The Wild Mustang & The Dancing Fairy: A Gorgeous Villain Prequel Novella, Saffron Kent [highly illogical behavior .TXT] 📗

classes, I don’t get a lot of free time so I’m not that experienced with them either.

The ones that I have been to were loud and overcrowded and had really bad music.

Not to mention, they sort of freak my brothers out.

They don’t show it though, no. For my sake, my four overprotective older brothers try to hide their worry.

They try to hide the fact that every time I go to a party, they’re all always watching the clock. They’re always watching the door too – well, Con does because he likes to stay home, the rest of them are usually out and about with their friends – and texting each other to see if I’m back.

I think they have a group chat together.

I mean, we have one where all five siblings are included but I think they have a secret four-person chat where they sort of obsess over if I’m okay.

I guess even though I’m in high school now, I’m still their baby sister.

The one who followed them around while growing up. The one whose ballet recitals they all went to. The one who couldn’t fall asleep by herself for the longest time when our mom died, so all my brothers would take turns during the night and stay with me in my room.

I don’t really remember that part, about not falling asleep by myself, probably because I was only four when Mom died, but every time I think of it, I can’t stop crying and smiling.

I can’t stop the rush of love I feel for my big brothers.

So over time I decided not to go to parties at all.

I don’t want to worry them for something I don’t really have the time for and don’t like to begin with anyway.

But I’m going to this one.

And I’m going without telling my brothers.

That’s their one rule – to keep them updated about my whereabouts.

They’ll let me go to parties, or to the movies with my friends, but they need to know where I am at all times.

They don’t know where I am right now.

They think they know; I texted them saying I’m studying with one of my friends and that I’ll be back by my curfew.

They don’t know that I’m here.

That I’m going to a party thrown by Reed Roman Jackson.

My brother’s rival.

The guy I’m supposed to stay away from.

And I have.

I have stayed away from him.

I have been extremely careful never to be in the same place as him.

If he’s in the courtyard with his friends, I’m in the library. If he’s in the cafeteria, sitting in his usual spot, I know to stay on the opposite side of the room.

If I see him sitting inside his Mustang in the parking lot after practice, listening to music with his eyes closed, I turn around and walk through the soccer field to get to the bus stop.

Basically, I have done everything in my power to stay away from him.

So I don’t really know what I’m doing here.

I don’t even know how it happened. How I got pulled into going. By his sister, no less. Who I met only a little while ago.

But one minute we were watching the game and I was explaining to her about the rivalry, which I’m so glad to say that she doesn’t really understand either. And the next, the game is over and Tempest is pulling me away from the field, telling me that we shouldn’t be controlled by our brothers’ stupidity.

That I should ignore all the rivalry stuff and go to a party with a friend — her — if I want to. And besides, if I don’t like it, I’m free to leave.

So here I am.

Going to a party with a friend who has promised me that I can leave if I want to.

And I want to, I think.

Because as soon as I see the crowd, I realize that this is even stupider and more dangerous than I originally thought.

This party, which is happening in the middle of the woods that border Bardstown, is full of people from the Mustang camp.

The soccer players who worship him, the students from Bardstown High who are in awe of him and girls from all over town who want to be with him.

All of them are either laughing or talking or swaying with the music with red cups in their hands. I even hear people chanting his name off to the side.

Of course, Callie. This is his party.

This is his territory.

Everything here is his.

Except me.

I’m the trespasser. I’m the one who doesn’t belong. I’m the anomaly here.

And what if someone recognizes me, the sister of his rival?

What if they tell Ledger about it?

Oh Jesus Christ, I haven’t thought this through, have I?

I have not thought this through at all.

What if he uses this, me being here, as something to rile Ledger up in the next game?

He’s done it before.

I mean, he hasn’t used me to rile my brother up. But he has used things against Ledger. And well, Ledger has done the same, but yeah.

I need to get out.

I need to leave.

I grab Tempest’s hand and try to stop her from getting into the thick of the crowd. “I think I’m…”

Going to leave.

That’s what I was going to say before I left my words hanging.

Because just then the crowd parts, the horde of swaying bodies falls apart, and there opens a direct line of vision.

To him.

The guy who owns everything around me.

Reed Roman Jackson.

He’s sitting on a log, his powerful thighs spread, his demeanor casual, his body leaning forward with his elbows resting on his knees.

And as usual, he’s not alone.

There’s a girl draped over him — I think she’s from school — and she’s talking to him, whispering something in his ear.

It’s not the fact that a girl is hanging off his arm that makes me pause, no. I’ve seen this before at school, multiple times. I mean, it would be more of a shock to see him without a girl.

It’s not the girl. It’s him.

It’s the