Page 55 of Tis the Season to be Bullied

I’d left the details up to them and, looking back, that might not have been the best decision. I’ve already caught a few whispered rumors about something happening at breakfast with Trinity. And I know she was absent from prayers this morning, although I’m not sure if my brothers had anything to do with that or not.

I’ll get their full reports later this afternoon.

At least I made sure to tell Reuben not to go anywhere near her. I don’t trust him in his current state of mind. This close, with so much at stake? It would be too easy for him to unravel.

I throw myself into my lesson like I always do, but I’m distracted.

Cassius’s drawing is to blame.

Her shapely thighs and plump ass. Curls bouncing around her naked shoulders.

In the drawing, I have both hands on her hips, leaving her perky little tits free to bob.

I’d had every intention of holding her back after class and putting the fear of God into her…but that picture had roused something that had lain dormant inside me for a long, long time.

Maybe it was her innocence. From the way she keeps blushing, or how she’s always hiding behind her books to shield her body from inquisitive eyes, it’s obvious she’s inexperienced.

Shy, and secretive, and naive.

But with just enough backbone that, for a moment, I’d thought she would rat out Cassius. But then she’d chickened out and had taken the blame like a good little soldier.

I need a clear head right now. I can’t afford to be distracted by what I think her ass would look like while I fucked her from behind.

Those types of thoughts are what lead to acts of deviance and perversion in the first place. This is more natural than the ones I’m normally obsessed with, but regardless.

She looks relieved when I don’t say anything as she passes my table after the bell rings at the end of my lesson. And when she glances back over her shoulder, her frown makes me wonder if I’m being too soft.

That, or she’s wondering about my response to the letter.

I thought I’d been casual as fuck, staring down at that drawing, but maybe I hadn’t.

I’d hoped to join the boys in their fun, but I can’t be as close to this as I’d wanted.

One of us has to keep a level head.

Chapter 19

Trinity

I’m famished by the time lunch comes around. I head for the dining hall as quickly as I can. While the day had been sunny for the most part, gray-bottomed clouds are scooting in from the horizon. Every time one of them passes over the sun, the temperature drops a few degrees.

The fact that the smell of stew makes my mouth water is a testament to how hungry I am. There are about thirty students in the hall when I arrive, most seated with their trays in front of them.

I hurry over to the tray table, already reaching for one of the covered trays when something catches my eye.

A bright pink post-it has been attached to one of the trays nearest the edge of the table.

TRINITY MALONE

The tray is isolated by now—obviously no one dared touch it.

I pick it up and grimace.

More gruel.

Gray. Pasty. Disgusting.

The other trays are heaped with vegetable stew and fat slices of chunky bread spread thick with butter.

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