Bo's tears dried too quickly.
That was the first wrong thing.
The salt tracks on his cheeks still glistened, but the ache behind them the raw, scraping grief that had been his constant companion since walking in on Alicia was...
fading.
Not healing.
Not scabbing over.
Just gone, like wine poured from a shattered glass.
Elio's fingers tightened on his chin. "Oh," she murmured, her dark eyes flickering with something between hunger and alarm. "You're not holding on at all, are you?
Bo shuddered. He knew that tone. Knew it from the battlefield, from medics assessing a wound gone necrotic.
The other women felt it too.
Alani abandoned her languid sprawl on the chaise, sitting up with the predatory focus of a shark catching blood in the water.
Tiara's playful hair twisting stilled.
Even Noelani, usually content to observe, drifted closer, her delicate nostrils flaring as she scented the air.
"He's empty you know what that usually means." Noelani whispered, fascinated.
"Not empty," Elio corrected. Her thumb brushed Bo's lower lip, and he felt it the faint, insidious pull, like roots sinking into damp soil. "Just... Holding back."
Bo recoiled. "Stop"
"We cant," Sayaa interrupted from the shadows. She stepped forward, her obsidian gown slithering over her curves like a second skin. "That's the problem."
A beat of silence.
Then The Shift.
The air changed. The women's postures, their expressions, the very light around them warped as they moved in unison, circling him with a new purpose.
Now there eyes glow unnaturally even the mansions lights dim conspiratorially.
Bo's heart drops.
There eyes keeping the room well lit, the spotlight was on him and he could feel the heat.
Elio's sigh was almost apologetic. "Men always want the same thing, when we drain them emotionally." she said, trailing a finger down Bo's chest. "And we know how to feed on that."
Tiara laughed, low and throaty, as she peeled off one glove with her teeth. "Let's make you feel something, soldier."
Sanaa pressed close from behind, her heat searing through Bo's clothes. "You miss being touched, don't you?" Her breath scorched his neck.
A moan erupted from his lips in reluctant response. But still all that was siphoned was furious anger.
"Alicia hadn't kissed you in months. Hadn't wanted to."
"Get out of my fucking head." Bo grunted out.
Rage bloomed out from his heart the only emotion he would allow them to feel the only thing he had a endless pool of.
Tiara dropped to her knees, her hands sliding up his thighs.
"We can taste your loneliness," she purred.
"It's delicious." His rage only causing them to come onto him with reckless abandonment.
Bo couldn't help but bite his lip this time he would rather bleed then scream.
Even Noelani, ever the scientist, watched his pupils dilate with clinical interest. "Fascinating. His heart rate spikes, but his grief.... stays. I'd love to run some test on him."
Bo's body reacted, of course it reacted, but his mind screamed warnings. This wasn't comfort. This was foraging. They'd drained his sorrow and now hunted for the next ripe emotion.
"No." He wrenched back, his voice raw. "I'm not, I won't be your meal."
And Elio saw it.
She saw the slope of his shoulders folding inward, the bruised red around his eyes, the hollowness behind his gaze.
He wasn't just mourning love.
He was mourning his life and they were consuming it.
He wouldn't let go of the past.
So Elio, desperate for something to shift, changed her tactic. She moved closer, a glimmer of silk and shadows, her steps that same hypnotic rhythm she used to tear kingdoms down. She placed a hand beneath his chin, coaxed his gaze upward.
"You're torturing yourself," she said, voice velvet and smoke. "You keep holding onto the knife even after it's buried deep. Why?"
He blinked at her, lost.
She leaned in, lips nearly brushing his. "The best way to get over someone... is to get under someone else."
It was a final attempt to flip the script. To drag him into the old cycle the one where pleasure dulled pain, if only for a while.
"I can't!" Bo said while the memories of his nephew fucking his fiance plays in his mind. Bringing a fresh wave of sadness that he clung to like a life raft, before the 7 supernatural woman drained him of it.
The silence between them grew teeth.
Elio's fingers stilled on Bo's thigh. The other women froze mid-motion Tiara's lips parted around an unspoken seduction, Sanaa's nails hovering inches from his skin, Noelani's breath catching in her throat.
They had come to him like waves, hungry and certain. Now they stood stranded, staring at a shore that refused to yield.
"You're not..." Alani began, then stopped. Her hand, usually so sure, hovered uncertainly over his shoulder. "You're not *responding."
Bo said nothing. The quiet stretched, taut as a noose.
Tiara's practiced pout faltered. "Maybe he needs more... encouragement?" Her fingers trailed down his chest, but the gesture felt hollow now a script performed without conviction. When Bo didn't react, something brittle flashed in her eyes. "Why won't you just"
"Because it's not real." Bo's voice was sandpaper rough.
Not angry.
Not even sad.
Just tired.
The words landed like stones in still water.
Sanaa recoiled first, her fire guttering out. "Oh," she breathed. The scent of his grief salt and sleepless nights and the metallic tang of swallowed rage filled her nostrils. It was too raw. Too human. Her usual hunger twisted into something like shame.
Tiara's mask slipped entirely. The coy tilt of her head straightened, the calculated arch of her back relaxed. For the first time in centuries, she looked her true age an ancient thing, weary of games. "You're hurting," she whispered, as if this were some revelation.
Noelani pressed her palm flat to Bo's chest. Not to seduce. To feel, His heartbeat was a ragged, stubborn thing. "He's not refusing us," she realized. "He's refusing to forget her."
Elio stepped back as if burned.
The mansion's opulence felt suddenly garish a gilded cage draped over something feral. The women exchanged glances, their usual confidence fraying at the edges.
Amaya broke first. "Enough." She turned on her heel and walked away, her bare feet sile
nt on the marble.
One by one, the others followed not in defeat, but in something uncomfortably close to respect.
Only Elio and Leilani remained, they're dark eyes searching Bo's face. "You're a terrible guest, you know," elio said, but there was no bite to it. Just a strange, grudging admiration.
Bo exhaled. The weight in his chest hadn't lessened, but it had changed.
They had come to feed.
Instead, they remembered what it was to hunger.
Chest heaving, fists clenched at his sides, sweat beading at his brow not from pleasure, but from restraint. From holding the line. From choosing, again and again, to stay true to himself when the entire world was willing to devour him.
Leilani, quietly, took in all of Bo.
Her lips parted, her voice caught in her throat. Because she didn't see a man anymore.
She saw defiance carved into flesh and soul.
A storm that would not break.
His pain didn't beg to be comforted. It demanded to be understood.
And in his restraint his refusal to surrender even as every force worked to unmake him she saw something she had never known.
Not power. Not seduction.
Purpose.
And it humbled her.
When Bo finally pulled back from Elio's touch when he said, "Please... don't," with a voice like cracked stone it shattered the illusion completely.
"I'm not a hole to be filled," he said, looking at her, tears drying into resolve. "I'm not a craving. I'm not ready."
The silence that followed wasn't awkward.
It was sacred.
The women stilled. The hunger dissolved. The mansion seemed to hold its breath.
Then Leilani took a step forward not as a temptress, a succubus, or a cursed one, but as a witness, calm and sure. Her eyes flicked to Elio... then to Bo.
And she raised her hand.
"I vote he undergo the Trial." The moment Leilani's hand rose, the mansion's air thickened with the scent of frangipani and ozone. The women erupted into motion not as seductresses now, but as something far older. A council of predators debating their next hunt.
"You can't be serious!" Tiara's voice rang out first, her Samoan lilt sharp as broken coral.
First to voice her opinion
"The rules are clear thirty days of restraint while bound to his every breath? For what? A broken man who probably can't finish" Tiara looks away for a split second.
"No one ever makes it!!" Elio didn't hide the bitterness in her voice this time.
"But he feels deeper than any before him," Leilani countered, her Hawaiian vowels rolling like tides against stone. Her bare feet left faint steam prints on the marble as she stepped forward. "The Trial demands more than flesh. It demands the truth."
A murmur rippled through them. The word truth tasted dangerous on their tongues.
Sanaa paced like a caged storm, her sheer silk wrap crackling with static.
"The last Trial nearly starved us to death," she snapped. "And this one comes with with a man who knows how to starve us if he want" Her laugh was all teeth. "Might as well kill us now."
Noelani traced the air where Bo's grief still lingered. "But if we break him... imagine the feast," she whispered. "A soul tempered by suffering tastes sweeter than any quick fuck." Her pinkie finger the missing one twitched in anticipation.
Alani rolled her shoulders, the ceremonial kava tattoos along her collarbones darkening. "The trial binds us too," she reminded them. "We protect him as he protects us. No outside threats. No abandonment." Her gaze flicked to Elio. "Even from each other, even if he's talented can we trust him."
Tiara flashed her gold-capped tooth. "Fine. But I want veto rights on his suffering." At their blank stares, she elaborated: "If he starts weeping over his ex again, I get to drown him in pleasure instead. Trial or no Trial."
Elio hadn't moved. Hadn't spoken. Now her braid unwound itself like a living thing, the bone clasp at its end clicking against marble as she stepped forward.
"You forget the most important rule," she said, her voice low as a burial chant. "If he completes the Trial... he earns two wishes. Not just for himself." Her eyes locked on Bo's. "One for him, and hopefully One for us."
A collective inhale. Wishes were impossible currency especially for the cursed.
"So don't be bitches" Noelani squeeks out, already adverting her eyes downward.
Sanaa snorted. "I'm in. But only because watching him suffer through cold showers will be hilarious."
Tiara winked at Bo. "Oh, you'll beg to break the rules by week two."
Noelani simply pressed her palm to the floor, making the mansion's foundation hum in agreement.
When the last hand rose, the walls themselves seemed to lean closer. The chandelier's crystals frosted over. Somewhere deep in the mansion, a door that hadn't opened in three centuries creaked ajar.
Elio's final words curled through the sudden chill
"Trial begins at moonrise. Pray you survive the first night."
Gasps rippled through the space. Not dramatic but sharp. Felt.
Even Elio turned with a jolt, like someone had struck her.
"Leilani," she whispered, a warning laced in disbelief.
But Leilani stood her ground. "He wants peace," she said. "He wants freedom from pain. So do we. And if anyone has a chance of lasting the Trial... it's him. Because he's not running from us he's running from what's broken inside."
Elio blinked, caught between rage and sorrow.
Then Tiara stepped forward.
"I vote yes too," she said. "Not because he's strong, but because he's tired of pretending to be."
Sanaa lifted her hand next, no hesitation. "He won't play our games. That means he might be the one who breaks them."
Alani raised hers. "He's not here to win. He's here to survive. That's enough for me."
Noelani's voice was small, but steady. "I vote yes... because he reminds me what it's like to hope."
And finally, Amaya.
She didn't speak. She just lifted her hand, her eyes locked on Bo.
Elio stared at them all, breathing hard. Her chest rose with something caught between panic and heartbreak.
Then she turned to Bo.
And the fear in her eyes wasn't for what he might do.
It was for what he might become.
She stepped toward him slowly, lowering herself until they were eye to eye. She reached out hesitantly and brushed the back of his hand with her fingertips.
"You don't have to say yes," she said, her voice no longer teasing, no longer wrapped in silk. "But if you do... everything changes."
Bo stood at the edge of something he didn't know what. The idea of a "Trial" hung in the air like a challenge wrapped in mystery, and all he had were scraps of understanding and a heart still aching from loss.
His eyes bounced from one woman to the next, each of them seemingly waiting for him to speak, to accept or reject something he didn't even understand.
Sensing the pressure swelling in his chest, Sanaa stepped forward.
She didn't move like someone trying to seduce anymore. She moved like a soldier stepping into truth.
"Before you decide," she said, voice steady, sharp-edged but not unkind, "you should know what the Trial really is."
"On the surface it's one month vow not to have sex with any of us...."
"Lielani but we must live with you!" The rest of the women nod in tandem of agreement.
"And on kyou" Amaya adds softly.
Bo looked at them, uncertain, guarded.
She met his gaze without flinching. "It's not just about keeping your hands to yourself. It's not just about denying temptation. The Trial is a test of the soul. Of restraint. Of will."
She took another step, her arms crossed now, body squared with his.
"We're not like anything you know. We were cursed long before you arrived. Bound to desire. To hunger. We feed on the energy of longing, of want... and we've learned to live on the edge of that craving. But it's never enough. Not really."
Bo didn't interrupt. He couldn't.
Sanaa continued, eyes locked on his. "The Trial is simple in design, but brutal in execution. For thirty days, we will be linked to you, And we will not stop being who we are. We'll crave. We'll pull. We'll test you. Not to destroy you but to find out what's left when everything inside you screams yes... and you still say no."
Her voice softened just slightly, but her eyes remained fierce.
"If you make it to the end, you don't just win a wish. You win clarity. Power. Peace."
She paused, then added, "That's why we want to know if you're strong enough, Bo. Because you're the first in a long time who didn't try to own us. You just... resisted."
The room was quiet again. But this time, the silence didn't choke.
It listened.
Then came Noelani.
She stepped forward slowly, delicate as moonlight, and reached for his hand-not to pull him, not to tempt-but just to hold it.
Her fingers were cool and calming.
"You don't have to be perfect," she whispered. "You don't even have to be sure. Just honest."
Bo's throat tightened.
"You're allowed to want peace, Bo," she said, her voice like water over stone. "We all do."
She gave his hand a light squeeze. "And if you decide to stay... you won't be alone in it. Not really."
There it was.
The truth.
And the grace to walk toward it.
Now, it was up to him.
Bo stood still, his arms loosely at his sides, fingers twitching like they were still trying to hold onto something that had already slipped through.
His mind was a maze no start, no exit. Just endless turns, dark corners, and the soft, maddening echo of everything he had just lost.
He wasn't crying anymore. That part of him had dried up. He was past the storm. Now came the stillness the part where everything was wrecked and quiet, and all you could do was stare at the damage.
A trial.
One month.
No sex.
Two wishes.
It sounded like the plot to some cruel joke or a fairy tale rewritten by someone with a twisted sense of humor. But no one was laughing. Not the women. Not Bo.
Certainly not the part of him still grieving the reality that he no longer had a place to call home.
He looked at each of them these women, these creatures of surreal beauty and silent power and for the first time, they weren't trying to seduce him. They weren't reaching out, pulling him in.
They were simply waiting.
Like the universe itself had taken a breath and was watching him hold it.
Bo's thoughts churned behind his tired eyes.
Why a month?
Why no sex?
Why not just ask me to do something impossible instead?
Because this didn't feel impossible. Not yet. Just confusing. Unnatural.
But what did he know of nature anymore? He walked into a tent behind two dumpsters. Now he stood in a mansion lined with velvet and moonlight. The floor gleamed beneath his feet. The air smelled of orchids and fire. The ceiling rose so high it felt like sky.
And somewhere in all this, there was the promise of magic. Of wishes.
Bo didn't believe in much these days. But even the cynical parts of him the parts held together by stubbornness and the remains of a broken heart couldn't deny this wasn't normal. This place breathed. It shimmered when no one moved. It pulsed, like it felt him.
Like it was alive.
And yet, for all its wonder, he still didn't understand why. Why this was the price. Why his body was the battleground.
His ex hadn't just broken up with him-she'd shattered him. He caught her cheating, lost his job, and his apartment within the same spiraling week. Now his car was the closest thing he had to a roof. And even that was losing warmth, fading into bitter nights filled with cheap blankets and colder thoughts.
So yeah... a mansion, even if it was hidden in the folds of an enchanted tent behind a dumpster, sounded better than the street. Better than the backseat where he'd cried himself to sleep. Better than gas station coffee and lies to himself that tomorrow might be better.
His pride wanted to resist. It wanted to ask more questions. Demand more answers.
But his reality?
It whispered that this was the best deal he was going to get.
Bo clenched his jaw, the weight of everything pressing against him like gravity doubling down. The silence grew louder. He could feel their eyes on him like the entire house waited to exhale.
And finally, he spoke.
His voice didn't thunder. It didn't rise with defiance or flair.
It barely rose at all.
"...Fine."
Seven heads tilted, eyes sharpening.
He cleared his throat, steadier this time. "I'll do it. One month. No touching. You keep your hands to yourselves, I keep mine to myself... and I get my two wishes."
His gaze landed on Elio last.
"Deal."
There was no applause. No triumphant music. No magic swirling through the air.
Just stillness.
A heavy, knowing stillness.
And Elio, no longer draped in her usual armor of seduction, nodded once. Slow. Almost reluctant. Her dark eyes held something new now not desire.
But worry.
Admiration.
And maybe even guilt.
"So be it," she whispered.
And with those three simple words, the trial began.