Harold had a smug smile on his face as he trained with Alvin. Regardless of whether Alicia was going to be pissed or not, he had already set his plan in motion, and there was nothing she could do to stop him. He almost laughed evilly in his head at the thought of ruining her plan. Maybe he should continue to feed her his wine to drink so she could keep exposing everything to him. Hehehe.
Alvin looked at him, wondering what he was so happy about when he was just about to do something that wasn't very good. Alvin waited until they took the first break before he asked, "Do you think getting rid of Hellion is a good idea?"
Even though Hellion was very difficult and wild, they had watched him grow from when he was little, so he didn't understand why he was so eager to get rid of Hellion all of a sudden. But as expected, Harold was a heartless person who was not attached to anybody, much less animals.
So it didn't bother him that he was getting rid of something useless. Especially when it was useless to him but would most likely be useful to Alicia.
Harold smirked. Of course, Hellion had to go first. Then he would have to find a way to deal with Paulina later. He had a feeling that if she meant to make Hellion like her, she was going to achieve that. He didn't want to take any chances.
"Get rid of him tonight. If no one can ride him, there is no point keeping him around," Harold said dismissively.
Through his tone, Alvin deduced that there was nothing anyone in this world was going to say to him that would make him change his mind. It was final.
As Harold drank water from his bottle, he choked and had water pouring on his face and body when a loud "HAROLD!!!" resounded in the entire palace, scaring even the birds in the entire kingdom away.
He quickly glanced at Alvin, his face saying, "What did I do this time?"
Alvin, who was looking at him, also had a "What did you do this time?" expression on his face. But, seeing as the Prince seemed to have no idea, Alicia appeared in the training ground with her fists clenched firmly beside her, before he could tell Harold that he also had no idea and flee before the Princess found him here and took out her anger on him.
They didn't even need to ask how she got past all the guards until she got there, because it seemed the guards were either scared of her, or scared of what Harold might do to them if they messed with her.
The two young men glanced at each other before glancing back at Alicia, who looked like she would have burnt Harold to ash if she had the power to.
Alicia's mistake was to let her eyes trail down. Because when she did, she was met by two shirtless men with bulging muscles glistening with sweat under the sun.
Her eyes almost popped out of her head and even her jaw dropped from surprise.
Her line of sight was cut off from Alvin because Harold stood in front of Alvin and threw a shirt back at him for him to wear, which he did in a hurry.
"What is wrong?" Harold asked, but maybe he shouldn't have because that question snapped her back to her senses and she looked up at his face with a dark glare, making him take a step backwards and stand beside Alvin.
"Is something..." Harold didn't get to finish because she cut in.
"You told them to get rid of Hellion?!" She asked in an accusatory tone.
He quickly glanced at Alvin, who looked surprised too. How did she know about this?!!!!
Unfortunately for Harold, part of Alicia's tour with Luciana included visiting the stables (Alicia's suggestion for an obvious reasons), and she just happened to overhear two guards talking about it.
"HOW COULD YOU DO THAT?" She asked him angrily.
'She is scary,' his wolf whispered.
Harold had to admit she did look scary at the moment and unconsciously took a step backwards again. Why was she acting like a little devil?
Alvin wondered if he was supposed to say something to calm her down and save his friend, but before he could make up his mind, Harold spoke, "Who... said I did that?" He asked, sounding tough.
Alvin turned to look at him in shock. Was Harold lying right now?
"If you didn't, then who? Hellion is yours, right? You promised to give him to me and now you want to get rid of him and you're saying it wasn't you. I thought you were an honourable person. If not you, then who?" She asked accusingly.
Harold, "...."
"Why aren't you saying anything? Were you trying to play me? Was that your plan?" She asked, not letting go of her accusatory tone. Imagine how excited she had been the entire morning about her new plan, only to find out what these people were planning.
Alvin felt it was the best time to come in because he had a feeling this might escalate soon if he didn't. But once again, he was interrupted by Harold, who did something that left him totally speechless.
Harold raised his index finger slowly and pointed at Alvin, making Alicia's murderous gaze move from Harold to Alvin, who looked lost.
"So it was you?" Alicia asked, eyeing him unpleasantly.
Alvin looked at Harold, who shamelessly didn't bother to spare him a glance, shocked that the prince had actually pushed the blame onto him to get away from his wife!
Seeing how Alvin wasn't saying anything, Alicia was convinced that it was him. Maybe if she had thought about this carefully, she would have been able to question the fact that Alvin had planned to do that without his friend's/master's consent. But she was blinded by rage just now at the thought of him ruining her plans if she hadn't gone to the stables today.
"I knew it couldn't be Harold. Even though he is annoying at times, he is a man of his word. So it makes sense that it was you," She said, leaving Alvin even more speechless. He could not believe it right now.
'I know you did a very dishonourable thing right now... but I am proud of you,' his wolf said in his head with relief but Harold's attention was pulled away when Alicia continued to attack Alvin.
"Why did you even consider that? Don't you know that animals have souls just like us? You can't just kill them as you please. I'm sure even your friend knows that," she said, turning to Harold, who shrugged as if saying, "Of course, everyone knows that."
Alvin had never felt this wronged in his entire life. He felt a strong urge to call the prince out on his lie and tell her the truth, but he knew that no matter how scary his bride was, Prince Harold was scarier. But he was beginning to have his doubts now, seeing how the prince had shifted the blame onto him.
"I hope you fix it. Hellion is mine and if anyone dares to touch him..." She made a scary gesture of slicing her neck with her thumb, making the two of them flinch a bit.
Since that was out of the way, her eyes fell back on Harold's chest again, almost unable to believe that this was his body. She reached out to poke his chest with her index finger absentmindedly, but before she could succeed, her finger was slapped down.
"Are you a pervert?" Harold asked Alicia, who scoffed at him in annoyance.
"Your body isn't even that great," she said with a scoff while eyeing him. With one last glare and a gesture with her two fingers pointing to her eyes and then at them in an "I've got my eyes on you two" manner, she turned and walked away from the training ground, swaying her hips excessively until she almost bumped into a wall, embarrassing herself and her entire generation.
Alvin turned to look at Harold, who was shaking his head at her back while looking amused, feeling wronged for being used as the guinea pig to avoid her wrath.
The action had left him speechless. He could not even get any words out if he wanted to. Thinking the prince was going to apologize to him now that they were alone, who would have thought that he would pat his shoulder twice and say, "Animals are important. Treat them well, okay?" before walking away?
Wasn't he the same person who had been advising Prince Harold against getting rid of Hellion?
'Arrgh!'
He yanked his hair in frustration. Just when he thought that Princess Amber cared about him and saw him as a friend, Harold just had to do something like this to put him in her bad books.
Did he say no one in this world would be able to change Harold's mind about getting rid of Hellion? Maybe Princess Amber wasn't from this world then.
ROUND 2
Harold 1- 100 Alicia.
Alvin -50.