Leonora shrugged. “Surely you’ve heard the tales of Atlantis? It existed ages ago, and was a scientifically advanced culture that was destroyed by earthquakes and an erupting volcano or something?”

“Well, yes, I’ve heard of it,” Allie admitted. “But—”

“They aren’t just tales,” Leonora assured her. “The stories are true. Atlantis did exist. It was apparently isolated and well advanced compared to the rest of the world, and these nanos were one of their scientific advancements. Which was all good and fine until Atlantis fell and sank into the ocean. The only survivors were the Atlanteans with the nanos inside them. They crawled out of the rubble, or swam out of the ocean, to find themselves left with a world that was much less advanced than their home country had been.” She grimaced and said, “We’re talking seriously less advanced. Mud huts and wiping your bottom with bits of leaf if they wiped their behinds at all,” she added with a grimace, and then shrugged. “There were no more blood transfusions for them.”

“The Atlanteans started to die from lack of blood,” DJ said now, and explained, “When the nanos got low on blood in the veins, they migrated to the organs and such to mine it and some of them did die, basically from lack of blood. A terribly, painful way to go,” he added grimly.

“But in others,” Magnus said, “the nanos forced what they saw as a necessary evolution to get what they needed to fulfill their programming and keep their host at their peak condition.”

“The fangs,” Allie said on a sigh.

Magnus nodded. “They gave them fangs, added speed and strength, night vision, and the ability to read and even control the minds of other humans so that they could get the blood they needed for the nanos to do their work and keep them in their peak condition.”

“Forever young and healthy,” Allie said with a shake of the head, and sat back in her seat, then glanced around with a start when a plate appeared in front of her.

“Here you are,” Elvi said as she set the plate down. “Eat up. You have to build up your blood and get your strength back to chase after that sweet little boy of yours. He needs his mother strong and healthy.”

“Thank you,” Allie murmured, and then repeated the words when Victor arrived with a tray of mugs full of coffee and set one before her first.

“You are welcome,” Victor said with a smile, and then removed cream and sugar from the tray to set in front of her and announced to the table at large, “I did not know how everyone took their coffee, so just brought the fixings for each of you to do it yourself.”

Allie reached for the sugar, inhaling the scents wafting up from her plate as she did, and nearly swooned with pleasure.