up and darted for the door, quick as she could go.
She was barely out of the sitting room before Mr. Darcy was there.
She didn’t know how he’d gotten there. He had moved so fast. He was blocking her path. She tried to go around him, and he took hold of both of her shoulders.
“Miss Elizabeth,” he said in a deep voice.
She let out a sob.
“Oh, of course you’re frightened,” he said, tilting his head to one side.
“Now, now, attend to me, madam, it’s not as you’re thinking.
We rarely take much blood at all. We don’t need much.
Just a nip here and there. You barely notice it’s gone.
We’re, erm, rather like mosquitoes in that way, but we don’t leave behind itchy bites.
You never notice we bit you at all, in fact.
Our bites are self-healing.” He raised his eyebrows. “You may have noticed that.”
She touched her neck. “Mosquitoes?” she said softly.
“It’s all right,” he said. “No harm will come to you or your sister. And at some point, we will charm you well enough that you’ll forget all of this, but it will likely take all four of us to make it stick, and then we—”
“Charm me,” she said. “That’s when you made me forget.”
“Quite right,” he said with a small smile. “There, you can see that it is all right, for you remember what happened and that you are right as rain now, do you not?”
“I…” She shook her head. There was an element to all of the stories that she could remember, not always an overt element, but it was almost always there, nonetheless.
When it came to these sort of blood-drinking demon-monster-things, they seemed to attack lovely maidens in their beds, whilst they were wearing only their nightclothes, and it was always a kind of, well, seduction.
“I think you might say anything at all, sir. I don’t think I should rightly trust what you say. ”
He considered. “Well, you’re intelligent and quick-witted, then, Miss Elizabeth, for there is something I’m not telling you.”
“That I’m yours,” she said, and her breath caught in her throat, and she scolded herself for the way it had come out, as if she liked being his, even if she did find the idea pleasant in some awful and terrible way.
He swallowed hard, shifting on his feet. He let go of her. “You are not mine.” His voice was scratchy.
“You said that I was. You called me something, some song-thing and you—”
“Sirensong,” he said.
“Sirens?” she said. “The monsters in Greek myth that sing sailors to crash their ships into rocky shores, where they drown? I assure you, sir, I am not a monster.”
“From time to time, vampires like me encounter a human whose scent and blood is so enticing, it drives us nearly mad,” said Mr. Darcy in that same scratchy voice.
Vampire, that was what they were called!
“But you needn’t worry, Miss Elizabeth, because I am quite capable of keeping myself in check, and the others here, they will stop me if I should…” Another swallow. His Adam’s apple was intriguing, wasn’t it? “Drink too much of you.”
She shivered. “Too much? You mean…”
“I shan’t harm you. I promise.”
She blinked at him. “You said it drives you mad. Can you promise?”
“I can.” He was insistent. “Come back in and sit with your sister.”
“But what happens to us?” She shook her head. “Are you going to… feed on us, as if we’re animals or something? Is that what’s going to happen?”
He swallowed one more time, and she decided that his neck, his throat, his broad shoulders were likely the most interesting thing she’d ever seen.
She wasn’t used to being this close to a man, in all truth, especially not one as handsome as Mr. Darcy, but that all made sense, she supposed, because he was some sort of monster, the kind of monster that looks fair to conceal his foulness.
She could not trust anything about this man, or…
this not-man as it happened. She could not trust him and she must not be enticed by him.
He licked his lips. “Miss Elizabeth, you have been tasted, and so you know that it is not unpleasant to be… fed upon.”
“That doesn’t mean anything,” she said, a breathless sort of protest. Why wasn’t she able to summon anger? Why were they standing about outside the sitting room having a measured conversation about whether it was all right to drink her blood? To drink her sister’s blood?
“I think it does. It would be one thing if it were agony for you, but it is not,” he said.
“But it is against our will. You can’t simply take things from people without their permission.”
“Even if they enjoy the taking? Even if they don’t remember it happening? Even if it doesn’t harm them? Even if I happen to need it to stay alive?”
Her jaw worked. “Is it going to be all of you?”
“I promise, Miss Elizabeth, you will forget this.”
“I don’t wish to forget it!” Her lower lip trembled. “Let us go.”
Mr. Darcy looked into the sitting room, where the card game seemed to have been abandoned.
Elizabeth was horrified to see that Louisa’s mouth was attached to Mr. Hurst’s neck, his cravat untied.
Mr. Hurst didn’t look the least bit displeased, either.
His eyes were closed and his lips were parted, and the expression on his face looked like sheer bliss, in fact.
Mr. Bingley was gazing at Jane, a strange sort of look in his eye.
“Mr. Bingley cannot marry my sister,” said Elizabeth.
“Well, he could,” said Mr. Darcy. “But I shan’t let that happen, do not worry. Your sister is too good and sweet to be drawn down into the darkness with the likes of us.”
“Please, Mr. Darcy, please let us go,” said Elizabeth.
“All right,” he said, squaring his shoulders. “All right.” He turned to go back into the sitting room.
But at that moment, Caroline appeared, striding through the house, laughing that awful laugh of hers.
She came through, patting Mr. Darcy’s chest as she went between him and Elizabeth.
“All taken care of, cor meum, no worries.” She slipped back into the sitting room and sat down next to Jane.
She lifted Jane’s wrist, and it was so fast the way she struck, like a snake, her fangs glinting in the lamplight, and Jane barely reacted, and Elizabeth screamed.
Elizabeth ran into the sitting room, but Mr. Darcy was behind her, catching her, stopping her, his voice in her ear, “Do not run, Miss Elizabeth, please. If you wish my help, I cannot bear it if you run.” He let her go.
But she ran anyway, because Mr. Bingley was now sitting next to Jane, too, and Mrs. Hurst was getting up from where she was with her husband and coming over as well, and Elizabeth screamed again, and ran to stop it, to save her sister Jane.
And then she was on the rug, face down, and Mr. Darcy was on top of her, his body pressing into hers all over, and he was at her neck, and she felt the tips of his teeth pierce her skin. Pain washed into her, but only for a moment, and then it washed right back out, like a wave going out to sea.
The next wave that washed in was pleasure, like nothing she’d ever felt before, her whole body tingling with it.
Mr. Darcy’s mouth worked at her neck, and the weight of him on her body felt pleasant and warm and good.
She liked it, trapped here under him, caught like a prey animal, like a little rabbit, as the fox who had caught her sucked her quite dry.
She liked it.
God help her.
She liked it a great deal.
SHE TASTED LIKE cinnamon, like honey, and he could not stop himself.
Darcy had a dull feeling at the back of his skull, a knowledge that he had not intended to do this, to leap on her and go at her as though he had lost all sense of decorum or control. But he was lost, simply lost.
And strangely enough—maybe it was the position or maybe it was the way her plush and rounded backside was pressed into entirely the perfect spot—his prick had awakened.
It was rare that happened these days. He had lost most of his interest in using it for any purpose at all for so long that it never roused, but it was quite roused now.
It was thick and stiff, and as he drank in her sweet, spicy, wondrous blood, he had the urge to rut into her backside, to thrust his achingly stiff member into her again and again.
However, maybe it saved her, he couldn’t say.
It divided his attention, anyway. There was pleasure there, pleasure between his thighs, not simply pleasure as he drank, and he suddenly had the presence of mind to detach from her neck and scramble off of her.
He threw himself away from her, plastering his body against the wall between two paintings that had been here when Bingley let the place. He was shaking.
She—Elizabeth—was lying on the rug, cheek pressed into it, her dress a little askew, showing off her calves, her stockings. Her rounded backside was right there under the drape of her skirts. She wriggled, letting out a little noise in the back of her throat, and he gaped at the sight of her.
Hell and damnation, the things he would like to do to her, to that body of hers, to that neck of hers. Blazes, she tasted good.
She pushed up onto her hands and knees, letting out a confused noise that sounded like a mewl, and he wanted to tackle her to the floor again.
He let out an answering growl.
She looked over her shoulder at him, and that was nearly too much. There was something incredibly erotic about it, about her in that position, about her looking back at him. Her expression was welcoming, too, and he knew she wanted him back, knew she had been enjoying what he’d been doing to her.
His whole body throbbed with an ache to go to her.
But she stood up, facing him, fingering her neck, which was sealing up, knitting itself back together. There was blood, though. He’d been a bit sloppy, he supposed, too eager as he drank.
She looked down at the red smearing her fingers. Her eyes widened.
And then she turned around to look at her sister.
He looked too.
It was done. What he’d told Elizabeth was true. A little nip was all that vampires wanted or needed.
Caroline was setting Jane’s wrist down against her thigh and standing up. Louisa was rising from where she had knelt to latch on to Jane’s other wrist. And Bingley was sitting next to Jane, tucking her hair behind her ear as he gazed at her neck, likely watching the wound heal.
Elizabeth let out another noise, something high-pitched, something indignant.
“Oh, good, cor meum, you did stop,” said Caroline to him. “I thought I should have to pull you off of her.” She smirked.
“We must take them home,” said Darcy.
“Oh, but I have wasted all that effort of going and charming the whole family,” said Caroline. “They think that Miss Bennet has a cold and that she must stay as our guest for days.”
“We shall never keep them days,” said Darcy. “Miss Elizabeth will take her the minute the sun rises and we shall not be able to stop her then.”
Caroline shrugged, inspecting her fingernails. “We can lock them away somewhere.”
“You aren’t serious,” said Darcy.
“We are not that way,” said Bingley, still affectionately stroking Jane’s hair. “We do not behave like beasts, Caroline.”
“They won’t remember,” said Caroline, shrugging. “If this one could be easily charmed, we wouldn’t have to lock them up. They could both be quite comfortable.”
Elizabeth rounded on Mr. Darcy. “You said you would let us go.”
“I am letting you go,” said Mr. Darcy, but then he did something rather abominable.
He closed the distance between them and as he got closer, he watched as her chest rose and fell as her body grew loose and relaxed, because some part of her welcomed him.
In her thinking mind, she knew to be frightened of him, but her body did not fear him at all.
He should not use that against her, for he was a danger to her.
But he found himself reaching out with one finger and tracing the outline of her chin, guiding her gaze gently to meet his.
“But I should like you to stay, Miss Elizabeth.”
She made a funny noise in the back of her throat, and her expression was one of sheer devastation.
“If you stay,” he breathed, “I shall bite you again. You’d like that, would you not?”
Her jaw worked.
“I should like it, anyway,” he said. “You could do it for me? Would you like to please me, Miss Elizabeth?”
She shivered, and her body canted toward him. “Yes,” she breathed.
He rubbed his thumb over her lower lip. “No one will harm you, I swear it. Say you’ll stay?”
“I…” She shivered again. “I shall stay. We shall… stay.”