Chapter Eight: Accusers

No good deed goes unpunished, and so I had to be disciplined for what I'd done at the Old Abbey. Ms. Law brought Michelle and me around to the front of the building and Ms. Rust escorted us to a limo and sent us straight back to St. Circe's. Maybe I should have run - I was outside the school's grounds for the first time in weeks with miles and miles of rustic countryside all around - southern France if I had to guess. But I was still roiling with anger, fear, confusion, and probably a few other negative emotions… and determined to see the sniffling Michelle safely back to St. Circe's.

"Why can't you behave for once in your life," Ms. Rust asked. The hills and the vineyards passed by in the night.

"Because I don't have Stockholm Syndrome," I said. "If I'm going to be punished for stopping my friend's rape, I guess I'm going to be punished. Go ahead. Turn me into a fucking Barbie doll."

Ms. Rust didn't turn me into a Barbie doll, though. She didn't punish me at all. She locked me in the administration building's janitor's closet (déjà vu), this time with no company other than a few dead flies and the smelly mop, and I waited in there for probably four hours, drifting in and out of sleep, until Doctor Sauvage showed up to administer my punishment.

She opened the closet and stood in the doorway, arms crossed, backlit, and looking down at me with her accustomed stony impassivity.  "Where's your collar?" she said.

"Destroyed," I said.

"Those are expensive."

"Seems kind of foolish to leave one on your worst-behaving student, then." I tried to sound brave, but my voice wasn't in the least convincing. It wheezed and wavered in my throat as I fought to control my emotions.

"In my office. Now."

I nodded and followed after her. At least we weren't going to the ritual chamber. The adrenaline of my righteous fury had long since faded, so I just stumbled after her, barely able to walk and resigned to my fate. How small was she going to make me now? Four and a half feet tall and sixty-five-ish pounds? Jesus. She nudged me into the office and waited for me to assume the position: hands on the desk, legs slightly spread, butt up.

"You can keep making me smaller, but you're not going to break me," I said.

The doctor snorted. That was the closest thing I'd ever heard to laughter from her. "That phase of your plan is over... no more getting smaller." She retrieved my plan and prepared the ritual for my punishment. "What would you say about getting bigger?"

Of course I wanted to be bigger. I wanted to be my old self again, but bigger would suffice for now. But I also knew this was her way of gloating, knew that I probably wouldn't like what was about to happen. Doctor Sauvage cleared her throat, prepared her various artifacts, and chanted: "Obscurum transformitans oculum et Natalie Penelope Bryce," she said - I could make out almost all the words, even if I couldn't quite understand them. This was, I would learn, the ritual required to advance my plan. Lucky me!

Then she flipped the skirt of my evening dress up and gave my ass a few solid, slightly-painful taps with her enchanted paddle. I felt the energy, the same as the other times, and thought I could pick out subtle nuances and differences - magical energies had a certain feel, it seemed, and I was developing a knack for detecting them. Therefore, I knew things were different even before I felt my form shift around me, shifting beneath my dress.

I was getting bigger. Not taller. Not broader in frame. Not even fatter - well, maybe a bit of that. But only in the sense that with each paddle, my proportions swelled slightly, my breasts and butt and, to a much lesser extent, some other parts (my thighs, for instance) filling out. Each time, I felt a little unwelcome rush of sexual heat, too. I remembered the rush of feminine energy I'd felt battling against the chaperone from St. Lovelock's and thought I felt more of that incubating deep within me with each tap.

It slowly faded when my punishment had finished and, flush and blushing, I hopped down and pulled my dress over my now-skintight panties. I wasn't chubby - in fact, my little white belt felt the same against my slim waist. I wasn't bombshell-stacked like Cassie or Cecilia. But I'd gone from slender to curvy petite. I could feel the difference in my center of gravity, though the shift was small potatoes compared to my original transformation from an adult man to a teenage girl.

Doctor Sauvage opened her door and gestured brusquely. "Get out of my sight. The headmistress and I will discuss whether further disciplinary action is required."

On my walk of shame back to my room, I stopped in at the infirmary to assess the damage. I was still 4'9", but I'd gained six pounds in pure curve. That may not sound like much, but going from 78 to 84 in the course of a minute is not insignificant. And my face looked... about the same. I was too tired to assess what was different and what was just me having a traumatic day, capped with pulling an all-nighter in the custodial closet and then getting six pounds of woman paddled into me by Doctor Sauvage. I made a pout - I think my lips were a bit plumper...

"Do you have a medical problem or..."

"No, Karen," I sighed. "I've had a rough night, so kindly buzz off."

She did so - she was a little and littles were meek and docile. Or so the theory goes. Why I couldn't seem to help being a little riled-up hornet's nest was anybody's guess. Maybe because I used to be a man? Hint: it turns out yes, but not for the reasons you might guess…

+++++

I collapsed to my bed and had got about half an hour of sleep when Cassie stumbled in looking like a hot mess (in this case, literally - even blitzed and discombobulated from a night of partying, she still pulled off hot pretty well, but she was a mess). She spotted me rousing from my brief slumber and immediately pulled me into an amazon death hug, smothering my face in a mass of hair that smelled of pinot noir and wildflowers.

"Natalie, oh my God!" she said way too loudly. "I heard you got in super trouble for freaking out on a guy and that some guy from Lovelock's almost like magikilled you and you cussed out Cecilia in front of everybody and I should have been there and I'm so sorry and I don't even know..."

"Cassie... it's fine... please stop... I need to breathe," I croaked.

"Right... right..." Cassie stumbled back to her bed, tossing her strappy, sky-blue heels to the foot of the dresser. "I..." She was crying. Oh God, she was crying. "I got so distracted... I forgot all about..."

I stumbled over to her bed and sat next to her, leaning into her much larger form. I was acutely aware of my expanded breasts pressing into her, but I don't think she noticed. She just ran her fingers through my hair, which felt nice, and then held my hand, which felt nicer.

"What happened?" she asked.

I told her, more or less, everything. I may have left out some of the details that Magnus had divulged about how he'd been turned into a boy, but I was still processing what to do with that information. It wasn't yet ready for public consumption (well, Cassie wasn't public - but even semi-private consumption). Afterward, she couldn't stop apologizing and sniffling about how sorry she was.

"Cassie, it's good that you didn't follow me around like an overprotective pit bull. Think about it. Yeah, I got punished, but I maybe kept Emi from getting raped, and I definitely kept Michelle from getting raped. And I kicked the shit out of the creeper who was about to do it."

"I can't believe you kicked the shit out of somebody!"

"When you run up behind somebody and kick them in the balls with your wedges on, it's kind of hard not to have the tactical advantage."

Cassie giggled. "I'm glad that's over. And I'm glad you're not super-pissed."

"I understand. You went boy-crazy. I have a sister - I've seen it happen. So... deets, please?"

Cassie filled me in on the slightly-sundry details. Details of two boys almost fighting about who got to dance with her and of being swept off by a smooth operator named Liam whom, she was pretty sure, was a viscount or baron or something. Liam with a dusky Scottish brogue and perfect lips for kissing. He'd wined her and wooed her, and my kissing lessons had paid dividends. Ultimately, the two of them hadn't progressed beyond a little intense groping by the fountain after a walk through the garden, but Liam had been understandably awestruck by her many charms, some of them well past the first two vowels. They'd exchanged information and promised to write one another every week.

"I also gave him my panties," Cassie added. "Is that, like, gross or creepy?"

I tried to think back to being a sixteen year-old and decided I'd have been absolutely thrilled if a coronal-mass-ejection-hot girl had given me her undies after a tipsy grope session. "Only slightly. I think you did Liam a solid, and will be giving him stiffies for many weeks to come."

"Ew!" Cassie giggled. She thought about it. "Not ew," she amended.

I won't deny that I was hurt by Cassie bolting off to boy-town. I liked her a lot, and we'd really opened up to one another. We'd fucked on multiple occasions. And that, apparently, didn't amount to much next to Liam with the Scottish brogue. As I drifted off to sleep, I wondered whether there could be any future between us at all.

+++++

Cassie, a true comrade, was still fuming at the indignity of my punishment the next evening, after our one afternoon class - physical conditioning with Ms. Law. For her part, our teacher made a point of emphasizing my excellent form and timing - which was really quite generous, given that I still wasn't entirely used to my adjusted center of gravity - I moved with some extra wiggle and wobble.

"I'll talk to my parents about what happened at the formal," Cassie said. "Dad won't be happy."

"You'll write to them?" I asked.

"No, I mean in person. During Parent's Day in two weeks. They'll be coming out with most of the other parents to visit."

That was a new one on me. In case I haven't made it clear, the students at St. Circe's receive a mere meager trickle of information from the faculty and administration, and we littles were told even less. After all, it was our place to obey and to follow and not to weigh in on the plans that our betters were devising.

Not that it mattered - the several letters I'd tried to send out to my friends and family had all been returned as non-deliverable, rescinded in their entirety by the school. I wouldn't have anybody coming to visit me. But, hopefully, Cassie's family had enough sway that they might put in a good word on her behalf. I wasn't sure what good those words would do but, surely, every little bit would help.

As soon as I found out about the coming weekend, I informed the other Beginner littles over dinner - and it turned out they'd all already known about the imminent Parent's Day, though not the exact date. It was traditionally held in mid-October, though the exact weekend varied.

"Nobody's coming to visit me," I said. "My family doesn't even know I'm here."

"What about the Bryces?" Simone asked.

"That's a good point," I said. Shit - what about them? If I was Rowan Bryce, I might turn up to gloat. I would definitely turn up to gloat. "I have no idea. I'd rather nobody came than them."

"I hear you," Michelle said. "My parents sent me here because I was out of control - I partied too much, did too many drugs, fucked too many boys, and totaled a Lambo - it was on the news."

"You were on the news?" I asked.

She nodded and gave one of her big, tawny pigtails a tug - she had almost as much hair as me. "I didn't look like this. I was a hot, rich girl, not some little-kid-looking chick. I mean... I was a bitch, I guess... but did I deserve this?" She was starting to tear up, clearly thinking about the events of the night before.

"None of us did," Helena said flatly. Among the littles, she was the only one I'd completely lost track of the night before. I wasn't sure what had befallen her, but apparently it wasn't pretty. Something in between Michelle's and Emi's experiences, but without little old me to blow the rape whistle. The experience had broken something in her, and it would be some time before that raw trauma calloused over. "I hope my parents don't come... I might... I'm not sure. I might lose it."

All of us littles had our stories, none of them particularly rosy, detailing how and why we'd ended up here. The entire point of being a little was that, rather than becoming a bold, engaging, dynamic young woman, as most parents surely desired, you ought to be timid, docile, and subservient. Some of us were the daughters of deeply reactionary backgrounds (as in Helena's case), of families seeking the nuclear option for reining in their out-of-control daughter (as in Michelle's case), or similar. Like me, some had been sent for malicious purposes - Emi's sister had enrolled her here in order to secure the family fortune for herself. Simone's father was a famous televangelist (she wouldn't say who, but it wasn't hard to guess) scandalized by his obese, liberal, outspoken daughter. If you ask me, all of those families needed to be beat about with a magical stick.

I'm sure, the Advanced littles all had their own sad stories, too. Some of the regular students were also deemed to require 'reining in', as Ms. Sturm liked to put it, though their behavior plans weren't extreme enough to enroll them as littles. Their parents, essentially, wanted them to be tamer versions of themselves, whereas it was expected that the de jure littles would leave St. Circe's as essentially different girls from when they'd enrolled. One might argue that the transformation for the Bigs was just as extreme, turning meek and introverted girls into confident centerfolds - but they, almost uniformly, seemed much more satisfied with their transformations. Even Cassie, who absolutely resented the changes to her mindset, was willing to overlook quite a bit on account of the torrent of confidence and audaciously eye-popping physical changes she'd also undergone.

Before the event, I tried to find out as much as I could about the parent's weekend. I managed to get out of Ms. Sturm that we would have to double-up on our mental conditioning in order to make the best example we could.

"Wonderful news," she said - and anything that Ms. Sturm thought was wonderful was almost guaranteed not to be. "I've spoken with Headmistress Lily, and she's agreed to let you girls serve for the parent-student dinner. What a wonderful way to show how far you've come, to have you happily serve your parents so they can see how you appreciate their sacrifice!"

"I hate my parents," Michelle said.

"Michelle, I didn't ask your opinion. I hope you'll get over your grumpiness at them, but that doesn't actually matter - you must be seen to happily serve your betters, no matter your personal reservations. That is your lot now."

That wasn't enough information for me. I needed to know whether the Bryces were going to be there, needed to know whether I needed to prepare for the sneering face of Rowan Bryce... and, if so, wanted to prepare to do something about it. I was tiny. I was weak. But I wasn't helpless - I'd saved Michelle from a rapist because I'd got the element of surprise. All I needed was a few seconds unopposed...

But details were hard to come by. When no information was forthcoming, I took the initiative to visit Headmistress Lily, who carved a minute out of her day on account of my circumstances (I'd assured her that it was an emergency). She disagreed - wanting to know which parents would be coming, even 'mine', did  not constitute an emergency, and demanding such information from her was not an appropriate use of her limited time. She gave me exactly one swat for my impertinence and I left her office with one pound of additional curve on my frame.

The next day, Ms. Sturm assigned us a book on serving etiquette that, a quick glance determined, had been published in 1952. If the worn binding and yellowed pages hadn't given it away, the presence of updos and pompadours in the illustrations or the chapter entitled 'How to Serve Your Husband' were testaments to its antiquity. We were to have a practical quiz on the subject matter at the end of the week, so I set to studying... and realized that I might have a window of opportunity there. I was expected to bring out the steak knife along with the plate and make the first cut when the main course came out. I would have a few seconds with a sharp knife and nothing between myself and Rowan Bryce but a dozen ounces of medium rare wagyu filet mignon.

+++++

Cassie wore her formal dress to the dinner while I, of course, wore my service uniform. My latest service uniform. All of my uniforms had changed a bit since my latest growth spurts to be a bit briefer and more revealing. My underwear was all frilly thongs now. Many more punishments, and I might be sashaying around in the borderline fetishwear that a handful of the Advanced girls had as part of their uniform requirements. As it was now, though, it took a moment's attention to spot the difference between the semi-modest regular uniforms and the briefer, more form-fitting variant I now sported. But, filing into the St. Circe's banquet hall with the other littles, I was acutely aware of the difference and of the dozens of strange eyes upon us.

I looked at the little card in my hand - 4F-I... that is, I was responsible for serving whoever was in seats F through I on table 4. I squinted to see who that might be, but they weren't in yet. People were still filing into the hallway. In the back, I saw Cassie tearfully hugging a much-smaller middle-aged woman - her mother? I tugged at the hem of my skirt to bring it to my knees. Most of the girls had skirts to their knees.

"Stop fidgeting, Natalie!" Ms. Sturm hissed. Then Headmistress Lily gave her the signal and she corralled all of us back toward the kitchen.

We filed back, retrieved our little plates of truffle crostini and, at Ms. Sturm's signal, streamed back out to the main hall to deliver the apertif, to be followed shortly after by a salad. I walked along my practiced lines - we'd rehearsed our paths the day before, though the table assignments hadn't yet been finalized. I was so immersed in getting the pattern right for getting to place 4F that I forgot to check who I was serving. Eyes downcast, I slid the plates onto spots 4F, G, H... I. When I finally looked up, it was into the ice-blue eyes of a gloating Rowan Bryce. I couldn't help but gasp. His eyes wandered up and down my small form.

"My, 'Natalie'," he chuckled, his voice deep and smooth. "From the looks of it, you've been a troublemaker. I would have suspected as much. I'm sure we'll have lots to talk about later."

Fiery hatred flowed through me, and I'm sure my little knuckles went white against the serving tray. I took a deep breath. Docile. Meek. Subservient. I had to play the part if I was to get close to him.

"Yes, sir," I said quietly.

"Since you are new to the Bryce family, perhaps you don't know my wife, Katherine, your step-mother." He gestured to a pleasant-looking middle-aged woman next to him - her similarity to Amanda Bryce was striking. Like mother like daughter, down to the perpetually-concerned expression with expressive lips forever on the verge of pursing.

He continued: "I believe you've met Lucian..." the young man next to Katherine was blond and broad, slightly larger than his father and smirking cockily. Of course - he was the asshole from St. Lovelock's who'd partnered up with Cecilia.

"You and Lucian are almost the same age!" Rowan said. "And I know you've met your step-sister Amanda," he said.

The girl next to Lucian was not Amanda Bryce, who would have been his older sister by three years or so. This girl was perhaps eleven, lanky, on the precipice of puberty, and wearing the uniform of a St. Circe's Junior Girl... and she looked an awful lot like college junior Amanda Bryce, albeit a decade younger. I gasped again.

Rowan crunched into his crostini. "Exactly. Young Amanda recently had a traumatic experience on account of a very unfortunate event perpetrated by a very bad person. But we're getting all that cleared up - better late than never, I guess."

"Do I know you?" little Amanda asked me.

"This is your step-sister, Natalie," Rowan said, licking his fingers. "But she's just a silly servant. You're our favorite daughter."

"Yes, papa," Amanda said.

"Now, Natalie, be a good girl and fetch us our salad."

The salad course was next, and then out came the wines - a red blend for the adults (I spat into one of them when Ms. Sturm wasn't looking, but I have no idea whether Rowan got that one) and sparkling cider for poor Amanda. I felt terrible for her; through no fault of her own, Rowan Bryce was literally remaking his daughter into a more 'suitable' image. True, I had inadvertently saddled her with a trauma through circumstances I couldn't quite explain - but whatever her trauma, I couldn't think she'd have consented to being reverted to a pre-teen and molded by the magics of St. Circe's. Throughout dinner, wherever I went, Rowan's cold gaze was never far behind, equal parts hateful and lecherous. The hate gave me chills, but lecherous was good - that I could work with.

The next course was the main - filet mignon with garlic butter and parmesan-crusted asparagus. The steak was perfectly seared, medium-rare, and it smelled amazing. My mouth watered and my stomach growled, but I swallowed my appetite along with my pride. Now was the time to shine. Four steaks, four plates, four knives. Four full plates on a big serving tray was heavy for my tiny, undermuscled frame, so Ms. Sturm let me do three and one - perfect. My revenge was at hand.

I served the others first - little Amanda, Lucian, and Katherine, whisking their salads away, sliding their plates in front of them, and carefully cutting a strip of the steak for each before placing the knife to the side. Then I scurried back and returned with Rowan's steak. This time, I sidled up beside him, sliding the plate in front of him and leaning in to cut the steak. My breast pressed against him - he had to feel that, because I definitely felt his arm tense - and a coil of my unrestrained hair tumbled between us. I felt the scratch of his beard. That's how close we were. We were so close that I could feel it when he grinned, could feel the heat of his breath. The knife was in my little hand... a slice of the filet and then a slice right into old Rowan's neck. Finished.

And then what? I might kill Rowan, but I'd still belong to the Bryces. They weren't likely to be too happy with me after that. And if I thought any of my school-sanctioned punishments had been bad to date, they were nothing. They might actually turn me into a slug. Or worse - whatever could be worse than that, they'd do. Rowan Bryce would live. Revenge was patient. Revenge could wait. I took a deep breath, suppressed a sigh, set the knife to the side, and slid away from Rowan Bryce.

"Beautiful," he said - whether of the steak or myself, I could only speculate.

Then it was back to the kitchen for us littles (and the handful of semi-subservient non-littles we needed to have enough waitstaff) to cram our own meal in while the school's guests ate their main course. And our meal? Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and lemonade. I shit you not.

"Peanut butter and jelly? Really?" I said.

"You were expecting filet mignon, Natalie?" Ms. Sturm tutted. "This is what you'll get and you'll like it."

"I'm not eating it," I said. My stomach growled. I pushed my plate away.

"You'll eat it or I'll give you a spanking right here, girl." Ms. Sturm cleared some space off of the prep table to let me know she meant business.

I stood and stared daggers into her. "I feel sick and I'm not hungry. If I eat it and then vomit all over the guests during dessert, guess whose fault that will be?"

"Wicked girl," Ms. Sturm scowled. "If I find out you've had a bite of anything other than peanut butter and jelly tonight, I'll give you twice what you deserve."

"And I'll let you," I said. And with that, I tossed my sandwich into the trash and dumped my lemonade down the sink.

In of itself, that impertinence probably should have earned a punishment, but it was time to serve dessert - chilled pumpkin tortes with cranberry compote. I whisked the steak plates away - another moment next to Rowan Bryce with the steak knife, and I let it pass. In the back, there were sugar cookies for the serving girls who wanted them - and, of course, I went without. My stomach grumbled more. The end of the evening was in sight.

"Wonderful job, girls," Ms. Sturm said - a rare moment of praise. Even the distant Mrs. Bishop from the Advanced Girl's class seemed satisfied. "I think you've all earned some family time. The evening is yours from now until lights out... I'll see my Beginner Girls tomorrow morning."

With that, Ms. Sturm helped herself to a plate of filet mignon and left, leaving Mrs. Bishop to guide us out to our families. And, in my case, my 'family'… the Bryces.

The campus was abuzz. Lanterns had been set all along the main paths and the campus was spangled with a thousand pinpricks of light in the autumn night. Most of the girls were busy giving their families impromptu tours of the campus or introducing them to new friends, happy people shaking hands and hugging under awnings and along the pathways. Beyond campus, as usual, the southern sky was aglow with its ghostly aura. As for me, Rowan Bryce escorted me to a private room in the administration building, a firm hand at the small of my small back to guide me along. As we left the banquet hall, I spotted Emi with another girl, slightly older. The girl handed Doctor Sauvage something and I caught a glimpse - a small bottle of the phosphorescent potion that was gradually dulling Emi's mind. She'd delivered more of the fucking stuff, no doubt to finalize her former brother's transformation into a vapid bimbo. I glanced back at Rowan Bryce and seethed. I'd skipped a fast and bloody revenge for the day, but I wouldn't put it off forever.

"I thought you and I should talk, Natalie," Rowan Bryce said.

He shut the door behind us and we were alone - alone in a small but well-appointed conference room on the second floor of the administration building. He wore a burgundy evening jacket and a self-satisfied smirk. His hair had once been red, but now he'd half gone to gray. But he was still a sturdy man and his ice-blue eyes bored into my soul.

"I've thought long and hard about what I'd say to you," he said. "I'd call you a bastard, an asshole, or the goddamn pigfucker who raped and assaulted my baby girl."

"You turned her into a little kid," I said as calmly as I could.

Now that I was suddenly alone with him, away from any intervening forces and without a steak knife to protect myself, I felt very vulnerable. He weighed at least twice what I did and was a hell of a lot stronger. I oughtn't to anger him.

"I'd hoped to make you her classmate, but the professor wasn't able to get his syncopation to work as well with you. It couldn't even take your manhood - but it seems someone else has completed that job. You've cost me a lot of money and a lot of grief, and I'll beat every cent of that out of your hide soon enough. Or maybe not beat - we'll see if you have other value... we'll see." He approached me, towering over me by a head and a half, pacing around me and tracing a calloused finger along my narrow shoulders. He ran a hand along the side of my uniform, along the swell of my breast, and chuckled when I flinched away. "I could only hope I'd see you reduced to this. Headmistress Lily does fast work, above and beyond the exquisite details I'd imagined... but I wonder. How much of you is still in there, pigfucker? What would you do if I was asleep down the hall, if you were the only one awake in this whole building? Would you try to escape? Try to slit my throat? Or would you come with a pillow and blanket to see that I was comfortable?"

Definitely one of the first two. But I kept my mouth shut.

"Nothing to say? That's good. I'll see if we can speed up your 'training'... I want you all to myself to punish as I see fit."

"Haven't I been punished enough?" I asked in a small voice - I was playing a part, meek and humble, and I had to make it believable.

"Hardly," Rowan said. He put his thumb and forefinger to my chin and lifted it until our gazes met. I made a show of trying to avoid eye contact. Meek and humble. "The question is whether to keep you or sell you. Maybe I'll let your step-brother weigh in while I speak with my actual daughter."

He left me alone for a moment, during which I scoured the room. I looked for anything I might use - a letter opener... a pen or a pencil... a paperclip. Anything that might defend me against whatever Lucian had in mind. I'd crossed him rather badly at the Harvest Formal and had little doubt that he'd want some petty revenge or worse. It turned out worse.

I'd scrounged up a paperclip, two thumb tacks, and a particularly sturdy 3x5 card when Lucian stepped into the room. Not exactly an armory.

"If I'd known you were my step-sister, I'd have pursued you further at our formal," he said.

"I'm sorry I misled you," I said. "I didn't know either."

Lucian was a bit taller and a bit more solid than his father (who was no slouch). Blonde, handsome, and very aware of it, his flinty eyes took me in and he advanced. I felt the semi-sharp points of the thumbtacks in my little fists and wondered what I could possibly do against him. Knee him in the balls, run, and hope for the best?

"You'll make up for it now, then," he said coolly.

He took a lock of my hair and ran his fingers softly through it. I tried to back away and he took a much larger handful of the stuff, yanked painfully, and used his weight to sprawl me against the ground. I gasped and, as I tried to scramble away, Lucian grabbed my arm and flipped me over. I was so much smaller than him that he didn't have to put any real force into it. He grabbed the hem of my uniform skirt and yanked. With a rip of fabric, it pulled free, leaving me in my service blouse, black one-inch heels, and my frilly black thong.

"Stop!" I cried. "Please stop!"

I tried to scramble away, but he easily held me in place, reaching down to feel my breasts through the blouse. I kicked up at him, hoping to strike home between his legs, but he pinned my legs down painfully with a muscled thigh. Then he went to pull my blouse open.

The door flew open. "Young Mister Bryce, that's quite enough!" Headmistress Lily snapped. I almost cheered. "I will decide when my students are disciplined and how. I'll not have their progress interrupted, even if it's by family."

"She and I have unfinished business," Lucian snorted.

"And you shall have plenty of time to finish it, I am sure, once young Natalie has matriculated. But, until that time, I must insist you leave her education and discipline to me. Good evening, young sir!"

Lucian shot me one last, spiteful look. 'This isn't over', it said, and I believed him. Then he placed his palm against my belly and pushed himself up, making me wince from the force of his weight. I very nearly vomited what little content my stomach had. He looked down and spat on me, the foamy spittle running down the side of my cheek to mingle with my tears.

"Aah!" he gasped.

In an instant, the headmistress had him pinioned against the room's conference table and struggling to free himself from her grip. She was smaller and slimmer but had some sort of advantage over him, perhaps through witchcraft - he was magically pinned just as I'd been pinned against the wall by the Lovelock's chaperon back at the Old Abbey.

"If you do anything like that again, I'll see that you're disciplined at St. Lovelock's," Lily said levelly. "Or we could do it right here. Are you going to be a good boy for the rest of your time at St. Circe's?"

"Y-yes!" he gasped.

"Good," she said, and she swatted his ass. As he limped from the room, casting an angry glance back, Lily helped me to my feet. "I'm sorry this happened, Natalie," she said - not bothering to detail exactly where she'd have drawn the line. "You're done for the evening - please go back to your room and get some rest. We'll speak on this tomorrow."

I returned to my room to find a filet mignon steak and a full glass of pinot noir waiting for me. Amazingly, the steak was still hot and the wine was still cool - whether magic or good timing, I was unsure. Cassie had left a little note beside it: 'Don't tell anybody, or I bet we'll both get in trouble!' I almost cried, but instead I ate. I ate the asparagus, wondering whether it would make my pee smell, and I ate the steak, medium-rare, imagining that the bloody core was Rowan Bryce, my teeth tearing into his soul, bleeding him dry as he screamed for mercy. It was delicious, and I swore yet again that I'd have my revenge.