Shannon O'Reilly was bullied and everything his older sister wasn't. When his sister Sarah gives him a chance to change things through a single wish things don't go as planned.     I Wish: Book 5 Chapter 14 Revealed By Amethyst

Rebecca bristled at the threat and looked like she was going to snark something right back at my fiancée but I gave her a warning look and she held her tongue. She had every right to defend her honor but if this devolved into a shouting match then things would only get worse. I tried to quell the suspicious looks in Ellie’s and Ziralin’s eyes by taking one of each of their hands in mine.

“Ellie, Ziralin…I’m not asking either of you to trust her yet,” I said, giving them both an imploring look. “I’m asking you to trust me and just wait until we’re through a portal and meeting up with some of the others. I promise to explain everything then but this is a long story and I’d rather not go through it more times than I have to. Haven’t I earned that type of trust? I’m not being coerced and if she really meant you harm and was controlling me, she could have just killed you while you were still unconscious.”

Ziralin looked into my eyes, sighed, and then after a moment, she nodded. “You have. I… just… I’ve been worried sick about you this whole time and now there are those pheromones and you’re acting like you’re scared of us.”

I leaned over to kiss her, putting all the love that I had for her into both the action and my thoughts before pulling away. “It’s not either of you, I promise. There’s an issue with the Mark that I got from Xuriel and I’m just worried that it will make you see me differently. Can you please get dressed? I’d like to leave soon so we can get this talk over with.”

With that, I turned around and headed toward where Michelle and Lisa were waiting with our three frozen captives. To my surprise, Rebecca placed a hand tenderly on my shoulder as we made our way over and whispered, “You need to chill about this Shannon. I know that I’m probably not the best to give this kind of advice, but my mom used to tell me, ‘If people truly care about you for who you are inside, the outside won’t matter.’ I think I can see what she meant now because of you.”

“Thanks, Beks, you’re right,” I whispered back gratefully. Right then, that was exactly what I needed to hear. The upcoming explanation was still going to be awkward as hell, but I needed to have a little more trust in the people that I loved. As long as I could show them that I was still the same person inside, their feelings for me wouldn’t change, we were all better than that.

Michelle and Lisa had gathered up all of the magical artefacts and, after slipping the one that I wanted for the Faery into my portable bunker, Lisa and I drained the rest of them of magick energy in front of the former Markers, including the cage that had held Ellie and Ziralin. Lisa hadn’t used much magick since she last topped up so most of them were drained by me. It wasn’t quite enough to fill me to my new limit, but considering how much magick energy I already had stored, I was hoping that it would be enough to find the others and leave this plane of existence.

“So, what do we do with these assholes?” Michelle asked once we were done and a fully clothed Ziralin and Ellie had joined us.

I shrugged and decided to leave it up to the others. “Well, I’m inclined to just leave them here now that their ability to use magick has been sealed, but I’m not really the victim in this. You, Lisa, Ziralin, and Ellie were the ones who were caged with the intent to breed you, experiment on you, and/or keep you as pets. If there’s something else you’d like to see done as an appropriate punishment, then I’ll help. But no magical punishments.”

“I think that sealing their ability to use magick was appropriate, Shannon. I say that we just leave them outside this big house where people can easily find them before your spell wears off. Let their own people decide their punishment. They’ve suffered far more than we have,” Lisa suggested.

“I… You’re right Lissy,” Michelle agreed, letting out a small sigh. “As much as I would love to punish them personally, this isn’t our world so it’s not our place to say how they’re dealt with.”

“Yeah, I can get behind that, they’ve hurt those people outside the walls a lot worse than they did us. The bastards take slaves and use orphans as test subjects. We should just stick them somewhere they can be easily found,” Ziralin said with a shrug. “Not like we suffered much, we were asleep the whole time.”

“Well, we did wake up naked, not that that really bothers either of us,” Ellie pointed out. “But I guess that I agree with the others, we should just take the trash outside and then get out of here so Shannon can tell us what’s going on, who the hottie is, and what happened to Rebecca.”

Rebecca didn’t have an opinion one way or the other it seemed. She did blush a bit at Ellie calling her a hottie, but sighed and muttered, “I am Rebecca.”

My cousin and fiancée both gave me a long hard look at that. “Long story, and it’s all tangled up in the stuff with Xuriel and how we survived to get here. If you want to hear it, let’s drop these jerks outside and get out of here,” I told them.

Ellie, Ziralin, and Michelle hauled the Nhekarites upstairs physically to preserve the magick energy that Lisa had stored, with Michelle leading the way. It made sense since Lisa’s Familiar and the two Fae were the strongest of us. Well, Rebecca and I were probably stronger than all of them but to use that strength we would have needed to reveal our Succubus forms.

While we waited for them to return, I cast a locator spell to track down my sister and Jennifer. I figured that they would either still be with the partner that they entered this Plane with or at least somewhere nearby. Sarah’s signal was really far away, I thought they might actually be on the other side of the planet. Jennifer seemed somewhat closer, but still far away. At least being able to track them confirmed that the two of them were still alive.

It didn’t really matter which group we traveled to first, they were both probably in the same general situation with no magick energy to draw on so they could use their Celestial forms. I figured that if we got delayed with the first group though that Sarah and Annie were more suited to survive in the long term. Mason might be psychic, but his gift wasn’t always completely reliable and while he and Jen were both still teenagers, my sister and Annie were adults and genuine badasses.

As soon as the other three returned, I cast a portal to Jennifer’s location. I had never had a chance to use the spell myself but Sarah had used it several times since the first time that she used it to get us to Ziralin’s bedroom when she had accidentally let her mom see her without a glamour and outed herself to her family. I had plenty of secondhand experience with it too since my ‘Xuriel’ memories indicated that she had used this spell often.

I stepped through to hold the portal open while the others followed and the moment that I was on the other side Jen’s familiar voice squealed, “Shannon! I missed you so much!” I was tackle-hugged before I could even get a look at my new surroundings but at least everyone else got the same treatment when they came through. Except for Rebecca, of course.

“See, I told you they were coming,” Mason teased his girlfriend once we were all through and I had closed the portal. “It’s good to see you guys again. I guess that we just need to find Sarah and Annie now.”

“Yep, and I can cast another portal right now so we can do that,” I confirmed, eager to see my sister again as well.

“No! Wait! Not Yet! You have got to see something first,” my best friend insisted excitedly as she half-dragged me along behind her. We were in a small chamber of some sort and the walls, ceiling, and floor were all made of some kind of metal that I couldn’t identify. The only things of interest were the pale blue lights embedded in the ceiling, the entrance to one of their portable bunkers along one wall, and what looked like two metal doorways on opposite sides of the room.

“Jen, stop!” Ziralin called out. “Shannon promised me and Ellie an explanation when we got here and I want to hear it.”

“But this is huge, and it might help us find Jalael!” Jen quickly protested.

My fiancée quickly countered, “There’s no need to find Jalael, Ellie and I already did and she’s got her wings.”

“What?! Congrats, Ellie! Omigod, we have all six Sentinels now. If Xuriel’s ready to help us, we can take down the Demon King and his Generals! You still have to see this though!” My best friend was as excited as I had ever seen her while Mason just watched her with a patient smile, probably waiting for his girlfriend to get it all out of her system.

“Actually, we have all seven Sentinels,” I corrected with a sigh.

Ziralin gave me another long appraising look and I sighed again as she said, “Jen, no. I can appreciate that you’re excited about this, I’ve known you longer than anyone here, but whatever this groundbreaking discovery is, it can wait. I’ve been worried sick about Shannon since I arrived on this rock and frankly, everything I’ve seen and heard since she found us hasn’t made me any less worried now. Explanations now, Shannon. Please.”

Well, this was awkward. Lisa, Michelle, and Rebecca were all looking away, either feeling guilty for not letting Ziralin and Ellie in on the secret yet, or unsure of what to say to make this any less tense. Ellie and Ziralin were looking at me and Rebecca with a mixture of concern, uncertainty, and possibly even suspicion. Jennifer looked downright confused, and Mason didn’t look much better off as he looked like he was trying to solve some sort of complex mental puzzle.

“I did promise,” I agreed as I walked over to Mason. “I need to cast a spell on Mason first though. Then we can have ‘show and tell’ safely.”

Mason’s eyes widened and I could tell that he had figured out the puzzle with his intuition, or at least part of it. “Um… yeah, that’s probably a good idea,” he quickly agreed.

I quickly cast the anti-succubus spell on our resident psychic and then I stood where he, Jennifer, Ziralin, and Ellie could all see me and I could see them, so I could monitor their body language and facial expressions. Then I swallowed the lump in my throat and began to speak. “When we arrived on Nhekar, I noticed pretty quickly that there was no ambient magick energy to draw on. I had used everything that I had to open the portal one last time for me and Rebecca and then to make sure we couldn’t be followed. Things weren’t looking that great for us.”

“Ya think?” Rebecca snarked.

I tried not to get too upset with her for responding, this situation was tense and snark was her defense mechanism. “Anyway, we were in the middle of a huge desert with some pretty damn terrifying predators, I had no magick, and when Rebecca wasn’t withdrawn and depressed from losing her mother, we were constantly fighting. Our chances of survival were pretty slim. That’s when Xuriel appeared.”

“What, so she gave you her Mark?” Jen asked in confusion.

“No, I’ve had it all along, ever since my birthday wish,” I explained with a shake of my head. Then I began to relate Xuriel’s story, making sure not to leave anything important out. Finally, I sighed and said, “So you see, she wasn’t bound to a place, she was bound to our bloodline and she used my birthday wish to make me into the magical prodigy that she had waited thousands of years for.”

“Holy shit, I can’t believe that Xuriel was the first Cailleach Dearg,” Elsaishe said in a hushed tone. Then her brow furrowed in anger. “And she was inside you all that time, she could have unsealed the mark at any time and helped us when we needed it.”

“She didn’t want to reveal that I had her Mark so she sealed it and slowly fed me memories or skills in my dreams or as I needed them and kept anything I didn’t need behind a mental barrier until I was ready to fight the Demon King. She did help us though. She was the one who put the protections on my mind, clued me in about the Demon Brands, and snapped me out of that Succubitch’s control at the sorority house. She had to act subtly. When we got here though, she had no way to help me and Rebeca survive except to come clean with me and unseal my Mark,” I explained.

Everyone seemed to be quietly taking it in so I took a deep breath and continued. “The problem is that her Mark was changed, it merged with the Demon Brand. So I didn’t get a Celestial form, I got her curse and my ability to gather and manipulate magick energy became way more powerful. I had to use the abilities that came with the curse to survive and to share my curse with Rebecca. This is why I didn’t want to show you or Ellie, my love, I was afraid of how you might react.”

With that, I took one more deep breath and then shifted into my Succubus form. “Before he was cursed, Xuriel was prideful. He was proud of being a man, overconfident in his power as a Celestial, and he hated Demons with a passion. Izhara wanted him to suffer so she cursed him into the body of a young human girl, a mortal with the only option for power or a change in form to be those of a Succubus. It was only some weird twist of fate that the Mark and the Brand merged and she retained a mutated and more powerful version of her original Celestial ability.”

Before anyone else could say anything Rebecca had changed form as well, placed a reassuring hand on my shoulder, and stated clearly, “And before any of you start thinking of giving Shannon shit for cursing me, I don’t see this as a curse. I asked for this. She gave me what I always wanted and a way to survive in this world and it wasn’t an easy choice for her to make. She did this for me, and I’m grateful.”

“They may look it, but they’re not real Demons. They don’t have a Demonic aura because they’re still the same people on the inside. They’re still human, just cursed. They can just look like Succubae and use similar abilities,” Lisa pointed out as the others squinted their eyes as if looking for an aura.

“That’s how Xuriel managed to get the drop on Demons and turn her curse into a good thing, she had no aura, Demon or Celestial. She used that to strike from the shadows and take Demons by surprise, it’s how she got her title,” I added. “She was like this for most of her time as a Sentinel but she hid from even her friends. I don’t want to do that.”

“Shannon has all of Xuriel’s knowledge and abilities when she sealed her powers, it’s really not all that different than a Celestial mark. She’s had the Mark all along too so she’s still the same person that we’ve known all this time,” Lisa insisted.

I could have sworn that I saw Ziralin and Ellie both breathe a sigh of relief as I tried a smile. “Ummm… yeah, we’re still us, just with some new abilities, and I have some new memories, just like you when you got your Marks.”

“This is going to take some getting used to, Cuz. I can understand why you were worried about telling us but I know it’s still you in here. You’re unique, and I’d know you anywhere. I can sense the Faery blood, the power of the Cailleach Dearg, and the flavor of your magick. You’re still the same person who brought me into your family and held me when I cried myself to sleep,” Ellie said as she nearly crushed me in a hug. Once she had let me go she pointed at Rebecca, “Just sayin’, she doesn’t look anything like Rebecca though, she’s really hot now.”

“And one hundred percent female too,” Rebecca shot back with a grin. “Shannon thinks that the curse is meant to keep our human bodies looking like our Succubus forms, sorta as a reminder.”

Ziralin crossed the distance between us in a heartbeat, wrapped her arms around me, and kissed me passionately until we both needed to come up for air. I was still feeling giddy from the kiss when we could breathe again and she spoke. “You should have trusted us, Babe, but I can understand why you were so tense now. I should have trusted you more too but I was worried that you were under her spell once I smelled those pheromones. This changes nothing, you’re still the girl that I want to spend eternity with. Out of curiosity though, why am I not wrapped around your little finger right now?”

“With her and Becca both being the way they are now, Shannon came up with an anti-Succubus spell to protect us all from the effects of the pheromones and the mental whammy. That’s what she cast on Mason, so one of them doesn’t turn him into a drooling idiot under their complete control. It makes things awkward afterward, trust me,” Michelle explained. Then she turned to look at the two Fae. “She cast the same spell on you two while you were still asleep to protect you because she didn’t want one of them to accidentally whammy you after your experience at the sorority house.”

Jennifer awkwardly raised her hand as if we were in class and then blushed as she realized what she was doing and just spoke. “It would be nice to know what you’re both capable of other than Shannon’s magick. It would improve our teamwork and Mason and I have never fought a Succubus. So what abilities do Succubae have exactly, other than turning men’s minds to mush?”

“We can fly and regenerate really fast from injuries. I lost half of my wing when Lisa shot me but it grew back within ten minutes,” Rebecca said, teasing the Witch with the electric blue hair.

“I said I was sorry! We didn’t know it was you and we were already being chased by people wanting to put us back in a cage,” Lisa grumped.

“Other than that we’re really strong, fast, and fairly agile, but only in our Succubus forms. Our tails and claws can be used as weapons when fighting close up and we can use negative feelings to place curses on other living beings, though we’re not really comfortable using that, and the more specific a curse the better,” I explained, shuddering as I recalled my explosive curse on the Tuskreaper. “We can also shapeshift to change our appearances but we're limited to female forms. We’ve been working on partial shifts from our human forms too, like staying human but only gaining the eyes, tail, wings, or something from our Succubus forms.”

“Is there anything that we should watch out for? Your promise ring is platinum, is it going to kill you if you try to put it on? And don’t Succubae have a very specific diet?” Ziralin asked in concern as she held me.

“If we had to drain men to live, this planet would have killed us already,” Rebecca pointed out with a laugh.

“We don’t really have any of the negatives of being a Succubus unless you count not being able to control the pheromones and mental allure, but I think that was part of the curse. The best that we can do is sort of direct it at a single target. We don’t need to feed on male tantric energy to live and silver, platinum, and holy magick won’t cause us any problems either,” I told my beautiful Fae Familiar and fiancée before kissing her tenderly and wrapping my tail around her thigh, causing her eyes to widen as my tongue probed her lips and gained entry to dance eagerly with her own until we were once again forced to come up for air.

“I… uhh… see,” she gasped out. “So, all of the…benefits without much of a downside. I gotta say though, the horns are adorable, and your ears are pointed in this form too. I’ll need to be careful of those fangs though, I nearly cut my tongue while we were kissing just now.”

“TMI! Geez, get a room, you two,” Rebecca teased.

“Beks, I’ll have you know that the Faery have no problems being intimate with others in public. Succubae shouldn’t either, even fake ones,” I teased back, causing the other pseudo-Succubus to turn red.

“Is it weird that I think the strangest thing about this whole situation is those two getting along?” Ellie asked, eyes darting between me and Rebecca.

“No,” Ziralin, Michelle, and Lisa all replied in unison.