Chosen Bride of the Seven Dark Princes

Slate was starting to come to after two hours of intensive healing and blood transfusion by the healers and doctors on board the starship hospital.

His face was pale. There were cuts and contusions that marred his previously flawless handsome face. One of his arms was in a sling and his exposed chest had been slashed in various areas with something sharp and ragged.

His surface physical wounds had mostly been healed by Leonardo. The scars, no matter how deep, would eventually fade and disappear with treatments, both magical and physical.

His arm was in a sling because they had twisted his shoulder out of its socket to prevent him from shifting into his bat form. That would also eventually heal.

Unfortunately, there were deeper underlying wounds that affected his internal organs. His heart and lungs had been damaged to some extent, and the toxic drugs that had been pumped into him had severely damaged his liver.

It would require time to flush out the chemicals from his body and it would require time for his organs to recover from the damage.

The fact that the Seventh Prince of Erenveil came out of his drug-induced coma in a matter of hours was a surprising miracle. What was not surprising was his immediate thoughts upon awakening.

The first word he uttered was a woman's name.

"Candace…"

The doctors knew who he was calling out to. Of course they knew.

Everyone who had seen the clip of the Seventh Prince walking across the glass walkway to her gentle urging knew who Candace Farrah was. There was no sound capture, but the computers had been able to analyze her lips and mouth and had displayed the captions below the video.

It had made a galaxy of people cry.

As soon as Slate showed signs of waking from his unconscious state, Fourth Prince Leonardo had been alerted.

Leonardo had come rushing into the hospital room.

"Slate." He reached out for his brother's hand. "I'm here, Brother."

"Leo." Slate whispered, his bright blue eyes feverish. "Where is Candace?"

Leonardo swallowed. He could not find the words to answer Slate.

"Where is my Candace, Leo?" Slate squeezed Leonardo's hand with desperation.

"Slate. They took her. We're doing all we can to bring her back."

"Leo." Slate fought to sit up. "I have to go find her."

"You need to lie back down. We are doing everything we possibly can with two huge space forces."

Leonardo pushed Slate back against the pillows and began laying his hands, palm down, onto Slate's body. Using broad strokes, Leonardo began healing him with molten energy from his own body.

As he passed his hands over the bruises, they began to lighten in coloration. The deep black began to turn more violet, the reds turned into deep shades of pinks.

All these had to be done in stages or Slate's body would go into shock. Damaging a body took no time at all. Healing the same body took much more time and energy.

At the moment, however, Slate was unconcerned about his own body and more focused on Candace.

"You don't understand. They are going to hurt her, Leo."

"Listen to me Slate." Leonardo's voice was gentle but firm. "Dante's Cerberus Guard-ships along with every single Raptor under the command of the Prime Warrior is tracking the ship that she is on right now."

Slate sank back against the pillows, his blue eyes pain-filled.

"Who is Prime Warrior at this time?"

"Father gave me temporary command until you recover enough to take back the command codes. As soon as you are well enough, you can take it back."

"The Captain of the Raptor, Niles Garr." Slate's eyes grew frosty. "Kill him on sight."

"What happened on that ship?"

Slate's eyes narrowed.

"I was sitting at the helm when he walked in and at point blank, shot me with a tranquilizer dart."

He squeezed his eyes shut. "I was in one of my own ships. I was not expecting to get ambushed by my own officer."

"What happened afterwards?" Leonardo prompted with a whisper.

"When I came to, I had been tied up." Slate's eyes were tragic.

"They began torturing me for state and military secrets."

He sighed.

"I made up all sorts of things so if weird stuff happens around the galaxy, you will know that it's my made up stuff that's triggering it."

"Do you remember how long this went on?" Leonardo asked as he continued to heal

"I don't remember how long they kept it up. I was shot full of neurotoxins and placed on a glass platform, blindfolded and gagged."

At this point, his voice broke.

"I heard Candace's voice and began to follow her. It was the only thing that I clung to because I knew that if I didn't, I would die."

"You did great, Baby Brother. I'm very proud of you." Leonardo breathed and gripped Slate's hand. "You did a great job. Leave the rest to your brothers. We will deal with those bastards, I promise you."

=======

"How many Class A Cerberus Guard-ships are in the area?" Dante was furiously rubbing his brows.

"Eight, Your Highness."

"How many Class A Raptors?"

"At last count, at least a dozen."

"Is there a remote way to disable the weapons system from that Raptor 437?"

"Yes, Your Highness, but you have to be Prime Warrior to have the codes to disable weapons on Empire warships."

Dante stared at the Captain for a few moments.

"Get me in touch with Leo." He commanded.

Within minutes, Leonardo's classically beautiful face, framed by an uncharacteristic tangle of platinum blond hair sticking out everywhere showed up on the screen. It looked as if he was also tearing his hair out over the situation.

It somehow made Dante feel a bit better. He was not the only one going out of his mind, sick with worry.

"I'm here." Leonardo spoke up, not even bothering to look up from what he was doing.

"Transfer your Prime Warrior title over to me."

Leonardo said nothing. His fingers flashed across the console of his hospital starship.

"Done."

It was then that he looked up at Dante, his droopy aqua blue eyes full of fury.

"Slate just woke up. It was the Captain of that ship that betrayed him. Go get that bastard and make him pay."

"My pleasure." Dante drawled and cut communications.

He turned back to Captain Don Kassim.

"I'm the Prime Warrior now. Disable the weapons system from that Raptor. Once that's done, bring all the Class A ships both private and government and surround that Raptor."

"Yes, Your Highness." The Captain scurried over to the Communications hub and began relaying all the commands that the Second Prince was calling out.

Dante's eyes were frozen green pools. They couldn't shoot at the Raptor and blow into fragments or this would have been over ages ago. This required gentle touches. He could not allow anything to happen to his Candace.

He opened up all communication channels between the Class A starships under his command.

"Listen up." Dante's face appeared on every single monitor in every single Class A Cerberus and Raptors. "I want every single one of you to coordinate your movements and surround Raptor 437. We're going to tractor it and tie it down to prevent it from going anywhere."

He squiggled something into the air above him with a finger and a four dimensional image of the airspace between his Cerberus Guard-ship and the Raptor 437 shimmered into view.

With quick practiced movements, Dante began moving all the Class A ships that were around that area into the space that he wanted them to be in, and then he drew in the tractor beams from the Class A ships, converging them onto Raptor 437.

With a snap of his fingers, the space diagrams he drew popped up into the flight deck of all twenty Class A starships.

"Follow the flight path and make it happen within the hour." He clapped a hand. "I want that Raptor tractored back to Erenveil before dinner."

He stood up and made his way to the Captain's rest chamber.

"I have to feed my Candace a good dinner. She must be hungry by now." He muttered to himself. The only person who heard the last sentences was his personal Aide.

"Sir, what about the ballroom?"

"What about it?"

"Would you like for us to fix it so she has a place to dance?"

"Oh that's right." He mumbled and threw himself onto the soft couch with a groan. "Yeah. Do what you can to salvage the ballroom."

He rubbed his hands through his spiky blue hair.

"I can't believe I trashed her dance hall. I was just so upset that she would be so eager and willing to leave the safe world that Slate and I had created for her just to follow Leonardo."

"Your Highness. She didn't follow Prince Leonardo. She went to rescue Prince Slate. I'm sure if it was you, she would have done the same thing."

Dante sat up, his green eyes sparkling.

"You really think she would?"

"Absolutely, Your Royal Highness.." He bowed his head.

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