Suddenly A Succubus Ch. 26 - Reflection

Oh boy, here we go. Chapter 26, the last chapter of Book Two, and the longest chapter I've ever written. It's longer than chapters 24 & 25 put together! Unlike last time, however, the length of this chapter was always part of the plan. There were so many plot elements floating around, and I knew I wanted to give myself plenty of time to explore all of them.

Before I start rambling, which I know I'm prone to doing in these Reflection pieces, let's start tackling everything in chronological order.

Starting off was honestly pretty easy. When I started planning this book, all those months ago, I knew I wanted the penultimate chapter to end with Amara's sudden disappearance. Then, I wanted to keep people on edge by holding off on the reveal of where she went. Thankfully, I have two other concerned girls that are thinking the same thing as the audience, "Where the fuck did Amara go?"

Thankfully, their course of action is pretty straightforward. There's no way this is a coincidence, so it's time to storm the compound and try to set her free. Easy, right? Well, evidently not. One thing I was excited to show here was that, despite their conflicting personalities, Tessa and Vee are able to put together a pretty effective strategy. It's small, but it's another reminder that these two used to be friends.

Sadly, the cultists were waiting for them. I've mentioned this before, but I really want all my characters to feel proactive in their own stories. If the cult did nothing but ominously wait for a certain time, they'd be boring. So, let's have Sebastian intercept their efforts to recover Vee's Enochian Texts, let's have them set traps for Vee and Tessa. I think this gives them a bit more dimension, even if ultimately they're just a collection of bad guys for our heroes to stop.

Than, at long last, I get to answer the one question everyone's been asking. What happened to Amara? I saw a lot of really great guesses, and I think most people had the right idea. The cult had her blood, and drew up a new circle to summon and bind her.

This is a scene that took a lot of time and energy to really nail. As I've mentioned before, consent is a really big deal to me. However, I also realize I'm writing a story about a succubus, a creature that mortal men love to try and enslave. So, as an author, how do I make that threat feel real, without also robbing Amara of her agency? Well, I write this scene. I've heard that there was genuine fear upon discovering that Amara's will had been overwritten, and that was certainly the intended response. At the end of the day, these are bad people, and I want my readers to believe that.

However, another wonderful facet of the succubus myth, is that they exist to subvert men's perceived sexual dominance. Here, we see Brandon and his goons clearly thinking they've won, but they don't fully understand the limits of Amara's power. Through her inner monologue, it's easy to establish that she's just as proactive as the cult. She's been breaking out of magic circles left and right! So, it makes sense for her to immediately test the limits and figure out a plan.

This scene also serves as a beautiful climax (pun intended) for Amara's arc over the course of this book. Book One was about her discovering her powers, Book Two is about her fearing them. Pretty much all of her actions this book have been driven by guilt, and she initially was trying pretty hard to avoid using her powers. The plot, however, kept pushing her into embracing not just her powers, but her ability to terrify people. Derek didn't confess because of a clever use of her tail; she had to spend weeks haunting him. She tried to deal with Mr. Luxnor by blackmailing him, but he doubled down, again forcing her to pose as a bloodthirsty monster.

To me, this has been one of the most interesting parts of the Book. Amara is so scared of losing herself, and she's honestly trying really hard to be careful about how she's acting. Yet, at the same time, she's so good at terrifying people, and it comes naturally to her.

Anyways, back to our scene.

One thing I really love, and based on some of the ratings on Lit, many other people do as well, is when Amara fully embraces her succubus identity. This sex scene is really the first time we see her embrace that ideal in its entirety. Sure, in the past she's threatened people, and she did once sleep with Mr. Luxnor to get some blackmail, but that was more a clever shapeshifting trick than a full embrace of her demonic lineage.

The Amara in this scene is proud, angry, and actively desires to break the people around her. She commits 110% to being the best fuck she can, and she actively revels in everything that's happening. Something has changed, and as an author, I'm so excited to explore that.

Writing this sex scene was very interesting. It's the longest sex scene I've written, sure, but I've also never written group sex before. So, when I started, I honestly started treating it like a fight, or a puzzle. There needed to be more going on than just mindless fucking, because there's so much at stake. That's why I gave Brandon, Mark, and Chris differing fetishes; I wanted Amara to be problem solving through the scene. It also gave me a great excuse to involve different sexual acts, and the variety helped keep things even more interesting.

The setup here also gave me a perfect chanced to highlight some more physical changes that Amara has seen. Early on, I wanted the transformation to focus on the stranger elements; the tail, the horns, the strength. Many succubus stories do the opposite, though. The focus is always on the bigger tits, the rounder ass, things like that. Now, to be fair, I do love all of that! But I knew I wanted to explore the succubus myth from a slightly different angle. Here, I don't fully confirm the more titillating changes until it feels appropriate for Amara's character. It takes a certain amount of ego to look at yourself at go "Yeah, I'm fucking hot". And, to be clear, that's a good thing! It feels nice to think about yourself that way. But Amara's actions have not been driven by ego, until this scene. They've been driven by fear, confusion, guilt, things like that.

As we start winding down the sex scene, a few really exciting things happen. Amara finally puts her ability to see electrical signals to use, and shorts out their phones. She also finds a way to feed deeper than she ever has before. That particular ability isn't explored too much here, there's a mad cult leader to take down, but it's something that will be coming up again in later chapters.

So Amara breaks free, refuses to kill Brandon (Sorry, readers, I know we all hate him) and races to the chamber. It's time for a fight scene!

And what a fight it ended up being. Writing fights is a skill, and it's one I didn't have for a while. I was really nervous writing the fight between Vee and Amara, as I'd never written one before, but thankfully I think that turned out alright. This Book, however, has had a couple fights, and I've put a lot of effort into improving both their excitement and their readability. Hopefully it shows!

The fight with the cult was honestly a little easier than some other things. Because of its scale, I was able to split the fight into multiple smaller, more manageable scenes. This helped add variety, and it was a great way to pace everything that was happening. So first we follow Vee, and she sees Amara rush in and save them. (I also get to reveal Amara's badass new look! Without her clothes, she's sporting some bitchin' chitinous armor. In my head, I was picturing something akin to Witchblade or the the Queen of Blades. Hopefully it sounds just as cool as I was picturing it.)

The second part of the fight follows Amara and her fight with Sebastian. This is the part I was most nervous about; it's big, explosive (literally!) and I wanted it to feel epic. But, writing a fight at that scale is an interesting challenge. In a visual medium, you can just make the fight look cool, but writing doesn't work the same way. I tried to find a good mix of detailed, specific actions and vague, flashier ones. Hopefully the effort paid off, and the fight felt suitably dramatic compared to the buildup.

I'm also really happy with the last few paragraphs of this scene, where I confirm that Sebastian has been fighting the demon for control of his body. I think this adds just a little bit more depth to everything that's happening, but it also lets me reveal my secret weapon: dramatic foreshadowing. After confirming that the demon is 100% in control, he screams at Amara, whispers something ominous to himself, and then vanishes inside the portal. I've got a lot of plans for this series, y'all, and I'm excited to start putting them into motion.

With the portal now open, it's time to jump back to Vee's POV.

We've spent a lot of time watching Amara wrestle with her guilt this book. However, while she never voices it explicitly, Amara is also looking for redemption, or possibly forgiveness. She wants so badly to talk with Vee, to explain everything, but Vee has been in a pretty complicated place.

Early on, in the first few chapters, I had a lot of people asking about Vee. Where was she? What are her feelings about what happened? As an author, that's a special feeling, I'm so excited people are invested in her story. But, when she returns, there were frustratingly few answers. She's torn between two conflicting ideologies, and she's a very reactive person. To me, it was really important to give Vee her own arc this book, even if it's not quite as prominent as Amara's. If I did my job correctly, hopefully readers want to know which side Vee will end up on. What are her true feelings? That's why this particular scene is so important, and serves as the true climax to this book.

Vee has a chance to send Amara to Hell. Exactly what she tried to do last book. But this chance doesn't exist in a vacuum; she's seeing Amara at her most brutal. She's covered in blood, she was laughing during her fight with Sebastian, she's the farthest from her old self she's ever been. Vee has so many reasons to not trust Amara in this moment. Then, in a moment I'm particularly proud of, we get a direct mirror of the end of the first Book: Amara begging Vee not to kill her.

I was so happy to put this part together. I think it speaks volumes about how much Vee has changed, while still leaving room for future development. Even if they're not exactly friends yet, there's finally confirmation that they're not exactly enemies either.

And that's that! We get some time to recover from the crazy fight, we see each girl process their survival in a slightly different way. We get hints that things are ready to return to normal, Tessa plays some practical jokes, all is good. Plus, everyone who hates Brandon, he got sucked through a horrible, otherworldly portal! I hope that was just as satisfying for you as it was for me.

However, not everything is sunshine and rainbows. This series isn't over yet, and I finally get to share some hints at what might be possible moving forward. The Gate is down, and the soft spot is fully exposed again. This isn't a plot beat I've explored too much, but I think leaving it purposely vague was the right call. There's a wonderful, vague threat on the horizon, and I can't wait to explore what that means for our girls.

How about those last two paragraphs though? It's nice that Vee was kind enough to look away from Amara. Real stand up thing for her to do.

Hope you're all excited for Book Three!

Nyx <3