Snow's White | ✓

27. For Tonight

Lucas had glowered as Keir and Guinevere had walked into the dining hall together hand in hand. After Ahri, Lucas hadn't seen Keir be so intimate with anyone, not even with Finnian, who he had become quite close to recently. Even with what he had seen transpire between Keir and Ahri, Lucas could feel something different in Keir's interactions with this woman. There was a closeness between them that made Lucas feel like an outsider, and the feeling left him unsettled.

Throughout dinner, Guinevere had pulled him into the conversation, sharing stories about Keir in his younger days, which only made him glummer as the dinner progressed, though he tried his best to hide it by plastering strained smiles on his face and laughing flatly at humorous points in her tales. Keir had given him worried looks throughout the dinner, but Lucas ignored them, downing his wine quickly. 

Guin told him stories that made him realise that he didn't know that Keir. The young Keir, who used to be too skinny to control his horse, falling from the steed and landing face first in its own dung. He didn't know the Keir who cried when his fingers were pricked by rose thorns when the two were playing tag in the gardens. They were all Keirs that he didn't know, but that Guin knew. 

Lucas wanted to know everything about Keir, to possess him, to monopolise him. The feeling consumed him, making him feel sick. He hated himself for wanting these terrible things.

"Would you like to join us in the drawing room, Prince Lucas?" Guin asked, as the three of them stood from that table after finishing dinner, Lucas's food remaining largely untouched. "We will be enjoying some sweets made by our pastry chef, and he is quite talented. I remember when Keir first tried his berry tarts he actually cried in happiness. Cried. Streaming tears and everything. Oh, you should have seen it, Your Highness!" Guin laughed as Keir's cheeks flushed, the prince giving her a silencing look as Lucas managed to force out a laugh. 

'Your Highness,' Lucas thought bitterly to himself, as he dryly laughed internally. 'Distancing me from the two of you yet again. Keir is also a Prince of rank, yet you call him by his first name?'

Lucas knew that his thoughts were ridiculous, but he couldn't help his petty inner monologue from sparking as he watched the two of them silently argue with their eyes. 

"I'm sure it was a sight to see," Lucas said weakly, Guin giggling as she nodded, Keir sighing heavily. 

"It really was not," Keir replied, shaking his head. "My eyes merely itched because of the tartness of the dessert."

"Well, Prince Lucas, you must come join us to try our chef's tarts. You might also find your eyes itching because of the sweet," Guin teased, giving Keir another mischievous look as the prince threw his hands up in the air, muttering something about not being able to deal with the girl, before heading off to the drawing room alone, leaving Guin and Lucas in his wake. Turning to Lucas, Guin smiled heartily, gesturing her hand in Keir's direction gracefully. "The drawing room is this way, Your Highness."

"Just Lucas is fine," Lucas replied, Guin giving him an amused glance, but nodded anyway. 

"As you wish, Lucas," Guin said, Lucas's hopes that using first names would help ebb away the feeling of distance between him and the pair, but it did not - he still ached. 

The two were silent as they slowly, slowly walked down the long corridors of the mansion, Lucas having to shorten his long strides to match with Guin's pace, despite his desperation to go to where Keir was and away from the woman that he disliked next to him. Yes, he disliked her, for reasons that were petty and unwarranted, but he couldn't help the irritation that burst within him every time he saw her. She was a kind girl, that he knew, but he found himself wishing that she was a horrible witch so he wouldn't feel as guilty for hating her.