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"Need any backup, your highness?" a supermodel woman asked, watching us with sharp awareness when we passed where she was helping a growling, bearded man to his feet.
"Holy shit, you're beautiful," I breathed, momentarily stunned. She had perfect, movie-star waves of blonde hair, a deep tan, bright hazel eyes that legitimately sparkled, and her spiky leather armour clung to a shapely body. Even her wings were gorgeous, equally deadly and beautiful with veins of electric blue. "You're so lucky I don't like women," I told my mates.
"Not what I asked, but okay," the warrior replied, her mouth pressed thin. She steadied the giant redhead who was still growling1and jerked her chin at the sceptre.
"We’ve got this handled," I said, but when we climbed over a coil of dark green scales, the supermodel warrior followed, assessing every brick and carving in the wall, floor, and ceiling for threats.
"I've always wanted a bodyguard," I told X, babbling to cover up my nerves when we slid down the other side of the snake’s cold body, the sceptre mere feet in front of us. The gold gleamed even in this dim lighting. "Can I keep her?"
"You already have four bodyguards," Taj grumbled.
"And a devil," X added.
Fine, I guess they were right.
I didn’t dare breathe as we approached the sceptre’s podium. Black fire blazed beside me and I jumped, but it was just Taj arming himself. Okay. Fine. I could do this. It was going to befine.
Nothing would explode. Nothing would bite my fingers off or peel the skin from my bones. Nothing would trigger another door to slide open and reveal Eidolon.
It's going to be completely, perfectly … fine.
I held my breath, reaching across the podium to grasp the sceptre.
But I didn't touch cold metal; my fingers brushed a cold card and then something fuzzy. A furrow creased my brow, but I closed my fingers around it. I couldseethe sceptre but it didn’t match up with what Ifelt.
I lifted the strange sceptre from the podium, drew it back towards me and—
"What?" I laughed, hysteria bubbling up my throat.
"An illusion," Taj snarled, so throaty and deep that my instincts went haywire.
"Eidolon was here before us," X gasped, his breathing turning choppy, strained. "This is a trap."
I stared at my hand, struggling to process what the fuck was going on. It wasn't a sceptre. It hadneverbeen a sceptre.
It was a striped cone of pink, fluffy sugar clouds.
A cone of candyfloss.
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"So he already has the sceptre," I said, numbness bleeding through my body. When it wore off, my rage would be strong enough to shake all of Hell, but right now I felt nothing.
I picked off a piece of candyfloss and ate it, barely tasting the sugar as it dissolved on my tongue.
"Av!"X shrieked, lunging to take the cone from me at the same time Taj spun me to face him. I held the candyfloss up, reaching onto my tiptoes so they couldn’t take it.
"Spit it out!" X barked.
I blinked. "What?"
"The candyfloss was left by Eidolon, you stupid woman." Taj’s eyes flashed, teeth bared. "He could have cursed it, for fuck's sake."
A high pitched sound of surprise escaped me when Taj’s soul slammed into mine, scouring, searching. A little rough, a little ruthless.
"It's just candyfloss," I huffed.
"How do you know?" X demanded, his blue stare wide with panic. "This was atrap,Aveline."
