Kissing Hellfire: Marry Me, Evil Lord
Chapter 89: Secret Cavalrymen

Chapter 89: Secret Cavalrymen

"That woman is teasing me."

Lauren cocked her pistol and aimed at the target. She was in a training ground in a private place she owned.

The morning after Alec’s coronation, he had to go to Acheron on behalf of Evardin to fix some matters. Now that he was the Crown Prince, the responsibilities he had on his shoulders gained more weight. King Martin told Lauren that she could go with Alec, but she chose not to. Aside from she had things to deal with in the castle, she knew she wouldn’t be of any help because Alec could deal with the matter on his own.

"Should we look into the ladies who attended the event last night, Your Highness?" asked Julian who was holding the tray of bullets for her. He and Darius were the ones leading her secret cavalry, the people helping her outside the castle.

She shook her head as she loaded her pistol.

"That is too hassle. A lot of ladies attended the event last night. It won’t be easy to narrow them down. Besides, I don’t have clue what she looks like. Her black hair and slender body looked generic."

There were several ladies who wore a red dress last night so she couldn’t narrow down the search through that. Going out asking about her would not work either. Should the woman know how desperate she was to unmask her, it would give her satisfaction, and Lauren was not too generous to give her that.

Noticing Darius was walking toward them several yards away, Lauren aimed her pistol at him and fired once.

Just like he always did, Darius caught the bullet between his two fingers.

"Your marksmanship is getting better and better, Your Highness," Darius said with a cold expression which would make a person wonder if he was expressing his thoughts or reading a random line he saw somewhere.

"But I’m afraid your skills in catching a bullet are far better." Lauren narrowed his eyes at Darius whose face remained stoic.

She gave the pistol to Julian and sat on the bench. Their training ground was on a clearing in the outskirts of the town behind an old house she bought at a bargain price a year ago. It served as the base of her secret cavalry and a place she could run to when having a bad day or when she wanted to be in a quiet place to sort her thoughts out.

"I really thought you would accompany the Crown Prince in Acheron, Your Highness. I heard Acheron has beautiful princesses. Are you not afraid that your husband might take interest in other ladies?" Julian asked after putting the tray of bullets and the pistol on the table where the other weapons were laid. Between him and Darius, he was the playful one who usually threw silly jokes.

Lauren leaned back and crossed her legs, the soft afternoon sunlight hitting her face.

"And don’t you fear that you might be putting your life at risk, Julian?"

Both Julian and Darius knew the contract between her and Alec, yet Julian never missed the chance to tease her every time he had the chance.

Julian grinned sheepishly. "I’m just a concerned servant, Your Highness. I meant nothing harm."

"Stop using your mouth. Make your body work. Let’s have sparring."

Lauren stood up and took off her coat. Darius held it for her.

She wore a vested dress with no tight bodice which allowed her to move without restrictions. She rolled her long sleeves up to her elbow and craned her neck side by side to prepare for sparring. Julian was her sparring partner, and sometimes Darius if he wasn’t too grumpy.

She met Darius first two years ago. She was having a stroll in the town one afternoon when she saw someone severely injured in a dark alleyway. Darius was one of those less fortunate people who had a poor background despite his vampire ancestry.

His father was used to be a powerful man in Evardin with status and money, but he met his demise after the council found out about his dark business which was kidnapping young ladies and selling them in other lands. Darius’ mother who came from a humble family brought him to a small village in the north and married another man later on. But due to financial problems, when he grew up he was forced to enter the dark side of the world and earn a living as a hatchet man of an illegal organization.

But when his mother died and money was no longer a necessity, Darius wanted to stop killing innocent people for money. But the organization refused to let him go and didn’t want to free him from the life-and-death contract he signed.

Darius fought with the organization’s people even if it meant dying. It was then Lauren saw her in an alleyway. The Life-and-death contract was an agreement made out of a spell, which would put a chain to the people’s hearts who signed it. Once you breach the contract, the chain would slowly clench your heart until it was crushed.

During that time, Lauren had been secretly honing her skills and was planning to acquire people by her side for her plans. She learned about the life-and-death contract and she knew that the only way to revoke it was another spellbound agreement, which was the master-servant contract.

The master-servant contract would put the servant’s life in the hands of his master, which meant he could only stay loyal to her his whole life and if she died, he would die as well.

Lauren only thought about saving the man at that time and she didn’t force him to have a master-servant contract with her. She told him it was the only way for him to live, and Darius who wanted to be given a chance to redeem himself after killing a lot of innocent people accepted her offer.

As it was a spellbound contract, they didn’t need to do it the traditional way of signing an agreement. All they had to do was to cut their palms and put their hands together while Lauren uttered the necessary incantations. Mixing two people’s blood together was a form of signing a spellbound contract.

"You should go easy on me, Your Highness!" Julian said when her kick hit the side of his abdomen. "Did I offend you when I asked about Prince Alec?"

"During a fight, you can’t allow any distractions to get to you, Julian. Especially in hand-to-hand combat," Lauren said.

Julian, on the other hand, was a man just a year older than her. It was Darius who brought him to her six months after Darius became her loyal servant. As Darius wanted to redeem himself, he started helping out people discreetly and one of them was Julian.

Julian was an arch mage whose entire family was killed by black mages. A year and a half ago, he was just a simple-minded man who couldn’t even use spells properly but Darius saw potential in him. Julian wanted to give purpose to his life and help in killing the black mages, so he accepted Lauren’s offer to be one of her secret cavalrymen.

"The sun is already setting, Your Highness," Darius reminded Lauren in the middle of her sparring with Julian since it would take a few hours to travel back to the castle.