Xander's POV:

"Waddup my loyal subjects!" I announced after kicking the door to the dining room open.

Scaring half of the lingering slaves in the process, and earning a very Nico-like sigh from my brother a step behind me.

Doe's familiar giggle lead me to look directly where she was sitting with Khloe and Marcus.

Khloe's eyes planted right on Nico whereas Marcus just slumped in his seat.

"Good afternoon, Prince Nicolas and Prince Alexander," Lily spoke from behind the bar, "Did you come hungry?"

Ah Lily, so formal at such random times.

But, I can address that later, for now-

"You know I did," I replied heading directly over towards her.

I didn't hear Nico's steps following me but didn't stop to figure out why either.

If I was hungry then I just knew Doe was too.

"What'll it be today?" She asked, casually placing a full glass of blood on the bar in front of me.

She knew us way too well.

Various delightful scents radiated from behind her that I struggled to choose.

Although I did see some kind of cards splattered on the round table they were sitting at, and might want to get in on that.

So something I could eat with one hand.

"How about one of those pizzas, you know which topping and with a ton of the white sauce. Pretty please."

She nodded with a grin, "And for Doe?"

"Uh..."

I don't know why I had it in my mind that she'd already ordered.

I turned to look at her only to see her giving me a look as if to say, 'Yeah Xander, what are you getting me?'

I blinked at her before turning back.

"I um..."

I knew what she liked, but I also knew that she only liked certain things for dinner and lunch was basically a wildcard.

Lily's quiet snicker at my sudden bit of stress made me look at her.

"If you cant think of anything, I have something I've been meaning to try and I'm positive she'll like. I'll let you take credit for it too," She said with a wink.

I perked up in an instant, "This is why you're the best."

"One reason of many, dear," She replied, turning to face Nico as he approached behind me.

I thought about hanging back to roast his food choice but decided that I wanted to go over to Doe more.

Grabbing my glass, I made my way to do just that.

They chatted quietly while I approached, Khloe telling them that we'll all be eating together.

"Oh really," Doe dragged out the words, glancing at me once again with a pleased raise in her brows.

I replied with simply wiggling mine, snatching a chair from a nearby table.

I spun it so it sat backwards against the table, setting it right beside where Doe was and straddling it.

"Alright, what are we playing," I asked, looking over the cards.

Lucky for me, the name was right on the back of them.

A burst of excitement filled me as soon as it clicked.

"Yo! I haven't played this in years!" I exclaimed, setting my glass down.

Nico and I would play this with each other for hours on end since none of the staff ever wanted to join us.

Which, looking back on it, I couldn't blame them for.

Every time someone did, Nico and I would team up against them and make it nearly impossible to win.

Mom would beat us every time though without fail.

Even when we tried to cheat.

"Please tell me you've been winning," I said to Doe.

She had to have just learned to play, but no Doe of mine is allowed to be bad at uno.

Plus, I knew she had a competitive side to her that this game would just fuel beyond belief.

"Um... well," Just from that, I could tell that she has not been winning then and that she was trying not to be bummed about it "I've been getting second place a lot. Khloe's way more experienced and has a much more thought out strategy."

I never understood how someone could strategize uno, but it apparently can be done.

Both Doe and I looked at the redhead across from us, the attention causing her to shrink.

Though I still sensed absolutely no fear from her

"So you're good huh? Think you could beat me?" I challenged with a fanged grin.

"I... uh-" She sputtered, Nico's voice interjection instead.

"Oh she definitely could," He said, pulling up a chair of his own and sitting in it the normal way "You suck at this game, remember?"

My eyes narrowed.

"Wha- No don't! I beat you all the time!" I reminded him.

Nico beat me in a lot of things as we grew up, so I held onto my wins like my life depended on it.

"Yeah when I let you," He spoke nonchalantly, taking a sip of his drink.

His dismissal and entirely incorrect statement poked at my priorly wounded, and still recovering pride.

Especially after the laugh Doe tried and failed to catch.

"You know what!" I hurriedly collected the few stray cards and organized them into the deck "Rematch right here, right now. We can get one in before our food's ready, Right?"

"I guess. Since you're so desperate to lose." He responded with a shrug.

I grumbled to myself, gaining a few more quiet laughs here and there from Doe while I properly shuffled the cards.

I focused on making a show of my shuffling while Khloe made sure Marcus was in for this round.

Honestly, as long as anyone except Nico wins, I'll be happy.

But if it's not me, it better be Doe.

And we better be playing the non-cowardly way.

I finished shuffling and divvied up the cards amongst the five of us, slapping the rest of the deck down onto the table and exposing the starting card.

A yellow seven.

We all took a few seconds to look over our cards.

Okay not bad. I got a wild card and a few of the 'plus 4's.

I may or may not have just instinctively glanced over at Doe's cards for a half-second before realizing what I was doing.

But at that time I saw that she didn't have any of the specialty cards.

But she did have some yellow cards.

"So. Whos starting?" Nico asked.

"Doe will start," I quickly replied, much to her surprise.

She gave me an odd look. "Oookay."

We went clockwise from there. Doe, Marcus, Khloe, Nico, then me.

Marcus had to take a card with a very disgruntled groan.

I guess this game hasn't been too nice to him.

Khloe and Nico set down cards without a hitch, Doe and I too.

Marcus slapped down a 'draw two' card, which Khloe stacked and Nico ended up having to take.

The smirk she sent him while nudging his arm was new, but the way he mirrored it made me pause all together.

I don't think I've ever seen him look at someone like that.

I didn't think he had the capability to make that kind of an expression.

The way his eyes softened whenever he looked at her, and those small smiles that for once in his life didn't feel forced when he was talking to someone other than me.

And how she was looking back at him too...

I watched his hand drop as soon as he was done drawing his cards, the very faint angle his arm took showing that his hand wasn't just resting on his lap.

Holy shit... There's no way.

In my current stupor, I just slapped down the first card that I saw would work.

Looking into William Rigs, the difference in how he's treated her nearly from the start, the ball... That dress?

No... No, it sounded just a little too good to be true. It sounded just a little too convenient.

Maybe since I was in that boat myself I was just trying to project it onto him.

Even so, I couldn't shake the feeling.

Okay... Alright, noted for future investigation.

I didn't want to jump ahead of myself immediately.

Doe ended up having to take a card from the pile, only for Marcus to start us off with a draw four card.

Khloe stacked it, then Nico stacked it, all eyes turning to me with the rising tension this game easily carried around with it.

Especially Doe who was looking at me with a half-hidden sense of panic.

I could stack it, and I just happened to know that she couldn't add anything to it and would end up taking sixteen cards.

And even though that was just all part of the game...

I stared at my 'draw four' card.

"Ugh, come on you guys," I groaned, setting my cards down and reaching over to gather the twelve I decided to subject myself to.

Doe's quiet sigh of relief sounded before Nico's cynical chuckle.

Doe placed a comforting pat on my knee before happily continuing the game.

Yeah... Worth it.

I tapped into my advanced sense of smell while I organized my twelve new cards in with the rest, trying to see if I could figure out how far along our food was.

But something else caught me instead, a few scents mixing with Doe's.

I tried to casually look her over, trying to pinpoint who and where.

The specifics I could get into with royal blood were something I realized that I missed, but I soon found myself wondering if this was really information wanted to know.

It was Marcus.

Even if he was currently sitting beside her, there were still hints of his scent on hers.

I peered through hooded eyelids, trying to enhance my focus.

I found some of Khloe's scent there, but that wasn't anything new and even then it was just on her hands.

As was another very unfamiliar scent.

Marcus though, he was on her hand, her shoulder... and her waist.

That feeling that usually came and went when he was around here got multiplied by five.

It was like a hard punch in the gut, the intensity of it finally clicking as to what exactly it was.

Jealousy.

I almost didn't recognize it because I've only ever felt it in different ways.

This wasn't the spiteful, rage-fueled kind.

The claws-out and ready to draw blood for her kind of jealousy I would feel back whenever it involved Layla.

This one was just... sad. Crushing even.

A pull to my chest and an ache in my heart.

I wondered as to what could have caused such a dramatic difference between the two, but the answer came to me quickly.

I didn't love Layla. No matter how much I tried to convince myself that I did, that's never what it was.

Not even close.

With Doe, it was so much different.

No matter how much I wanted her... No matter how much I loved her, her happiness took my absolute top priority over it all.

She wasn't mine in a vampiric sense, and thus I had no right to get upset over something like this.

But here I was anyway.

Marcus was a great guy. As much as part of me might want to right now, I couldn't argue with that.

I've seen how he interacts with these girls and how well he does his job...

"Xan," Nicos call jumped me out of my depressing thoughts, "You gonna play or just sit there."

"Oh," I cleared my throat, hoping no one heard the way the word croaked out, "Yeah my bad."

It would have been downright sad if I didn't have a playable card amongst the amount that I had.

I tried to keep my focus on the game alone, and not on my most recent discovery, but I already knew how much my brain hated me.

I just hoped that my face wasn't showing it.

My body tensed in mild shock as I felt Doe shift her leg over so it brushed against mine, almost placing it under my thighs.

Those twists in my stomach and chest just... dissipated, like they were never an issue to begin with at the warm contact.

I lowered my hand, taking a page from my brother's book, supposedly, and rubbed my fingers against her inner thigh up towards her knee.

I removed it a second later, but she kept her leg where it was.

And against my hard work, Khloe did end up winning that round.