Suddenly a Succubus - Book Four
Copyright© 2025 by Nyx Nyghtingale
Chapter 50
Gravel crunched and scattered under Amara’s feet as she landed on the roof of Vee’s apartment. Her wings felt unusually sore for how little she’d flown, but given just how much angelic energy she’d fought through to reach Vee, it made sense. Even now, just holding her close made Amara buzz, their conflicting auras all the more noticeable after such an intense show of power from the angel.
Looking at Vee, Amara’s heart melted all over again. She leaned forward for another kiss before releasing Vee from her grasp, sighing as she watched Vee hop back and forth to find her balance.
I almost lost her.
Vee tapped her feet, subtly adjusting her shoes, before looking up and catching Amara’s gaze. “Everything okay?” she asked.
“Y-yeah, I just ... you’re beautiful,” Amara said, blushing furiously.
With a quiet laugh and an adorable smile, Vee did the same. “That’s ... wow. I’m still a little shocked that we— I mean, I’ve been wondering for a while if you felt the same way I did, and—”
“Wait, seriously?” Amara asked, stepping nearer. She pulled Vee close, gently rubbing the sides of her arms.
“Well, it hasn’t been that long. At least, I don’t think so? For all I know, it’s been building for a while and I only figured it out when you took me flying the other day, but then there was so much happening with Tessa’s Coven, and I didn’t know if—”
Amara kissed Vee, cutting off her nervous rambling and causing her to melt into Amara’s embrace for a moment.
“Hey,” Amara whispered between kisses. “We’ll have time for everything soon. As wrong as I was to try and take matters into my own hands, we still need to stop Davenport.”
Vee hugged Amara tightly, briefly burying her face into her shoulder before nodding. “Yeah, you’re right. Do you want to text everyone, or should I?”
“I, uh, don’t have my phone on me,” Amara said sheepishly. “I’ve been keeping it on the roof of Lysander Hall to keep it safe.”
“Right, I suppose keeping it with you would’ve been bad. I’ll reach out to everyone, see where they are and where we can meet them.” Vee took a deep breath as she stepped away, pulling out her phone. “What should I tell them about, y’know ... us? You?”
Pausing for a moment, Amara absentmindedly wandered around the roof while staring at the gravel. “Maybe keep it simple? I’m not going to ask you to apologize on my behalf. As for us ... shit, I don’t know. How about we just focus on the problem for now? I don’t want to say anything until we’ve had the chance to actually figure out what we want this to be. N-not that I think we want different things, or whatever, but, y’know, we should probably just save all that stuff for later.”
“That’s probably for the best,” Vee said, starting to type. “For the record, I would love it if we—no, you’re right, one thing at a time.”
With her thought finished, Amara stopped wandering and looked up again. From their current vantage point, she wasn’t able to see the quad, but it was impossible not to notice the unnaturally black storm clouds that hung low over the center of campus. Underneath them, a sinister red glow clung to the field, sparks occasionally drifting up into Amara’s vision.
Fuck, was that me? Davenport’s magic didn’t do anything with the weather, and the storm around Vee was way more colorful.
How far gone was I?
She tried to think back to her fight with Davenport, but found it difficult. It had only been a few minutes, but the memories felt like they were buried beneath a haze of putrid rage and a bone-deep thirst for blood.
The thought of killing Davenport had been all-consuming. Nothing else had mattered: not her friends, not herself.
Just the violence.
A hand touched her back, pulling her thoughts back to the present. “Hey. You doing alright?” Vee asked cautiously, stepping next to her.
Amara swallowed nervously, forcing herself to nod.
Wait, what am I doing? I can’t start pushing her away already. She deserves to know the truth.
Tears welled in her eyes. She turned to look at Vee, who’d nearly sacrificed everything just to give her a chance at redemption, and broke down. She wrapped her arms around Vee, hugging her tight as she wept into her shoulder. Vee returned the gesture, gently rubbing her back as Amara vented all her frustration with herself.
The pain, the sorrow, the anger, the guilt, it all came out. Unable to process the flood of emotions, she let the memories of her actions wash over her. Flashes of all the harm she’d caused, the terror she’d instilled, and for what? To turn herself into a monster?
The severity of her actions demanded recompense, and she was no longer strong enough to stand against the weight of what she’d done.
Completely unmoored from the flow of time, Amara had no idea how long it took to pull herself together. Vee’s interference was a miracle, one that had pulled Amara back from the brink of a terrible fate, and the thought of what she might have become haunted her. When the tears finally stopped, and she found the strength to return to the present, she found the two of them had slid down to their knees at some point. She was lying in Vee’s lap, arms wrapped around her waist, the angel’s shirt completely soaked with tears.
Sniffling loudly, Amara looked at Vee, who simply smiled in return. She reached up, pushing Amara’s hair from her face, and gently tucked it behind her ear. “It’s gonna be okay, Amara. I’m here for you. We’ll make it through this together.”
Amara nodded slowly before sitting up. She rubbed her face with her hands, a small burst of hellfire dispelling all traces of her outburst. Placing a hand on Vee’s waist, she looked deep into her brilliant blue eyes and leaned in for another kiss. They shared a soft, tender moment before Amara rested her forehead against Vee’s. “I don’t deserve you.”
“Hey, none of that,” Vee said, her tone gentle but strict. “The more you put yourself down, the more you risk believing that you deserve to give in to those instincts.” She kissed Amara again, carefully hugging her and pulling her closer, before continuing. “Back when we were under Lysander Hall, you said you were already gone. Is that what you really believe? That your soul is damned, and nothing you do matters anymore?”
Cuddling up into Vee’s shoulder, Amara responded, “I mean, it has to be, right? My mom told me that demons are born from Damnation. There’s literally no other way I could be like this.”
Vee paused for a moment, her hands tenderly stroking Amara’s hair. She even found Amara’s horns, gently rubbing them as well as she spoke. “What about your mother? We know for a fact she’s Damned, and yet she’s the sweetest person I’ve ever met. Are you saying that she doesn’t matter either?”
“Never!” Amara said, aghast at the mere thought of it.
“Well, there you go,” Vee said, lightly patting Amara’s cheek in jest. “If she matters, then so do you. So how about you accept that you’re worth saving, and we go trust our friends to do what’s right. Sound like a deal?”
Despite every bone in Amara’s body wanting to repeat her earlier thought, that she didn’t deserve Vee, she forced herself to nod.
I’m not alone. Even if I don’t believe in myself right now ... she does. And she’s amazing. She’s the greatest thing that’s ever happened to me, and I spit in her face every time I insist I’m a lost cause.
Do it for Vee, Amara. You’ve got this.
“Alright,” Amara said, kissing Vee one last time before standing up. “Where are we meeting everyone?”
“Tessa says she ran into some trouble, and they’re regrouping at her place.”
“Trouble? Is she okay?!” Amara asked, panicked.
“Everyone’s fine, Amara,” Vee said calmly. “Let’s just meet up with them, and we can hear the full story from her directly. Do you want to fly us there?”
Amara looked back at her wings, flexing them a few times to test how much strength still remained. “Maybe not the whole way, but I can definitely get us to the ground.” She held out an arm for Vee, who happily accepted the invitation. The two girls walked to the edge of the roof, held each other close, and Amara stepped off the ledge. Just before hitting the ground, she thrust her wings down to halt their momentum, then released her hold on Vee so they could head out.
They spent most of their walk in silence. At first, Amara was tempted to say something, anything to fill the silence and shake her thoughts loose from all the chaos of the moment, but such aspirations vanished as they passed by the quad.
It looked like it had been bombed in the middle of a firestorm.
Craters, formed from intense explosions, littered the field. Huge swathes of grass were burnt to a crisp, and several trees were missing large chunks of their canopies. Several fires still raged amidst the wreckage, and guilt twisted Amara’s stomach into knots as she took in the full extent of her destructive spiral.
She stopped walking, struck by the horror of the scene in front of her. Flashes of her fight with Davenport returned, but just as the memories started to overwhelm her, she heard Vee step closer. She gripped Amara’s hand, squeezing it tight before leaning in. “Do you want to do anything while we’re here? Something quick?”
“Can I take a moment to put out the remaining fires?” Amara asked. “I’ll only need a sec.”
Nodding in agreement, Vee released Amara’s hand. With a goal firmly in mind, and eager not to waste any more time than was necessary, Amara quickly walked around the quad. Each step brought back flashes of memory, brief moments from her fight with Davenport, and she didn’t bother trying to hide from them. After venting all her grief with Vee earlier, she felt ready to face her prior actions.
The fires around the quad reflected Amara’s grief, and she felt their energy pulse in time with her own as she neared them. Each time she got close, she mentally reached out to connect with the flames and disperse them. Her lap around the quad only took a few minutes, and while she hadn’t fixed anything, she’d at least prevented further damage.
Regrouping with Vee, whose loving smile said more than words ever could, the two continued on.
It didn’t take long to reach Tessa’s apartment. Although Amara got there a few steps ahead of Vee, she couldn’t muster the strength to knock. She had no idea what to say, how to apologize to her closest friends, and the panic briefly overwhelmed her.
Then, for seemingly the thousandth time today, Vee stepped in. She wrapped her hands around Amara’s waist, kissed her cheek, gently whispered into her ear. “I’m with you every step of the way, love. It’s going to suck, and I doubt Tessa is going to pull her punches, but I’m not going anywhere. They care about you deeply, Amara. They don’t want to give up on you, they’re just scared.”
Nodding slowly, and taking a deep, unsteady breath, Amara kissed Vee back. “Can you go first?”
Vee smiled. “Of course.”
Stepping in front of Amara, Vee knocked on Tessa’s front door. In her hands, even such a small action seemed elegant and effortless, and Amara braced herself for what was sure to be one of the most uncomfortable conversations of her life.
When the door opened, Amara saw Nick first. He opened the door slowly, his eyes darting from Vee, to Amara, and back to Vee with a silent question. Although no one said anything, Vee subtly nodded, and her reassurance seemed to release the tension in Nick’s shoulders. “Hey, you two. Tessa’s on the couch, Chloé is ... around? She’s here somewhere.”
Vee walked inside first, then Amara, who’s face burned with shame. She avoided looking at Nick as she entered, instead opting to focus on the floor. Walking past the breakfast bar, she only briefly looked up once she saw Tessa, who flinched at her presence and slid back on the couch to put distance between the two of them. Her tattoos flared, the side of her head lighting up as her switchblade floated in front of her, pointing directly at Amara.
Tessa’s neck still had small bruises from where Amara had grabbed her earlier.
Thick, uncomfortable silence hung in the air. The incredibly faint buzz of Tessa’s magic, something Amara was pretty sure only she could sense, rang in her ears as she tried to force herself to speak. When she finally found the strength, her voice was weak and broken.
“I-I’m sorry,” Amara whispered. “I’m sorry for everything. I’ve been a terrible friend, and a terrible person, for weeks now. I let my anger get the best of me, and the instant I found an excuse to let it out, I stopped bothering to pretend I wasn’t just out for blood. I wanted someone else to hurt as much as I did, I was obsessed with the thought that throwing the first punch would somehow fix things. Last night, I ... I did terrible things. I hurt a lot of people, including all of you, despite the fact that I consider you my closest friends. What I did is unforgivable, and I have no right to come to you all now, but I want to make this right.”
Amara looked at Tessa. “You were completely justified to tell the Coven about me, Tess. I can’t even pretend to understand your relationship with them, but I should have trusted that you were only doing what you thought was right. You’ve always been incredibly supportive of me, and I can’t possibly express how terrible I feel that I attacked you.”
Although Chloé wasn’t visible, Amara did her best to address the entire room, trusting that Nick had shared the truth about her being here somewhere. “And Chloé, if you’re listening, having you back is a miracle. It’s the greatest thing I could have ever hoped for, and instead of celebrating, I made everything about me. Again. You’ve given us a chance to fight for our campus, and instead of giving you an opportunity to work together with us, I sidelined you because I was more interested in pursuing my own selfish desires.”
Finally, Amara turned to Nick. “Nick. You’ve been here since the beginning, and I was so wrapped up in my anger that I completely blew you off. Somewhere along the line, I stopped seeing you as an equal, and I let myself think that no one, not even you, could understand what I was going through. You’re my oldest friend, yet we’ve barely even talked these last few weeks. You deserve better; you all do. Whatever you think is best, I agree. If you want me to sit this out, I will. As much as I want to help fix things, I’m not the person who should make that call.”
Tears slid down her cheeks as she finished talking, and she looked at all her friends again to indicate she was done. Her words lingered as everyone processed her apology in their own ways, and she hoped desperately that she could continue being everyone’s friend after this.
Tessa’s magic faded, her tattoos dimming as she grabbed her knife out of the air. Folding it up, she slipped it into her back pocket as she stood up, then started walking towards Amara. Her pace quickened, and just before she closed the distance, she clenched her fist and punched Amara, her knuckles digging deep into Amara’s jaw as a deep thud reverberated through the apartment. Amara’s weakened state meant the punch hurt much more than it should have, and she gasped in pain as she stumbled backwards.
“You’re a FUCKING idiot, Amara!” Tessa yelled. She didn’t attack a second time, as Nick stepped closer to hold her back. “Do you know what happened while you were off on your stupid rampage? Coven Head Gautier cornered me and tried to kill me! She pinned me down, sawed the edge off a rusty pipe, and tried to ram it through my heart. If Chloé hadn’t been there with me, and if she hadn’t manifested some fucking incredible new abilities, I would be dead, Amara! Not mysteriously scattered into light, not just injured, dead. And it would have been your fault. You left us alone, you forced us to put together a plan without Vee, because she needed to run after your sorry ass and try to slap some sense into you!”
Tessa was crying now, and she kept going. “You were the first real friend I told about my magic, about being a witch. I’d gotten so used to hiding that part of me, but suddenly, I had a friend who got it. You also had weird magic shit you were hiding, and we got to team up and try to stop idiots from ruining our campus! Yes, it was scary. Yes, we almost died, but we were in it together, Amara! And then ... then we lost Chloé. I was devastated, I’d never seen something so horrible, but I didn’t just lose her that day, Amara. I lost you too. You never once consoled me, you never bothered to ask if there was anything you could do to help. I was trying desperately to wrangle all those students, to keep them from freaking out, and you constantly made my life harder. You snapped at them, you blew up at our meetings, you were actively terrorizing the very people we’ve been trying to protect this whole time. When my coven showed up, sure, it was terrifying, but do you know what they did? Miss Bishop comforted me, she asked how I was holding up after losing a friend. She encouraged me to keep fighting, that it wasn’t pointless. So yes, I told them about you because I thought it would help, and I’m not sorry about it.”
“I-I didn’t ... Gautier tried to kill you?” Amara gasped, horrified that her rampage had nearly cost her Tessa as well. Her body shook involuntarily, images flashed through her mind of what horrible fate Tessa had nearly succumbed to, and her breath caught in her throat.
She was pulled back from the edge of her panic attack when Tessa stepped forward, burying her face in Amara’s shoulder and wrapping her arms around her waist. “Y-you’re supposed to be my hot, slutty bodyguard, stupid. It’s because of you that I started seeing how much more tolerable this life is when I’ve got other people living it with me.”
“I’m so happy you’re still with us, Tess.” Amara hugged Tessa back. They stood together, quietly embracing for a few minutes as they both silently worked through their feelings. Amara wasn’t used to Tessa being so open, but given how much time she’d been spending with Nick, it made sense. “Hey, when this is all over, want to go flying? I’ll take you anywhere you want to go.”
“Shit, you can fly?” Tessa asked, pulling away from Amara. Her makeup was smeared and distorted from all the tears, but she seemed genuinely excited about the idea.
Amara nodded. “I’ll even let you make every possible joke you want about riding me.”
“Don’t make promises you can’t keep. I’m gonna show up with a saddle and harness just to get back at you for all this shit.” Tessa managed to laugh at her own joke, and Amara did the same, overjoyed that things seemed to be on a better path already.
With the moment over, Amara looked around to see if she could spot her invisible friend. “Chloé? I understand if you’re not feeling great at the moment, but if you want to say anything, I’d love to hear you out. Or, I don’t know, if you want to punch me, go for it. Preferably the other side of my face, though, I’m still a little sore.”
An invisible hand lightly slapped Amara’s other cheek, and she jumped in surprise. Chloé appeared a second later, floating sideways a few feet off the ground. Her body and clothes were faint, almost transparent, and her hair was stark white. “H-hey, Amara,” Chloé whispered, her voice fuzzy.
“It’s good to see you, Chloé. Don’t push yourself too hard, okay?” Amara asked.
Chloé nodded, then went quiet for a moment as her eyes briefly lost focus. She lost herself in thought briefly, then looked back at Amara and started talking. “I’ve always felt safe around you, Amara. Even when I didn’t have my memories, when I didn’t understand that I was alive-ish, that feeling persisted. When I finally pieced everything together, and realized that I’d be able to help you all stop the coven, I got so excited! We were all gonna be a team! But when I told you about their plans ... you changed. For the first time in my life, I didn’t feel safe anymore; I was scared. I wanted so badly to help, and I started panicking that maybe I’d messed up by telling you about the coven, and that if you hurt someone it would all be my fault, and I—”
“Hey,” Amara said sternly, “this was never your fault, Chloé. Getting you back was a miracle, and if you hadn’t spied on Davenport, we wouldn’t have this chance to try and stop her. I’m the one that fucked this up. I can never apologize enough for ruining your return, Chloé, and ... quite honestly, I think you deserve to be mad at me.”
“I don’t know, being mad isn’t really my thing...” Chloé said with a quiet chuckle.
“Bullshit!” Tessa said. Everyone looked over at her, so she continued talking. “Chloé, you didn’t see yourself when you fought Gautier, but you were a fucking badass! You were flying all over the place, kicking ass, throwing her across the basement, it was awesome!”
“W-well, I was just trying to protect you, and that’s a unique situation, and I—”
“Wait, you threw her across the basement?” Vee asked.
“Um, yeah, I guess I got a little angry ... She was about to stab Tessa, and I kinda screamed at her? And it turns out that, whatever happened to me, it gave me cool banshee screaming powers!” Chloé said, blushing with excitement.
“You also made me invisible! And you were able to make me phase through objects!” Tessa said, continuing to shower Chloé with praise.
“Chloé!” Vee shouted, jumping up and down excitedly. “That’s so cool!”
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