Fae Fiefdom - M. Sinclair Page 0,13

ever met, and the bastard knew it. He was a pain in the ass half the time, and the other half the time he was clingy. But not in the ‘this is so cute’ way, more in the ‘what are you doing and why’ way. I mean, it was still cute because I wanted to jump the guy’s bones, but he didn’t need to know that.

I mean take, for example, his 6-foot muscular body that was outfitted in a dark shirt that highlighted his perfect muscle tone. His golden and platinum hair was longer than Bard’s and messy against his golden sculpted chin and lips. Lips that were almost too pretty for a man but somehow worked on him. It was probably because of the damn lickable dimples he had. Fucking ridiculous.

Then there were his eyes. The obsidian color was filled with a different charm than his voice and words, it had a darker tone to them, and not for the first time, I felt like he was different than I thought. Different than I knew him to be. The gold around the pupil was just an added, ‘look how fucking beautiful’ I am, plus, he smells like oranges. I didn’t need that type of goddamned negativity in my life.

“Bard!” Koa chuckled, “Where the hell were you? Are you done playing with ponies… Oh, hey, Lia?” Right. Because he had no idea whose car this was...I could roll my eyes. I did for the record.

“Koa,” I sighed as his dark eyes drilled into my face intensely before lighting with mischief.

Bard let out a low almost frustrated sound before trying to open the door. The two of them were supposedly best friends, but I had no idea how factual that actually was. It was a bit overwhelming being near both of them. I never knew where I stood because they liked to pretend they didn’t know who I was unless we were alone and the other wasn’t there to see it.

“Well now I know why you were late,” Koa offers suggestively.

“Koa,” Bard let out a low, annoyed sound, “she was just giving me a ride.”

And picking your ass up because your father sucks.

But parent issues seemed to be the norm in Village Worth, not the exception. Koa came from an unusual situation. His parents were openly hot messes and while Koa was an authentic heir to their family, they each had bastard children spread throughout the town border to border. It was interesting going to school with Koa’s half-siblings that he didn’t even really know. It was easy to see which ones they were though. All of them were stunning.

“I bet you were eager to help, right, Lia?” Koa goaded, almost looking angry at Bard, as I relaxed into my seat and stared forward. I was trying to not be offended by Bard’s quick dismissive action of us. I knew the score. Maybe it was the wealth. I wanted to blame it on that but I didn’t think it was. You would think being an heiress would make me more popular not less.

It sucked even more because Koa, as I mentioned, was such a fucking softy. Did you know the man had a garden at school? Yep, in the green room. It was amazing, and he was in there during most free periods, checking on it. Honestly, it was rather endearing, and apparently, he had quite the talent with making herbal remedies.

“Let’s go.” Bard opened the door and I felt him look back at me, “Night, Ophelia.”

I didn’t respond, and he muttered something under his breath before closing the door. Koa offered a smile and walked in front of my car, slapping his hands onto its hood before getting into his large truck with Bard taking the passenger's seat. Are they for real right now?! Couldn’t Koa have picked his ass up? They pulled off and I sat there for a minute considering why I even went out of my way for Bard.

He always denied our ‘friendship’, especially in front of Koa. Once again, I didn’t know why.

Koa was annoyingly sweet to me when it was just the two of us, like, honestly it was bad enough that I could ruin his reputation with it. I was sick one day from school, and he stopped by with Vitamin water and naturally made cough drops just to make sure I was doing okay. I had been sick enough that when he’d sat down to watch TV with me, I hadn’t complained. After