Chosen Bride of the Seven Dark Princes

It was past midnight when Slate finally carried Candi back to her room and tucked her into bed. The Avgo event would start soon and she needed to sleep as much as she could to be mentally ready for it.

As it was, Candi was up and about early in the morning.

The twins had arranged for their assistants to arrive that morning to help her bathe and dress for the event, but she was so full of nervous energy about the Avgo Event that she had already taken her bath and was sitting there waiting for her hair to dry.

By the time she had gotten dressed in the heavy gold royal dress, with her hair styled and jeweled with the tiara, Leonardo had come knocking on her door to escort her off the Alpha Indigo Hospital.

Her mouth dropped when she saw Leonardo.

His long golden blond hair had been tied back in a neat ponytail, revealing large aquamarine eyes, high cheekbones and a noble nose. His classically beautiful male face was heart-stopping.

Men should not be this beautiful!

His lush shapely lips curved in a beautiful smile as he saw her.

"You are a goddess," he breathed as he stared at her, mesmerized.

Candace was checking him out at the same time.

He was dressed in royal robes of the same gold silk muga fabrics she wore. On his brow was a royal band denoting his rank of Fourth Prince of Erenveil. On his lapel, the blue and white insignia of a First Class Physician.

As he moved closer to her, she could smell that familiar mint and sandalwood scent that was so very unique to Leonardo.

"We have matching outfits!" She laughed.

Leonardo grinned.

"Each of the royal children have a set of this exact same gold outfit to be worn at the winter solstice event each year. Father has welcomed you into the family. In his mind, you are already a Princess of Erenveil, and who is going to argue with the Emperor?"

Who, indeed? She laughed again nervously.

He looked at her with appreciative aquamarine eyes, .

"But to be honest, it doesn't matter what you wear. Your spirit shines through so brightly that I can barely breathe." Leonardo reached out and touched her cheek.

"Thank you, Leonardo." She smiled up at him.

He bowed and extended his arm. "If you are ready, we can leave for the Celestial Pantheon for your Brilliance and Intellect Event."

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The Celestial Pantheon was a white marbled columned structure with 18 giant scantily-clad carved figures holding up the roof line of the portico in front, and a round domed structure attached at the rear.

It was built on a floating island that was above the scattered cumulus clouds and looked like a castle in the sky.

Once she and Leonardo landed on the circular paved landing pad, hundreds of media pods that were aiming their visual instruments at the front of the portico began to converge in on Candi and Leonardo.

Virtual screens popped up around the floating island showed their images as they walked on the paved pathway across the green scape towards the front of the portico.

The images were a dizzying kaleidoscope of green grass and gold royal outfits, with closeups of Candace's and Leonardo's faces and their fair golden hair.

Candi's hair was a slightly darker shade of honey blonde than Leonardo's spun pale gold hair, but they complemented each other so beautifully that they looked like the Golden Couple of Erenveil.

Suddenly, new memes began to spring up everywhere around the galaxy as the Leonandace ship began to sail.

Once they were safely inside the Pantheon, a waiting attendant took them through a side aisle and up a set of stairs.

Leonardo was shown to a waiting area that had been set up with food and drinks and plenty of seating that was arranged so that it had a clean view of the stage area at the back of the Pantheon.

"Good luck." He whispered and leaned down to give her a kiss. It was a gentle kiss, brief but full of promise, and the media pods caught every angle of that kiss, blasting it out everywhere for the galaxy to see.

She was then escorted to a very familiar looking glass platform at the back of the circular chamber.

There was a large lush deep carpet of a pale champagne color on the glass platform and a kidney shaped brown leather couch that was set on top.

Around the back area was a series of cream panels that were erected, causing the platform to seem as if it was enclosed within a room.

Seeing no one around, Candi went to the leather couch and sat down.

Although Candi was about five minutes early, she was surprised no one else had shown up. Jenna and Anaïse should have been here by now. Those two were always early to a fault.

Five minutes later, she was still sitting there, alone on a glass platform, staring out at a cavernous chamber of a completely empty Celestial Pantheon.

As she sat, her eyes took in her surroundings with a touch of suspicion. Something was not quite right.

If it hadn't been for the fact that she had arrived with Leonardo and had been escorted to this room by an attendant, she would have thought she was here completely alone.

She was about to go look for Leonardo to find out what was going on when one of the panels disappeared.

Behind it was a table with an assortment of items. A hammer, some pliers, a pair of scissors, a knife, and a bundle of rope.

Ah. Finally. They were going to be tested on how to use tools.

She got up from the sofa and went to the table to take a closer look at the tools.

As she approached the table, a panel to the right of the tools table opened to reveal a bloody, beaten Leonardo, chained to one of the marble support columns that surrounded the glass platform.

Candace gasped.

"Oh my God!" She ran to him and quickly unbound his gag. "Can you speak? What happened? Who did this?"

Candace ran her fingers around the chains that bound him to the column. There was no obvious lock mechanism she could pick and there was no way she could break the column apart.

She pushed his long blond hair from his face to check on his physical condition.

Leonardo was barely conscious. His aqua eyes were bloodshot and dilated and he could barely focus on her.

He whispered one word. "Bomb," and fell unconscious, his long gold hair tumbling over as he grew slack against the chains.

Bomb? She looked around Leonardo seeing nothing.

She had to unchain him from the column, but the chains were large iron links that could not be removed with the few pitiful tools that were at the table.

What could she do with a hammer, some pliers, a pair of scissors, a knife, and a bundle of rope?

As her eyes darted back to the tools table, another panel opened up to reveal a large metal box. It had a timer set on top for five minutes, and that timer was rapidly moving down.

So that was the bomb he had spoken about.

And this stupid Brilliance and Intellect test was to see what she would do in a crisis situation, with a Prince's life on the line.

Candi groaned.

Wasn't this supposed to have been an easy no-stress situation where she was just supposed to answer some math or logic questions?

How was she supposed to handle a crisis situation like this, stuffed like a turkey into a heavy gold royal dress?