Chosen Bride of the Seven Dark Princes

Bethany Dresden was seated on the brown couch waiting, just like Candi had done.

Her red hair had been cut and styled into a short bob to minimize the damage that had been done to her from the previous fight with Olivia Faraday.

She was not feeling well and it showed. Her feathers were dropping everywhere in tiny red fluffs, drifting about on the tiny currents of air that blew in from the vents above.

The cream carpet looked as if she was bleeding in small droplets all over the area where she was sitting. The brown couch hid it a bit better, but there were feathers all over the leather as well.

She was still very beautiful, but there was no hiding the fact that this Avgo event was very hard on her.

At this point, she was no longer even trying to hide the fact that she was molting.

Five minutes into the wait, she was prowling around the perimeter of the glass platform, looking around and poking at everything, much in the same way as Anaïse had done.

Bethany was not as thorough as Anaïse was, nor did she do it in a calculating manner.

For her, it was not so much scoping out the place to determine best courses of actions depending on the possibility of the outcomes.

She was just bored.

Bethany was so unengaged that when the panel opened up to show the table full of equipment, she wasn't even aware that it had happened because she was staring at her red painted fingernails.

It was a fluke that she was looking in the direction of the panel when it suddenly opened up to reveal a Prince with pinkish blonde hair looking anything but princely.

He was chained to a marble column and had open gashes all over his arms and legs. It also looked as if he'd been blinded in one eye. He was bleeding all over the floor and seemed as if he would expire at any moment.

Bethany squeaked out a tiny scream, her hands covering her face in shock and terror.

"Oh my God. Lucas looks terrible!" Candi breathed.

Leonardo laughed.

"He's the only real actor out of all of us. Of course he's going to look the worst."

Leonardo never took his eyes off the virtual screen at the red haired woman who was standing transfixed in one spot, staring at the horribly mangled man before her.

"You!" She pointed to him. "You're Prince Lucas. What happened to you?"

Lucas opened his one remaining amber eye and whispered a single word.

"Help…"

Bethany stared at him, horrified. In a moment of panic, she turned and ran for the doorway.

As her footsteps clattered on the marble floor, Lucas opened his damaged eye and heaved a theatrical sigh. He winced as the doors opened and then slammed shut with a BANG!

Bethany had exited the Celestial Pantheon without even knowing that there was a bomb that would explode. She had never even stuck around long enough to give it a chance to show up.

Lucas looked out into the darkened interior chamber of the Pantheon with a disgusted look. He spoke a single command spell and disengaged the chains from himself.

As he walked out onto the front of the platform, he held out both his hands and made a single gesture.

Both his thumbs were pointed down.

Leonardo laughed.

"Poor Lucas." He shook his head with a sigh. "He always gets the losers."

"Losers? What losers?"

Leonardo rolled his eyes towards her.

"Never mind. You wouldn't understand. It's a guy thing."

"Guy thing, huh?"

Leonardo leaned over and pressed a kiss onto her forehead.

"Let's take a look at the last one."

"That would be Valeria." She smiled.

Leonardo nodded and waved his hand. The virtual monitor blacked out and the same image of the cream carpet and the brown couch reappeared.

Valeria Marakesh was more composed, more elegant as she sat on the brown sofa waiting for the other Avgo Females to show up. Unlike Bethany, she was not molting everywhere and she still had her long lush mane of shiny raven blue-black hair.

As the moments ticked away, Valeria continued to sit quietly waiting. She seemed unconcerned that she was sitting in an empty chamber with no one about.

The table with all the tools was the first to appear. Valeria sat there looking at them but did not make a move to inspect the tools.

She continued to wait, her eyes calm and unperturbed.

When the panel on the right disappeared to reveal a bloody beaten chained man, Valeria's only outward sign of distress was her rapidly blinking almond brown eyes.

It was a severely injured Dante with a gash above his tortured green eyes. The gash was large enough to show white bone underneath and the bleeding was severe.

Valeria stood up and quickly went to Dante.

"Oh my God, Prince Dante!" She called out as she reached his side. "Are you okay? Can you hear me?"

Dante looked at her with pain-filled eyes and muttered one word.

"Bomb." And Dante sagged against his chains, his head lolling to one side.

"Bomb?" Valeria repeated with a confused frown.

At that moment, the panel to her left opened up to reveal the large metal box that housed the bomb. Its timer had already started ticking down its five minutes.

Valeria's head turned back and forth, from the bomb to the Prince, and back to the bomb again. She glanced at the tools table but did not even consider anything on that table worth another look.

Her thought process was similar to Candi's as she quickly pulled a white handkerchief from her pocket and tied it around Dante's head.

Once his head was no longer bleeding profusely, Valeria raised her hands and muttered a power word.

The chain clattered to the floor, releasing Dante body from its restraint.

She tried to catch Dante as he was falling but she was not much taller than Candi while Dante at 6'4", was much heftier than she was.

His large frame landed on top of Valerie sending both of them to the floor.

"Aaaahhhh!!!" Valerie screamed as she landed on her broken wing.

She pushed his body off and crawled onto her hands and knees. All of that effort took three minutes which meant she only had two minutes left.

She turned back to Dante and reached out for his arm. Gritting her teeth, she began dragging him across the glass platform.

It was slow going. He was quite heavy and she was not that strong.

Another minute flew by and she had barely gotten him past the brown sofa. Her eyes flew towards the ticking time bomb. Too late, she finally realized she was not going to be able to save Dante in the manner that she was doing.

In desperation, she dropped his arm, abandoning Dante on the floor and ran for the doors.

Unfortunately, she had waited too long to make her escape.

Two-thirds of the way towards the door, the bomb exploded.

BOOM!!!

Valeria was a bit of a distance away, but she was still knocked off her feet. She flew towards the door and banged hard against it, dropped to the floor as the fire roared past her body.

Behind her, Dante stood up, looked at her crumpled body by the doorway and shook his head. He made his way to where she laid and picked her up.

The purple Avgo had saved her from the bomb's deadly fire but could do nothing to prevent the blast from flinging her into the doorway, knocking her unconscious.