Part 2, Chapter 9

Part 2, Chapter 9

Lily

By the time we’d worn ourselves out it was after nine-thirty, and we were soaked in sweat. Amber and Sophia had taken turns fucking me silly – I had no interest in using my shapeshifting on myself like that – although, unfortunately they never did anything with each other, meaning I had twice as much work to do.

Thank god for magic...

We all stumbled out into our common room with disheveled hair and no clothes, searching for water. Although I needed it less, there was no reason to burn through my big influx of magic, even if I was pretty sure I would be getting another one soon enough.

As we stood around drinking our tall glasses of water, admiring each other’s sweat-soaked bodies, Amber interrupted the peace with a sudden outburst. “Shit, what about Chris?!”

I stared at her with a puzzled frown, “What about him?”

“We were supposed to text him when we got up.” She scampered off to grab her phone.

I looked to Sophia for answers, “Didn’t we just get up? I don’t think he’d be interested in what we were doing this morning...”

She blinked at me a few times before returning her focus to her water, taking a long drink, and pointedly looking away from me.

Weird, why would the gay guy be interested in lesbian sex...?

Amber returned, throwing her phone down onto the couch on her way over, “He’s on his way, although he might be annoyed we left him out.”

“Left him out of what?”

Amber took another long drink of water. “Our conversation.” She raised an eyebrow at me, like I was supposed to already know this.

My thoughts went to all of the words we’d shared this morning. After our first round, and my confession of love, our speech had been almost exclusively dedicated to short instructions on what to put where, and lots and lots of dirty talk. I assumed she wasn’t talking about that, so...

“We can just tell him we’re dating whenever, right? We don’t need to call him over early in the morning for that news, I feel like he already had an idea of what was going to happen...”

Sophia sighed, “Lily...”

Amber interrupted. “Wait,” she held up a hand towards Sophia, “How do you feel about Chris?”

I shrunk under their stares, the confidence I’d felt early this morning already long gone. “I don’t know... he’s nice and well... like, objectively speaking, he’s attractive?”

Amber nodded, “And do you want to date him?”

I frowned, feeling uncomfortable. “It doesn’t matter, right? He’s gay and I’m a girl, who cares about how I feel about it?” My tone might’ve been a bit bitter.

“Lily... he’s bisexual,” Amber shook her head, “Haven’t you two...?”

I blushed, “Well, I thought... I don’t know!”

Thoughts raced through my head.

Chris... likes women... Images from my one sexual encounter with him floated through my mind, his muscular body, and our other encounter, when we’d kissed.

My eyes shut, and I squirmed. There’s no way I can get horny after this morning, right?

It turned out that some of the rumors and myths about succubi were true, because when I thought back to when he took me out to the movies, to the date he’d taken me on, my heart throbbed and I felt a rush of warmth between my legs. “Fuck, we left out Chris...”

My partners both giggled.

I groaned, “Damn, it’s hard to even get my mind around the fact that he’s available... I’d put him in the off-limits camp for so long, it’s hard to even...”

Amber stared at me, confused, “Didn’t you guys...” she repeated.

I blushed, “I thought he thought I was still a guy!”

She shook her head, “I think you were the last to figure that out...”

“But?” I remained staring at the floor, unable to meet his gaze.

“But I don’t think I can give you what you want. We could try... but I’ve been thinking it over, and I just don’t think it’s a good idea. I... I prefer men to the extent that it feels like I’d be missing out if I dated a woman. And sure, I could date a man too, but I think the very fact that you wouldn’t be my priority, that I would have preferences over you, that’s unfair to you, unfair to both of us, forcing a relationship where there doesn’t need to be one, where one doesn’t feel right.”

“I get it...” It was a weird feeling, the feeling of loss where there never had been anything. I’d gone from zero partners to two in a morning, and yet, in that moment it still felt like I’d missed out.

“Maybe we can do some casual stuff, fool around if you want to and your girlfriends are okay with it, but I don’t think a committed relationship is right for us. I’m sorry, and I hope we can still be friends.”

I finally met his eyes, looked at his conflicted expression. “No need to apologize, you feel how you feel,” I spread my arms out in an invitation to hug, “Of course we can stay friends, and I hope you don’t stop me from cuddling you just because of this.”

I smiled tentatively at him, and it became sincere when he accepted my hug.

Two for three isn’t bad, right?

Amber

After hanging out for a while with everyone, and finally showering, I was finally ready to tackle the subject of what to do about Katie. Sophia and Lily had gone to her room to study, and Chris had left for class, leaving me alone to plot and scheme.

While I wasn’t currently working with her, I still was keeping Lily’s words in my mind, thinking about how she could help. Issue was, I didn’t know how either of us could help.

My mother’s movements and plans were inscrutable; she had never told me anything about her connections or what she did on a day-to-day business. Even where she found my sisters – or me for that matter – wasn’t something we’d discussed. Despite the fact that I called her Mom without qualm, she was more like a teacher or a coach to me than a parent. But that was fine, I got more than enough affection from all of my cute little sisters, and she needed to be a strong leader for our coven in the first place. At least I think so, I don’t really know what leading the coven entails...

But right now, that lack of transparency was a huge issue, because just seeing Katie could alert our mother that something was up, and it was rare for me to visit without reason on any day other than Saturday – at least not during the semester.

I’d had to explain why I’d been at home eventually when I’d stayed over during my fight with Lily, but I’d thankfully lied, at the time wanting to keep Katie out of it as much as possible, saying something about wanting to conduct my experiments at home during a slow week of classes.

I mean, really, how likely is it that I can find a convenient excuse to visit on such a short notice–

My thoughts were interrupted by my phone vibrating, the pattern of the vibration indicating that it was my mother.

I checked the message:

Mom: Urgent request: return home immediately, there is an important task for you, big opportunity

I blinked, staring. How lucky is that? Not only do I get an excuse to visit, but a big opportunity for the coven?!

I smiled. Sometimes, things just worked out.

—

I rushed, sliding into my mother’s office, where a servant had told me to meet her. It was a rare occurrence for me to be there; I’d only first seen the place after becoming a full-fledged witch and taking my first assignment outside of the coven. As my mother got older, the frequency of these assignments had increased, but it was still at most a dozen times per year, and usually they didn’t have this kind of urgency.

Usually, they were ‘make this potion’ or ‘enchant this thing’. Very rarely I had to actually go somewhere to complete the assignment, such as one time I’d had to exorcize a haunted mansion, something that had been extremely unpleasant but paid well.

Collaborating on missions with other witches was generally rare, mostly because of how our spells could accidentally mix and result in catastrophe. Preventing this would mean revealing the details of all of your spells to another witch, allowing them to copy them and develop countermeasures for them. You’d think I could trust my sisters with that, but my mother insisted that a proper witch never revealed all of their secrets to anyone, which meant going solo, unfortunately.

Anyways, the last mission I’d had – cleansing an area of forest of evil spirits – had not gone well, however, and the fallout from that incident, the blow to our reputation, had led to my mother refusing to pay for my solo dorm, saying that I must not be using it to study magic if I’d messed up so bad on the mission.

This meeting, then, would be a test to see if I’d learned my lesson, if I’d been studying since my last failure.

I plopped down in the chair across from her, staring determinedly into her wrinkled face. She was old, old enough to be my grandmother, and although I could usually read her expression because of my experience, her mouth rarely moved in any direction other than pursed lips or mild frown. Right now she was anxious, which immediately put a halt to my excited mood. Something that made her anxious would likely make me terrified.

She began. “This job is different from the ones you’ve done before, as you’ve no doubt already surmised. There are two primary differences: the first is incidental and the second is vital.”

She had a way of speaking that made it seem like she was always lecturing, in both senses of the word. I nodded along to her, as I had been for two decades.

“The first, is the urgency. Our client is rather impatient, and if he was not so well-connected or this job not so convenient, I would not have accepted it. The second, is the objective.”

My nods continued.

“This will be the first of your demon-slaying missions.”