burning hot, but not painfully so. the healer examined him thoroughly. she knew gregori was aware of her presence, but he paid strict attention to nicolae's body.

destiny had no idea of time passing. she too was studying the effects of the vampire blood on nicolae. his body had the blood of the ancients and it was fighting valiantly, but she could see the damage that had already been done. she didn't make the mistake of gasping with her physical body, but she was appalled at the destruction.

nicolae had calmly endured it. and he meant to continue to do so should gregori be unable to rid his body of the hideous toxins. her respect and love for him grew to new proportions. she emerged at the same time as the healer withdrew.

gregori let his breath out slowly. "nasty stuff, vampire blood." savannah rubbed his neck soothingly. "it moved away from you."

"yes, i suspect it has some knowledge i have come, to remove it. the fear is a good thing. if it is afraid and moving from my presence, i should be able to find a way to remove it from nicolae's body."

"can you help him?" destiny asked anxiously.

nicolae noted immediately that she hadn't said "us." he tightened his fingers around hers. "i cannot turn vampire, destiny," he assured her quietly. "i have you as my anchor."

gregori shook his head. "it is puzzling how such a minute amount of vampire blood could infect you so quickly. you have lesions everywhere; they are spreading across every organ. alexandria did not have such a thing or aidan would have told me. he described to me his healing of her in detail but there was none of this."

"destiny has whole colonies of them," nicolae said.

gregori frowned. "savannah, we will need candles, and the bag we brought with us from new orleans. we did not need it for dayan's lifemate, but i fear we will need all of it here."

savannah nodded. "it's lucky we didn't use it." she produced a large satchel and tossed it to her lifemate.

nicolae inhaled the contents of the satchel deeply. vikirnoff followed suit. destiny was startled by their reaction. she took an exploratory sniff. the scent was of earth. clean, fresh dirt. it smelled different from any she had ever encountered. she looked at nicolae. there was something close to rapture on his face.

"what is it?" she asked curiously.

"soil from our homeland," nicolae answered, awe in his voice. "how did you come to have such a gift?" he asked savannah.

"julian savage, one of our people, had it brought many years ago to new orleans. he stored it in a hidden chamber and left it for us when we became lifemates," she explained. "it was a shocking but very welcome surprise."

destiny could sense nicolae's eagerness to put to use the treasure the healer had brought.

"we took some of the soil with us, thinking we might need it to aid dayan and his lifemate when she was so ill, but it was not needed. we kept it for just such an emergency as this." gregori smiled down at his lifemate. "it was savannah's suggestion that we bring it along."

destiny looked into the dark bag, saw the deep richness and felt her palms itch. nicolae plunged his hands into the soil and closed his eyes.

vikirnoff. you must feel this. i feel it all the way to my bones. a welcoming such as i have not had in centuries. our homeland is in this small bag.

vikirnoff reached into the bag slowly. his hands tunneled deep into the rich soil.

i am sharing your mind, nicolae. this will sustain me as nothing else could. i feel a sense of peace for the first time in so long. thank you for allowing me this experience.

destiny was sharing it with the two brothers. she sensed the intensity of nicolae's feelings for his brother and realized that the only way vikirnoff could feel that love was through nicolae's emotions.

emotions you returned to him, vikirnoff reminded them. returned to us, nicolae corrected.