Chapter 5

“Wait…what? What do you mean you don’t know? She seemed pretty confident, and she’s a vampire, don’t they just heal from everything?” Jeremiah asked with a touch of panic in his voice.

Sara scoffed as she closed the backdoor and walked around to the driver’s side “Did a tv show teach you that?”

Jeremiah threw his arms up and nodded “Yes! Because I have literally no other frame of reference, Sara.” He jumped into the passenger side and buckled his seatbelt as Sara restarted the car. “Look…now may be a difficult time for this, but I have so many questions, questions I really need answered. Please?”

Sara sighed and glanced over her shoulder at Nymia, sleeping soundly, the black veins on her stomach slightly more pronounced. “Yeah, yeah alright. Ask your questions, and let’s keep going. A nexus of magic should help her, so no stops.”

“Alright, no stops. So first I guess, if you know a nexus should help, what exactly is wrong with her?” Jeremiah asked as they start to move again.

“Well, first of all you’re mostly right. Vampires can heal from basically anything. The only effective ways to kill a vampire are really intense blood magic and destroying the majority of their body in fire. Sunlight weakens them of course but doesn’t kill them, doesn’t do anything to a vampire like Nymia, we’ll get into that later. What’s happening here is uh,” She paused as her voice cracked a second, composing herself before continuing to speak.

“Shade magic is as corrupt as the god they follow, and it corrupts and poisons whatever it hits. Eats away at the body and its connection to the spirit. She can heal the physical part but eventually…the magic will kill her by severing her soul from the body. The nexus should be able to purge it.” She paused and shook her head “No, not should, it will. It has to.”

Jeremiah nodded solemnly, as he listened and looked back to Nymia. “So…what is a Nexus?”

“That’s pretty easy, magic energy in the world gathers at Nexus Points like water in aquifers. Gifted to us by the Moon Goddess, Sahra. I’m named in her honor, it’s common amongst devout packs and mine is…pretty religious.”

“Alright, so I’ll not dive into asking about the nature of an evil god and a goddess of the moon right now, I honestly don’t think I could handle that right now. But is there anything else? Vampires, were-”

She immediately cut him off “We are NOT werewolves. We are Wolf Shifters, or Wolves. Werewolves, or what humans call werewolves, fit into a category of thing simply called Monsters these days.”

“Sorry! Sorry, I won’t do that again…but then there are other beings out there?” Jeremiah asked, a bit more tentatively, worried about offending her again.

“Yeah, you have Vampires and Shifters as the most common. Then nature spirits like Nymphs or Dryads I guess, if you wanted to give them names you’d recognize. Angels and Demons are around now and again but it’s so rare to see one, more often you’ll see a half-breed but even then, it’s rare. Lastly, Monsters. That’s pretty much anything you can think of a lot of them are sentient and smart like the rest of us, but many are mindless death machines. Rule of thumb with monsters, if it can talk for more than a few words, you can at least reason with it.”

Jeremiah nodded silently for a few seconds, before opening his mouth like to speak, then closing it again.

Sara let out a soft laugh, “Was that a bit much at once? Which part got you speechless?”

Jeremiah shook his head but had a small smile on his face “I think it was, yeah. My fault for asking, and honestly I don't know which part. Could have been angels and demons being real, could have been the horrifying last few words about monsters. But I just saw you turn into an absolutely gorgeous giant wolf, and then tear another giant wolf’s throat out. Oh, why weren’t they as big as…you.” He paused a second as he looked at her and noticed the blush on her face and how her eyes were just a little wide with surprise.

She laughed a little nervously “I’m related to an Alpha, so I’m pretty big and strong. But uh, gorgeous huh? No one but family or Nym has said anything like that to me before.”

Jeremiah ran a hand through his hair and laughed a little, he could feel the heat in his own cheeks now too, “Really? I’d think with that snow-white fur and the moon light coming off of you, more people would have said something. And wow, your eyes when you transform, they glow so brightly. It’s really amazing to see, Sara.”

She laughed a bit more, louder this time, glancing into her mirrors to give herself something to do instead of glance at him. ‘Thank god it was dark out,’ she thought, it made it harder to see how much that got to her. “Wow, sounds like you were paying very close attention to my wolf form back there.”

“Ok, you’re trying to make me sound creepy, but I’ve never seen someone transform into a wolf before so yeah, I was!” He said with a smile.

She finally glanced over at him again, and just took him in for a second. “Well, thanks for saying all that Jeremiah.” She cleared her throat a second as she looked away. ‘His eyes were so blue,’ she thought before very quickly shaking that thought away.

“You’re welcome, Sara.” For a second he was glad she was paying so close attention to the road after she looked away, or she’d notice him staring a bit. The unique violet of her eyes still slightly shedding moonlight after her transformation. Alright, he was staring more than a bit, he had to stop before she noticed.

He quickly turned and looked back at Nymia, who was still sleeping soundly but seemed to be shivering a little. He reached out to her and felt her arm, “Hey Sara, we should turn on the heat maybe, get a blanket on her. She’s a little cold.”

“Oh, yeah sure, I have a blanket just behind your seat actually.” She said as she reached for the turn on the heat.

Jeremiah, coincidentally, was also reaching to turn on the heat, their hands touching on the dial, a bit of static shocking between them as they looked at each other, not taking their hands back for just a quick second before they both quickly retracted.

Jeremiah smiled a bit and said, “I’ll get the blanket, you can turn on the heat.” He turned away and reached for the blanket, his face hot and panicking in his mind. ‘Oh god I was nearly holding her hand for a second! What just happened!? Why did it take so long for me to react!?’ He thought to himself as he pulled the blanket up and onto the Nymia, spreading it over her.

Sara, having let out a loud very awkward laugh when they pulled away quickly turned on the heat and seemed to sink into her seat a bit as she drove. ‘What the hell is going on? You just met him today, why are you acting like this!? You just were attacked, your best friend could be dying, and you’re thinking about how cute he is. Ugh stop it!’ She thought, admonishing herself for the feeling that seemingly cropped up in her mind.

He turned back around in his seat and took a deep breath and sighed, as they came to a red light at an intersection, the illumination from a streetlight filling the car. She glanced back at him a few times, to his eyes mostly, but now and again her gaze flicked to his lips, and she quickly looked away.

She scooted in her seat slightly, almost like she was about to lean over to him, Jeremiah watching her closely, mimicking that move. They both edged closer to each other for a second, Jeremiah letting Sara move in if she wanted too. He didn’t want to assume anything about what was about to happen. He felt his heart pounding in his chest, was she about to kiss him?

Just as Sara decided to lean in across the center console, to kiss him, she saw Nymia in the back seat from the corner of her eye and felt a pang of sharp guilt lance through her. She should not be doing this, they had to focus on getting there and saving Nymia. So, she backed away, looking forward as the light turned green.

Jeremiah nearly opened his mouth to say something but decided to keep it shut. He looked forward for a few moments, before casting his eyes down. For a second, he really wanted her to kiss him. He wanted to kiss her. But if he was being hunted, was it safe for him to want that? Maybe he should keep these relationships the way they are turning out to be, friendships.

They sat in silence until the long hours of the night began to give way to the break of day. Until that silence was shattered by a loud, sudden scream of pain from Nymia.