Kissing Hellfire: Marry Me, Evil Lord
Chapter 38: Wine Cellar

Chapter 38: Wine Cellar

After making sure that Alec was still not around, Lauren made her way down the basement where the wine cellar was.

Every click of her shoes as she walked in the basement’s hallway echoed. The flames in the torches danced as she passed by them and her heart remained calm despite knowing that a possible danger awaited her.

Lauren knew what she was doing – meddling with Alec’s personal business, might be against their contract but she couldn’t help her curiosity.

What if the man she married had a sinister secret down his mansion and wanted to raise havoc in their land? She may have held grudges against the royal family and wished to bring them down, but it didn’t mean she would not mind involving the innocents. Evardin was the land where she was born, and she wouldn’t appreciate someone ruining its order.

At the end of the hallway was a door. Lauren twisted the knob to see if it was opened but it wasn’t. When she asked Mary earlier if she knew where the key to the cellar was, she said it must be in Lyla’s hands but the butler was quick to dispatch the maid’s body and she didn’t think much about it because they were told stepping on the basement without permission meant death.

With no other way to open the door without breaking it, Lauren got a small hairpin from her hair and tried unlocking the door with it. She had done this a lot of times back in her childhood when she was often locked up by the Queen for being rebellious.

Hearing a click, Lauren smiled. It didn’t take her long to unlock it.

When she stepped inside, she noticed only a few candles were lit. She looked around, noticing the cellar was smaller than she expected.

She also imagined seeing something strange but all she could see were racks filled with bottles of wine. She continued to look around, walking in between the racks to find something that could lead her to the secret Alec was hiding, but a long minute passed and she found none.

The head maid could not be lying. Why would she?

There should be something in this very room and she was determined to uncover it.

Curiosity killed the cat, they said. But she wasn’t a simple cat though, so what would she fear?

Seconds passed and Lauren realized something. If there was nothing to see in this room, it was possible there was a hidden passageway in here leading to another room. Alec was a cautious man. If he got a secret, he would make sure it wouldn’t be accessible to everyone.

Walking at the corners of the room randomly touching things to see if one of the things around was the key to open a hidden door, she stopped when she noticed the chess board on the table at the corner.

With the way the pieces were in random places, it appeared like it was an unfinished game and it was left that way on purpose.

Lauren touched each piece to see if it would do something until her eyes narrowed at the way the black pieces were arranged.

In chess, the king should be protected by other pieces and should be staying behind, but in this one the king was in the front line which Lauren found odd.

Lauren held the black king piece and realized it was stuck in the chess board like it was designed that way. Twisting it, she was surprised when she heard a noise coming from the floor.

She looked down and saw an opening with stairs heading belowground.

Stepping into the unknown, Lauren held the sides of her dress, careful not to trip while descending the stairs.

When she got off, she followed the one path in front of her. There were torches at the sides, but the place was still dark. And if it was cold in the upper ground of the mansion, here it was colder. Lauren was thankful she was wearing thick clothes, otherwise she wouldn’t be able to stand it.

Entering the opening at the end of the pathway, Lauren stopped and looked around the entire place that seemed to be an underground dungeon. She walked slowly in between the cells with steel bar doors and saw there was no one kept in those cells.

However, in the last cell, she saw someone.

It was a young man. He was chained but with his clothes intact and his body not covered with wounds, it seemed like he wasn’t being tortured.

But what caught her attention were his eyes. They were all black like the eyes of the girl she encountered this morning.

Why was Alec keeping the man here?

Wondering how the maid was attacked by the man, Lauren looked at the lock of the cell door and noticed it was unlocked. The maid must have entered to give the tray of food but for some reason the man caught hold of her.

It was odd though, the chains holding the man’s shackles were connected to the wall and weren’t that long, so if the maid only opened the door to deliver the food, she wouldn’t be too careless to go closer. She could slide the tray down the ground to avoid going near him, but how did he manage to catch her?

"I wasn’t informed I invited you here, princess."

The familiar deep voice made Lauren turn.

There she saw the lord of the mansion, her husband, looking at her with eyes full of menace as if she was a stranger trespassing on his property.

"Why do you hold this man captive? What is he?" she asked.

Walking toward her, Alec said coldly, "First of all, I don’t remember giving you permission to have a tour down here, Lauren. I told you, I have my own business to deal with which does not require your knowledge. We both agreed to not meddle with each other’s personal affairs, didn’t we?"