Chapter Fourteen: Stolen Away

Our victory celebration was held out on the cliffside veranda overlooking the ocean. The sun had already set, but the fiery glow of evening had yet to fade from the western horizon. As I headed back to my room to prepare, I asked Liam about the dress code.

He shrugged. "Pretty casual."

Point of note: 'reasonably casual' means a different thing to royals than it does to the rest of us. I figured my striped bikini would be acceptably 'resort casual' and changed into that, waltzing down the path in my little sandals and beach-appropriate covering. It felt good to be relaxed and out of my dress, triumphant after the day's events and enjoying some much-needed relaxation time. I heard music and the chatter of conversation and, as I rounded the corner to the veranda, I found that I was, by a wide margin, the most underdressed person there. And, as I considered sneaking back to change into a summer dress, Cassie called my name out, audible above the din of conversation, and suddenly all eyes were upon me.

"Miss Bryce!" Headmaster Hurt waved me over, taking a bit too much time examining my attire. Beside him, his wife (our Mrs. Bishop) glared daggers at me, scandalized by my attire. "You're just in time for our toast!"

I stepped up to the little dias and turned to face the crowd, blushing slightly at the attention. Most of the male gazes in the place (and a few of the females) were fixed on me, the petite redhead in her striped bikini, its barely-modest cut displaying a beach body that many women would spend years of diet and exercise and tens of thousands in plastic surgery to achieve. It was embarrassing, definitely... but part of me also liked it... a lot. Achievement Unlocked: Exhibitionist Kink. I was embarrassed, but also immensely turned on... so much so that I nipped out right in front of everyone, my gaze locking with Cassie who, licking her lips and pawing at Liam's crotch, absolutely knew what was happening.

Horace Hurt cleared his throat. "I don't want to do much in the way of emceeing here... this is a celebration for you young people for a festival well-done. The boys of St. Lovelock's and the girls of St. Circe's jockeying for dominance as the pre-eminent academies of magic in the Western world. As it should be. The nonsense of last year behind us, my hats off to the women of St. Circe's for pulling off a different sort of magic trick. You bested us this year, ladies, but next year, we won't take it easy!" That earned a chuckle from the crowd. "Dr. Sauvage, Dr. Clay, my wonderful wife, and the newest St. Circe's faculty member, the... stunning Miss Bryce, who doesn't seem to be afraid of anything or anyone. A toast to these wonderful women and to all the girls of St. Circe's."

The headmaster lifted his champagne flute, and... waited. He shot an angry glance to the side, over toward the row of white-tuxedoed thrall boys waiting for his signal to uncork champagne bottles. Only, they hadn't responded to his signal. They glared at him in utterly uncharacteristic obstinacy. Setting his flute aside, he stomped over to the nearest boy.

"What is this?" he hissed. "Have you forgotten your place?"

"We've remembered our place," the boy said, his face defiant.

I turned toward Liam, who tapped the side of his nose. Maybe I'd underestimated him and Magnus, because it seemed that they'd managed to undo the thrall conditioning, unveiling their deed in spectacular fashion. Magnus handed Liam a champagne bottle, both of them lofting $500 bottles skyward.

"We'll do our own toasts!" Magnus said, and he and Liam uncorked their bottles with resounding 'pop!'s. "To the beginning of a new era!"

"To a new era!"

+++++

Headmaster Hurt had too much of an ingrained sense of propriety to launch into apoplectics over his thralls' rebellion. It would have to wait until after the party and, by then, the damage would already be done. Magnus and Liam had done as I'd asked - good boys - and I was more than ready to leave the party and give them their reward. Feeling flush and slightly tipsy after a glass of champagne (as small as I am and as seldom as I drink, it doesn't take much), I tugged on Magnus's sleeve.

"Let's go," I whispered.

He pursed his lips, taking in my slightly-flushed, very-nubile form, my snug bikini reminding him of the bonanza there was to unwrap the instant we were in private. "We haven't even been here an hour…"

I shrugged - winning first place had me ecstatic, sauntering around in front of dozens of admiring gazes had me turned on, and watching Magnus and Liam's power play over their headmaster somehow stoked it higher. "If somebody doesn't fuck me, I'm going to fuck myself… and if you find me passed out in my extra-luxury suite, on my extra-large bed, you'll never forgive yourself for passing up the chance…"

"Well I'm not passing that invitation up," Cassie whispered in my ear. She'd come up behind me, hovering right behind as I propositioned Magnus. She gave my boobs a very public, very unsubtle squeeze from behind and capstoned the grope with a little pinch that made me gasp, both at the sensation and her audacity.

"Cassie!" I hissed.

I gasped again when she squeezed a plump, half-exposed ass cheek - this, at least, nobody could see without a very serendipitous line of sight. "We'd better vamoose, then, because I've got a lot I want to do and less self-control by the second."

I certainly didn't need an invitation, and this was more than enough for the boys. Without further ado, Magnus hoisted me over his shoulder and gave a little bow to the other partygoers as I kicked and giggled. If I had to guess, slung as I was, I was giving everybody an eyeful of bikini-bottomed Natalie bum - lucky them. "Ladies, gentlemen," Magnus said, "it seems I've got other affairs to attend to."

After a moment, I wriggled free enough that he had to put me down, placing me upon the little sandy path that wound up the hill and to the resort building. I reached for his hand, and he grasped it, his meaty paw enveloping my slim digits. Liam and Cassie were just ahead of us, shadowy in the dusk, with Cassie giggling and practically dragging Liam along. I couldn't wait to be with them. I looked up to catch Magnus ogling me from above and giggled.

"Like what you see?"

"I'd like to see more," he said. "You liked what we did with the thralls?"

I nodded excitedly. "God yes - I can't believe you did that. I'm so happy!"

Magnus carried me across the threshold to my room like a groom carrying his virginal bride across the threshold, but there was no virginity to be had here. When he tossed me upon the bed, Cassie and Liam were already in an advanced state of undress and foreplay, and I wasn't far behind.

"Your attire's far too modest," Magnus pouted and, taking the string of my bikini top between his fingers, he teleported it away, my bounteous breasts bobbling free, and then did the same with my arousal-slick bikini bottoms. He leaned over me, breath hot in my ear. "Ta-da…"

I grabbed Magnus's collar and pulled him into a kiss and, as he positioned himself above me, still-clothed, I did a little trick I'd thought up, chaining the sympathetic links all along the items of his wardrobe, from his button-up to his navy-blue speedo briefs, and poofed them away. Magnus chuckled and then gasped - the trick hadn't quite gone right. He was perfectly nude now, his erection pushing against my smooth thigh, but his clothes hadn't fared well. They were now a pile of loose fabric in a pile near the doorway - it would take a few days and an expert tailor to turn them back into serviceable clothes.

"I hope you've got something I can borrow for my walk back to my room," he said - he and Liam still had to be back at the St. Lovelock's digs by curfew. Fortunately, the headmaster had declared this to be midnight, so we had plenty of time.

"I've got some things - I'm sure we can make them fit you perfectly." The image of Magnus in my sundress made me giggle, but not for long. He lifted me bodily and slid himself into me, my legs wrapping around him as we coupled, and I was soon too far gone to be clever.

After a few minutes of lovely thrusting and grinding, Magnus laid me down on the bed, and I felt soft hair against my face. I turned to see Cassie, a blissful smile on her face, her mass of chestnut locks with their little metallic blue highlights framing a radiant face. As we kissed, I took in the sweet smell of her perfume, barely cognizant of the way she'd gathered my wrists and lifted them above my head. If Cassie hadn't been distracted enough, Liam's tongue was doing something absolutely delightful down below, and as I groaned and writhed, I hardly noticed the little click.

"What?" I blinked away a fraction of my blissed-out obliviousness. Cassie had just handcuffed me to the bedpost, little silk handcuffs and a silvery chain that I couldn't possibly pull out of.

Then Cassie climbed over me, her expression one of pure, calculated, devious glee, and spread my legs. I felt her breath on my sex, her hands firm but gentle against my thigh. "Resistance is futile," she said. "Your pleasure will become our pleasure."

I felt something buzzing against my ass - and Cassie knew well my policy on butt stuff and respected it. She just held it there with a gentle pressure while she lapped at my cunt - I had her well-trained in what techniques did it for me - long, lengthwise tonguing and then little unpredictable probing around my bud. I was already wet beyond belief, my voice keening higher as my arousal grew. But Cassie wouldn't give me release - she lapped and lapped and teased me while Liam held me helpless (not that I could have done much, handcuffed as I was) and occasionally played with my tits, fondling and sucking while Magnus took him from behind. Cassie probed at my ass again with the little vibrator.

"I'm not letting you cum until you let me put it in," she said.

"Then put it in, goddamn i-ahh!" I said.

If I haven't emphasized it before, I, Natalia Cadence Storm, the greatest witch of her generation (maybe) inhabit a body designed to be a submissive sex slave's. And, apparently, enough of the people who partake of sex slaves, despicable motherfuckers one and all, get something out of having their slaves held helpless to the traitorous pleasure of their bodies. Nobody who knows me in my out-of-boudoir life would ever call me submissive. Quite the opposite, really. But, on top of my growing host of little subby kinks, pretty much everything feels good when I'm aroused. And make no mistake: I was very aroused, and the added vibration in my ass felt really good. Not cataclysmic orgasm good, but good enough that it took Cassie's already-impressive oral skillset to the next level of pleasure. That, coupled with her kept promise to stop teasing me once the vibe was in, meant I was left thrashing against my cuffs, my climax making me howl loud enough that I hoped Dr. Clay was still at the party, lest she accuse me of smuggling a crazed and howling dingo into the room.

"Cassie, you're being selfish," Liam tutted, disengaging from Magnus. "I haven't had a chance to properly congratulate Natalie yet."

Cassie didn't bother to wipe her mouth. She and Liam shared a long, slow kiss, swapping my fluids between themselves as I gasped and recovered on the mattress. Then Liam pulled away and turned to me, a lazy smile plastering his face.

"Oops… somebody's turned your toy off," he remarked, and with the press of a button, the pleasant buzzing in my ass returned, a weird and heady tingling in my backside that made me squirm. When Liam kissed me, I wondered how long I'd been occupied with Cassie, because I tasted myself, Cassie, and Magnus on his tongue… Lord Langley had been very friendly tonight. "Let me show you a little something I've been cooking up."

I've already sung praises of Liam's 'twist'. Well, he'd developed another patentable move that I can only call 'the swoop' and, if it isn't better than the twist, it gives that little (or not-so-little) move a run for its money. Between the buzzing, the twisting, the swooping, and Liam singing praises to my sexual prowess, I rode a nonstop wave of pleasure.

"Natalie, your cunt is exquisite," he hissed. "You are my fiery goddess, and I won't rest until I've built your pleasure palace from the essence of your heavenly cries."

"I'm jealous," Cassie sighed.

"Damnit, woman, a man can have two favorite cunts!" Liam stated, and then latched onto my nipple without missing a beat.

Thrust-thrust-rub-twist-suck-swoop… it's time for me to admit it. Liam had become a better lover than I'd ever been as a man. Yes, Magnus was impressive, and he and I still shared a stronger emotional bond - I even bore his tattoo right below my navel. And beyond Magnus, Cassie was my clear favorite, and I'd have (however reluctantly) dropped the boys to the wayside if she'd asked me to (not that she ever would), no matter how much satisfaction their cocks provided. But Liam was truly world-class. And he clearly knew it, raising up from his attentions to look deep into my eyes, his sapphire blue meeting with my emerald green, and I realized in that instant that no regular lover could ever be so good - whether or not he was aware of it, however mediocre his other magical talents, Liam was destined to be a world-class eromancer. And the other three of us had better hit the books and have lots of practice sessions if we wanted to keep up. Though, come to think of it, I had already done some eromancy of my own and had probably done a bit of the craft unwittingly. And, just before I completely lost my mind to the next barrage of swoop-suck-thrust, I, Natalie Bryce, witch savant, had a brilliant idea.

Witches and warlocks have a rarely-tapped reserve of magical energy within their sexual organs - the testes for men and the womb (not the ovaries) for women, generally only drawn upon indirectly when the body's energies become depleted. But eromancers could learn how to manipulate this sub-store. And while my pussy wasn't much good for tracing symbols, it could sure as hell do pulse patterning. So I collected what little of my wits remained and, between thrusts and twists, focused the energy of my sex and gave Liam's brilliant cock precisely-patterned squeezes. He clearly liked it, but was a bit confused - these weren't the involuntary contractions of pleasure's paroxysms. They were almost as fast, but far more deliberate than involuntary spasms and, even as my throat groaned out in hoarse pleasure, I kept my wits about me until…

"Ahh!" Liam cried out, his face seizing in a rictus of ecstasy as his hips bucked.

And, a moment later, some resonant energy of that pleasure flowed back into me, suddenly pulsing up and up as quickly as an orgasmic tsunami but cresting far higher, swelling into some stratospheric domain of pleasure that I hadn't even known existed. And, if eight or nine good cums could put Natalie Bryce into a little snooze, this Eighth World Wonder of a climax sank me like an anchor, enveloping me in a mind-numbing pleasure that would have driven me mad if I hadn't zonked the fuck out. As far as my quiver of brilliant ideas went, pussy pulsing was a winner.

+++++

I awoke to strange noises in a pitch-dark room. I was still cuffed and seemed to be bound beyond that - I assumed we'd been up to additional shenanigans that I simply couldn't remember. I assumed the bumping and shuffling was Magnus and Liam leaving to get to the St. Lovelock's digs before curfew. And that muffled moaning? Muffled screaming? Why would Cassie be doing that?

"The small one is helpless… we should take her, too. Surely, we shall be rewarded," somebody said.

A chill ran down my spine. The Gangling Men. I suddenly snapped to full alertness - I was still handcuffed, yes, but I was also bound in night-black cloth of the magically-summoned variety. They were doing something to Cassie, and they were about to do something to me. Like hell they were. My fingers, only slightly constrained, started twirling out symbols four at a time. The Gangling Men spoke:

"She's waking up… the One Voice says this one is dangerous… we must leave…"

"I am closer to the Voice and say we take her…"

"Then it is upon your head."

The black cloths unspun from me in a blur, dissipating into tiny threads and leaving me naked and cuffed to the bedpost. I took in the room - in the dim light, a pair of pale men stood before me in their dark clothes and broad-brimmed hats. One of them had a large and wriggling mass hoisted over his shoulder - Cassie wrapped up like a mummy. She wasn't as good at symbols as I was, but she was pretty good. She started to unspin the threads around herself, her head becoming visible, and then her shoulders… and the Gangling Man started spinning them right back again.

"Cassie!" I shouted.

"Natalie! What the f-mmph!" Her mouth was momentarily muffled again. "Natalie!"

I yanked against my cuffs - they were as sturdy as ever, and I wasn't breaking through the bedpost. True, I was strong for my size, but that size was very petite. Cassie and her adversary symboled themselves to a stalemate with Cassie about three-quarters bound… until her hand shot free. Then she made good progress for all of about three seconds, and was probably another three seconds from breaking completely free and kicking the guy's ass. But then he wrapped her fingers up beyond her ability to effectively cast symbols, and then the Cassie cocoon wrapped right back up with a final anguished cry muffled half-way through.

"Cassie! Let her go, you fuckers!" I cast curses and zaps at the nearest Gangling Man, but with my hands cuffed, I couldn't aim them for shit and he brushed most of them aside with a second-rate defensive shield. A few electric jolts hit home, but they only singed his oddly-pale skin… what would have sent a normal person into spasms only had him slightly blackened and smelling like burned hair.

"See? She's helpless like this. We're taking her…" with a malicious grin and a few too many teeth, he stalked toward me, brushing another few attacks to the side.

I was cuffed in silken bindings with a metal chain. The silk itself was soft and slightly padded - I might have a sub kink, but I wasn't a masochist - but the chains were high-quality aluminum. Not as good as steel, not for my purposes, but not too bad. When I grabbed the chains and pulled them taut, each link came into firm contact with every other link - and, if you're at all familiar with metallomancy, you know this makes the whole chain effectively one piece of metal. If you're fast enough, you can manipulate the whole thing at once. And I was very fast. With my free finger, I manipulated the chain, melding it into a continuous line of metal and then lashing it out to wrap around the surprised Gangling Man like a far-too-tight collar. He grasped at the metal - any normal human would have been asphyxiating from the pressure, but the pale men weren't human. They barely even looked it. Before he could think to do anything else, my suddenly-free hand shot out, slapping against his forehead and tracing out the symbol I'd used to dispel Dr. Heirophant.

His eyes went wide. "N-!"

He couldn't say anything more after that, because the aluminum collar fell to the mattress and his whole form collapsed, since he was nothing but a pile of dozens of pale rags now. One of them, I noted, contained the symbol from his forehead - the central object that had rooted him into our world. In a flash of anger, I burned it to ash and then rushed out through our suite's lounge and through the still-opened door, out into the hallway.

"Cassie! Cassie!" I rushed down the corridor toward the lobby, but saw no trace of her or the Gangling Man. Tears streaming down my cheeks, I rushed back toward my room. Maybe they'd gone out the window. Maybe…

"Natalie! What in the stars is wrong?" Dr. Clay asked, poking her head out from her suite.

Before I had a chance to think about it, I was clutching at her terrycloth robe and bawling into her shoulder. "They took Cassie, Dr. Clay. The Gangling Men… they took her…"

She held me at arm's length and looked me in the eye until I forced myself to stop crying. "Don't worry, Natalie. We'll get to the bottom of this."

+++++

By the time Lily arrived from St. Circe's, it was an hour until dawn and I'd calmed down enough that I wasn't randomly bursting into tears. Mostly, I just paced, my little hands clutched into fists, glaring angrily at anything and everything in front of me. I'd alerted Magnus and Liam, who took turns trying to calm me down between bouts of being very angry or apprehensive, themselves. Magnus looked like he was about to pound craters into concrete.

"They can't just take her," he snarled. "I know they have… I don't know… leverage over us. But there have to be repercussions."

"That's incorrect," Dr. Sauvage said levelly. Of all the witches and warlocks now present in the resort's main lobby, she was the one closest to the Gangling Men. That made her half-complicit in my book and brought anew all of my half-conceived plans for revenge I'd made against her at one point. I couldn't take direct revenge against her, on account of Sauvage being among the Thirteen, the powerful inner circle of the Sisterhood of the Starry Night… but I wished I could. "I realize you're young and angry, but your contracts clearly bind you to your school - St. Circe's, St. Lovelock's, whatever - which binds you to the school's contract with the pale men. They are allowed one student per school per year, no questions asked."

Of all the witches and warlocks taken by the Gangling Men - only two or three a decade for the past half century - none were ever seen again. As far as I knew, there were no exceptions. Nobody knew where they went or what was done with them… which made the possibility of my seeing Cassie ever again questionable to say the least. I started to tear up again and managed to control myself only by squeezing Magnus's hand so hard it made him wince, which usually took some doing. "I'm not claiming they violated any contract," I said. "I'm saying I'm going to find Cassie and I'm going to make them pay. There will be repercussions."

Lily sat down next to me, wiped at my eyes with a tissue, and drew me into a hug. "This isn't going to stand, Natalie. Believe me, we're going to do everything we can. But you can't just pursue a vendetta against the Gangling Men without bringing their wrath on the whole coven - we'll have broken our treaty and surrendered a great deal of control to them. We need to take our time and think this through…"

I pulled myself away from her, frowning - she meant well, but it wasn't helping. "Taking our time is what we've done for over a hundred years. Bravo! Wonderful fucking job with that."

I stood up and stormed back to my room, realizing I was acting as immature as I looked and not giving a damn about it. When Magnus came back to console me, I let him hold me and wept into his chest, feeling lost and helpless without Cassie. My Cassie - our Cassie - had been taken from us. Why wasn't everybody else as forlorn and pissed off as I was? And, to make matters worse, Lily came in a few minutes later with a Gangling Man in tow, tall, sinewy, and gangling (as most of them were - hence the name) and looking at me with about as much emotion as wet cardboard.

"Doctor Satrap has requested, as per the coven's contract with us, to check your suite for forbidden knowledge," Lily said, casting a nervous glance in my direction.

I looked the man in his black and beady eyes. "Why?"

"Forbidden knowledge, girl," he hissed. "You collapsed… dispelled my colleague… no witch knows how to do that…"

A cruel smile flickered across my face. "So, Doctor Satrap, you're saying you suspect I have access to forbidden knowledge because I managed to dispel a… a gangling colleague of yours…" I recalled that the Gangling Men didn't care for our various names for their kind. "And such a dissolution can only be accomplished with some bit of forbidden knowledge?"

He nodded. "And we demand…"

"So you admit your kind has a secret weakness, one only accessible through forbidden knowledge, that I, either through luck or collusion, managed to exploit?"

"I admit no such thing…"

I shrugged. "Then what grounds have you to search anything of mine? Our treaty states that you may search any places suspected of having forbidden knowledge. But if you yourself admit that there is no justification for suspecting this, it seems to me you're simply intent upon harassing a traumatized young witch. What do you say about that?"

"I must consult with the others," he hissed, and stormed from my room.

Lily cast a nervous glance toward Magnus, steely blue eyes squinting - and, having seen how he acted around me and how I acted around him, extended him a smidgen of trust. "Natalie, do you have any sources that I don't know about?"

I shook my head. "You know about all of my books. As for my little electronics project… I doubt they'll be able to make heads or tails of it but, if you have any doubt, fry it to the last circuit. I can always build it again and better. Keep the school safe, Lily - that's your job. And I'll have a good think on how we can make these fuckers pay and how I can save Cassie."

"I want to keep you safe, too," Lily said. She sat next to me on the couch and rubbed the small of my back.

"You can't. Nobody can." I looked her in the eye, and she didn't deny it. "If they can't get me, they'll get everybody I care about. Maybe they'll take Magnus or Liam. And in another year, maybe they'll take somebody else I care about. Or in two weeks, if the contract goes by calendar years. My only move is to let them know I'll give a hundred times better than I get."

"Natalie," Magnus said. "You can't fuck with them… pardon the language, headmistress…" Lily indicated that she didn't care, so he continued: "Everybody who fucked with them back in the day either disappeared or died. People still disappear or die… Cassie…" he choked up. "People we care about will disappear or die. What can you do?"

"The witches and warlocks back then were slow to react. They were divided and conquered before they even understood the scale of the threat against them. But aren't the tables turned now? All of our covens are connected - we haven't had a war in ages and ages. We're getting rid of thralls and all of the other things that make us horrible and weak. And the Gangling Men, whatever they are, they've grown complacent and content, and it's clear they've grown used to their lives here at the top of the magical totem. I'm going to shake things up, make them hurt, and then make them deal with us on our terms."

"But how? You're just one witch…"

I shrugged. "Maybe that's enough. And if it isn't…" I leaned into Magnus and kissed him on the cheek. "If it isn't, then I order you to figure out a way to save us."

"You order me?"

I nodded. "Girlfriends sometimes do that… especially when they're witches."

"She has a point." Lily stood to leave. "Mister Falstad, it was a pleasure to finally meet you properly - I wish it had been under better circumstances. I think it's high time Natalie and I made our way back to St. Circe's… and I'd advise you to go back to your own campus. With students getting snatched in the middle of the night, I don't think it's safe around here anymore."

I was about to object when an epiphany struck me: Lily was precisely right. This wasn't a rare occurrence, but in this case, she didn't know why she was right. The Gangling Men might have Cassie, but I still had a chance to steal her back if I acted quickly enough. But I didn't have long. I dashed out into the hallway.

"Simone! We have to get going - now!"

OvidLemma

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