Suddenly A Succubus

Pitch black darkness. A snarling, snapping snare that ripped and tore and howled as it demanded subservience. It sought nothing but the hunt, the twisted glee of stalking its prey and proving its strength. The light of the nearly-full moon breathed endless vigor into this animal, fed its desires and gave it form as it corrupted the body of its host. Under the shadow of this curse, Nicholas van Buren grew weaker with each passing second. The shadow of the wolf choked out every glimmer of hope, every beam of light that promised an escape.

At times, he found scraps of connection. Vague hints of a friend desperately fighting him off as the chains binding his body shattered. Brief flashes of a treasured friend pleading for his freedom. For one instant, he even thought he saw Amara reaching out in solidarity, but each moment vanished as the beast dug its claws deeper into him.

When the light of the sun found Nick, it forced him to look away. It burned away the darkness, scoured the haze that clouded his mind. In its desperation to survive, the beast turned all its attention to diving deeper into Nick’s essence, but it could not shake the impossible might of the sun’s restraints. Glittering, iridescent chains that thrummed with magic beyond either Nick’s understanding or the beast’s. With one final, defiant howl, the cursed animal that had nearly subsumed him vanished entirely.

Clear, defiant ringing filled Nick’s ears as he took his first breath. The air made no sense; it was cold and dry, completely at odds with the warm sunlight surrounding him. Twisting, writhing, snapping pain suddenly shot through every bone in his body, forcing him to scream out in pain. His agonizing cry did not begin from nothing; it slowly came into focus as the howl of his body’s previous form faded into obscurity.

The glittering chains holding him aloft fell slack, not out of choice, but because his body was greatly diminishing in size. His elongated snout returned to a humanoid shape, his joints repositioned, his razor-sharp claws became dull, flat nails. The thick forest of fur previously covering his entire body retreated, and soon the only hint of its color was the small patch of curly hair sitting atop Nick’s head. When the pain finally receded, his body fell free from the chains and collapsed onto the shattered wooden floor below.

His vision blurry, Nick forced himself to open his eyes regardless. He saw cold, gray stone beneath his hands, only visible because the thin wooden floor normally present above it had been shattered.

This is… the chapel?

“What—” Sharp, throbbing pain surged through Nick’s head as he tried to speak. He shoved his face into his hands in hopes of retreating from the pain, and thankfully relief found him. “What happened?” he managed to mutter.

The warm, glowing light he’d seen earlier slowly faded. The stones of the D’Ambray Chapel groaned as they shifted, not from the magic or the wind, but from the final swing of the massive bell suspended above. Its song echoed far and wide across the campus, no doubt confusing all those who heard it, but none were more confused than Nick himself.

That’s not possible.

Fighting through the headache, Nick looked above him and saw the D’Ambray Chapel bell, swinging freely as it rang with more clarity than he could have ever imagined. It was as if the last several centuries had never touched this bell; its many small fractures had healed, its corroded surface miraculously polished to a mirror shine. While he only caught the final ring of this bell, the clarity of its voice brought a tear to his eye.

The light of the sun, the glittering warmth that had somehow pulled him from his imprisonment, began to fade. It retreated unusually quickly, spurring Nick to pull his eyes away from the bell above. When he looked around, he saw no sun—only the blazing iridescent light emanating from a tall blonde standing opposite Nick in the bell tower clearing. In awe of this sight, Nick watched the light retreat more and more until the visage of his savior slowly came into focus. She was not the sun, she was merely an angel, complete with massive, feathered wings spanning the entire width of the bell tower.

Vee smiled at him, her eyes glittering with heavenly magic as a tear of condensed light slid down her cheek. From behind her, Amara scrambled to her feet and rushed past Vee, stopping just shy of tackling Nick to the floor in her excitement. As they embraced, hundreds of questions flashed through his mind, but one thought won over the rest.

In the absence of Vee’s overwhelming light, Nick saw gentle beams of moonlight drifting down from the sky outside the chapel. Fear gripped him, fear trained over weeks as the gradual waxing of the moon brought him closer and closer to losing himself. He felt its song deep inside his body, some place far more instinctual than a human ever could, but something had changed. The strength promised by the moon no longer drove him mad, no longer fed a beast desperate for his erasure.

Whatever Vee and Amara had done, he feared it was only temporary. Terror gripped him once more as he imagined the return of that monstrosity, imagined the horrors it might wreak if it escaped again, and his vision fell to his hands. They shook with trepidation, and as he watched, bits of fur pushed through his skin. His nails twitched and creaked, growing longer and more jagged as they sought to become claws once more.

No.

Despite weeks of failure, newfound determination flooded Nick’s veins. He gathered every last ounce of willpower he had and commanded his body to listen to him. Despite the promises of the moon and the insistence of his instincts, the scales tipped in his favor.

The fur on the back of his hands paused, then retreated. His nails flattened, losing their sharpened edge as they did the same. The animal instinct nestled deep inside him bowed its head, acknowledging that its desires were no longer in command. Of the many questions that plagued Nick in this moment, one, at least, had been answered.

Tears welled in his eyes, and he returned Amara’s hug with every bit of strength he could muster. He buried his face in her shoulder, shaking and weeping as every last scrap of fear and helplessness from the last month burst free.

His body was his own.