Mind and Body

Panic begins clawing its way into my chest. "What did this curse do?"

Valeria's smile fades slightly. "The curse suppresses your gifts, your charm, tour supernatural abilities. Every advantage your heritage normally provides. More importantly, it prevents you from taking direct action against any of us."

The room falls silent, and before I can stop myself, I decide to test her claim. Valeria is standing only a few feet away, smiling as though we are discussing hairstyles instead of curses. Anger surges through me. I tighten my fist and imagine launching myself out of the chair and driving it straight into her perfect face.

The moment the thought becomes intent, something inside me simply refuses to cooperate. My muscles lock. The movement dies before it can begin. I can still picture it. I can still want to do it. I simply cannot make my body follow through. It feels as though the command never reaches my arms.

A cold wave of panic washes through me as I try again and achieve exactly the same result. Valeria notices immediately. Her smile widens, and several of the other women begin laughing. That is when I realize the curse is even worse than I thought. It is not merely preventing me from hurting them. It is preventing me from even trying.

I look toward the door and imagine myself standing up, walking across the salon, and leaving. Nothing physically prevents me from doing it. There are no chains wrapped around my wrists, no invisible **** pinning me to the chair, and no pain waiting to punish disobedience.

The door remains exactly where it has always been, wide open and completely accessible. Yet the moment I try to turn the thought into action, something inside me recoils. The urge to leave loses its momentum before it can become movement. It feels less like being restrained and more like having the very concept of resistance gently redirected somewhere harmless.

The realization sends a chill down my spine. Whatever this curse is, it does not need to **** obedience. It simply makes disobedience impossible. I look back at the women. Nobody looks guilty. Nobody looks ashamed. If anything, they look pleased with themselves.

The smiles on their faces tell me everything I need to know. A cold knot settles in my stomach. "Oh my God," I whisper.

Drusilla folds her hands comfortably in her lap. "Yes. Most people reach that conclusion eventually."

"You trapped me," I lament.

Xiu Lian tilts her head slightly. "That seems like an unnecessarily negative way to describe the situation."

"What would you call it?" I ask. "Because from where I'm sitting, seven supernatural women lured me into a magical salon, put a cursed cape around my neck, stripped away my powers, and glued my ass to a chair." Several of them laugh.

"I would call it guided self-improvement," Xiu Lian replies.

I stare at her. "You're insane."

"That is entirely possible," Marina says. "But it doesn't make her wrong."

I look from face to face. "You tricked me."

Marina immediately points at me. "Now that is absolutely true. We did trick you. Let's not rewrite history. You should have seen the planning meeting. It took weeks." The room erupts with laughter again.

"Oh yes," Reina says. "You were surprisingly difficult to capture."

I grip the arms of the chair until my knuckles turn white. The harder I push, the more real this becomes. These women are not joking. They are not bluffing. They are completely serious. "What do you actually want from me?" I finally ask. The laughter gradually fades. Valeria exchanges a glance with the others. For the first time since this started, nobody seems amused.

Finally she looks back at me. "We want you to learn."

I immediately hate that answer. "What the hell does that mean?"

"It means," Valeria says calmly, "that you have spent years running around the country acting like you are somehow different from the rest of us."

"I am different from the rest of you." That earns me several offended looks.

"You see?" Marina says.

"She did it again," Callista agrees.

Valeria sighs and pinches the bridge of her nose. "Jezebel, you are a temptress. You possess supernatural beauty, supernatural charm, and supernatural gifts. You belong to the same broad family of creatures as many of us. Yet somehow you have convinced yourself that hunting monsters makes you morally superior."

"The binding curse attached to the cape is anchored to seven lesser curses," Drusilla explains. "Each curse represents one of the seven deadly sins. Each curse must be broken before the binding curse can be removed."

A horrible feeling settles into my stomach. I shake my head in denial, "No!"

Valeria smiles unsympathetically. "I'm afraid you don't have a vote."

For the first time since entering the salon, I finally understand the truth.

I am not leaving, not today, not tomorrow. Not until they decide I have suffered whatever punishmeny they think I deserve. And for the moment, there is absolutely nothing I can do about it. "What does it do?"

Nessa stretches lazily across her chair. "It makes lessons easier."

Callista twirls her scissors. "The ones you desperately need."

I look around the room. Nobody is smiling at me anymore. The atmosphere has changed. The friendliness remains, but now I understand what it really is, the friendliness of predators who know their prey cannot run.

Valeria folds her hands. "Jezebel, do you know how many young temptresses talk about you?"

I blink. "What?"

"Oh, quite a lot," Marina says.

"Constantly," Reina agrees. "You've become something of a celebrity."

I stare at them. "I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about."

"You hunt monsters," Drusilla says.

"You save people," Xiu adds.

"You solve mysteries," Nessa says.

"You risk your life protecting humans." The women exchange glances.

Then Marina sighs dramatically. "Frankly, darling, you're making the rest of us look terrible." The room explodes with laughter again. I just stare.

Valeria shakes her head. "You are half succubus. You possess beauty, charm, supernatural gifts, and every advantage our kind could ask for. And you use them to help people." The way she says it makes it sound absurd.

Callista points at me with her scissors. "Do you know how embarrassing that is?" She looks completely serious.

Valeria crouches beside the chair. "You have spent years teaching humans that temptresses can be heroes."

I shrug. "Maybe they can." The seven women stare at me. Then every single one of them snarls.

"Oh, she's even worse up close," Marina says.

I suddenly feel very small. I grab the arms of the chair. The curse presses down on me like invisible weight. The room feels farther away. The women feel larger, more confident. I feel helpless.

Valeria notices immediately. "That's better."

My pulse begins to race. "What are you doing to me?"

The Vampiress smiles. "Teaching you." The word lands in my stomach like a stone. For the first time since entering the salon, genuine terror grips me. Until now, some part of me has been treating this like a misunderstanding that got out of hand, a bizarre encounter that I could eventually talk my way through or fight my way out of. That illusion finally shatters.

I am not sitting in this chair because I made a bad decision. I am sitting in this chair because seven powerful enchantment creatures spent weeks arranging for me to end up here. I am not a guest. I am not a customer. I am not even a victim in the traditional sense.

Victims are accidents. Victims are collateral damage. Victims are people who happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. This is something else entirely. These women chose me. They planned for me. They built this entire nightmare around me. I am a lesson they intend to teach, a problem they intend to fix, and judging by the eager smiles surrounding me, every woman in this room thinks I deserve it.

I stare at them in disbelief. For some reason that only makes them look more vindicated. "I hate all of you," I mutter.

"That is completely understandable," Valeria says. "Unfortunately, it is also completely irrelevant." A fresh wave of fear rolls through me. Because for the first time since this conversation began, I realize something truly awful. They are not asking for my cooperation. They already have me, mind and body.