Demonic Po*nstar System

Chapter 910: Mistake

”...It was a figure of speech, Mother.”

”I know,” she spoke with a poker face, yet her eyes carried a strong glint.

They walked on. Somewhere behind the main building, Luna’s voice carried over the construction noise, arguing with Calypso about the correct way to arrange the interview tables for tomorrow’s onslaught.

In under an hour, the application count had climbed past a million, so Alexandra had stopped refreshing it and started laminating signs instead.

Vespera was quiet for a dozen steps, which from her was a paragraph.

”Nyx, Aria, and Bastet... You sent them into rooms full of men who have spent thirty years eating young guilds alive.”

”I didn’t send them anywhere. They volunteered and I agreed.”

”Do you think letting those three go without help was a good idea?”

Kaiden smiled, and there was nothing in it he intended to explain. Mysterious, even.

”I do.”

His mother studied his profile for a long moment, the way she’d studied contract clauses that were about to disappoint someone, then faced forward again. If there was the beginning of a smirk on her lips, no one could prove it.

...

On the fortieth floor of the Corvant Group tower, Gerald Whitmore, Chief Brand Officer, was feeling good about the afternoon.

The conference room had been prepped within twenty minutes of Eclipse’s confirmation.

The pitch deck and the mock merchandise had existed for two days already, a full prototype lifestyle line with each Sinner’s name attached, built and polished while Corvant waited for exactly this call.

Legal had the contract draft printed and bound, all eighty-one pages of it, with the important parts distributed across the appendices where important parts belonged.

”Confirming again,” said Harris from Legal, ”the Regent is not attending?”

”Not attending.” Whitmore allowed himself the satisfaction he’d been suppressing since the confirmation email. ”We get the little girls.”

The relief around the table was subtle but unanimous. Nobody at Corvant had been eager to deal with the Shadow Monarch; she had a reputation in rooms like this one.

The girls, though. The girls were streamers. Twenty-somethings who’d gotten famous punching monsters on camera and fucking like rabbits afterward, and now they were playing at running a business.

Powerful? Terrifyingly. But power didn’t read contracts.

”They’re kids with a brand,” Whitmore told the table, snickering. ”Our job is to be their friendly guide into the corporate world. Warm, generous, protective.”

He tapped the bound contract. ”And by the time anyone with a law degree reads appendix C, the ink will be six months dry.”

Harris cleared his throat. ”One note. Slide nine’s tagline is ’A New Dawn in Lifestyle Branding.’ Given, ah. Recent events. The optics.”

”Fix it after. They won’t be looking at taglines.”

The intercom chimed. They were here.

They came in like weather systems.

The pink-haired one, Nyx, entered first, and Whitmore’s brain filed her instantly under manageable: friendly greeting, soft smile, curves that explained about forty percent of the Sinners’ subscriber statistics on their own.

Behind her came Aria Levander, and the room’s four executives all performed the same subtle recalibration, because screens did not survive contact with the reality of that face. Silver hair, the kind of beauty that made expensive rooms look cheap around it.

Then the third one padded in barefoot, gold anklets chiming against the marble, translucent veils shifting over tanned skin, cat ears rotating once across the room like instruments taking a reading. Whitmore’s welcome speech lost its footing for a second, because nobody had briefed him on how to receive a desert felinid queen dressed for a throne room.

”Ladies and gentlemen~” Nyx settled into the offered chair and folded her hands. ”Thank you for making time on short notice. Shall we?”

They began. Whitmore ran the deck himself, warm and paternal, hitting the notes that they aimed for: heritage, synergy, family.

The girls listened. Aria drifted along the merchandise displays by the window, examining a lunar-themed jacket with ’Moon Valkyrie’ stitched on the collar. The cat girl reclined in her chair like it had been carved for her and watched him with half-lidded golden eyes that made his sales instincts itch.

”...which is why we see this as more than sponsorship,” he was saying, twelve minutes in. ”Corvant wants to be Eclipse’s home in the lifestyle space. A true partnership.”

”Mm.” Nyx turned a page of the contract draft.

She’d been turning pages the entire pitch, steadily, and the steadiness of it had begun to bother him.

”Speaking of true partnership, Mister Whitmore, could you walk me through clause fourteen of appendix C? The one where Eclipse grants Corvant image rights to all founding members.” She looked up, sweet and unhurried. ”In perpetuity.”

The room temperature dropped by a degree.

Harris sat up. ”That’s, ah. Standard boilerplate for the category.”

”Is it~? Because your deal with Iron Halo runs image rights for the contract term plus two years. I checked on the drive over.” Nyx tilted her head, pink hair sliding off her shoulder.

Whitmore held his expression in place while recalculating everything. Fine. So the pink one read appendices. The deal still worked, the numbers were still generous, he just needed to give ground gracefully and reroute through slide twenty.

That was the moment Aria, standing by the window with the jacket still in her hands, sunlight catching her hair, asked, ”Would this line launch before or after the exclusivity window?”

And Whitmore, mid-pivot, allowed his eyes to go on a trip. Down the silver hair, down the line of her back, and settled, for two full seconds, on her butt.

But what the man failed to notice in time were the pair of deadly eyes glaring right at him thanks to the window glass holding her reflection.

Aria set the jacket down with immense care.

Then came the single sweetest smile the fortieth floor of Corvant tower had ever hosted, and with it, the announcement, ”This meeting is over.”

Whitmore blinked. ”I... beg your pardon?”

”You were looking at me in a way I absolutely detest, Mister Whitmore.” Her tone stayed light and pleasant, the way weather reports stay pleasant while announcing a hurricane. ”Perverts aren’t worthy of sponsoring my Kaiden.”

”Miss Levander, I assure you, I was...”

”I don’t care. Goodbye.”

Aria wasn’t even listening, turning on her heels and walking away.

Bastet rose from her chair without hurry, the anklets announcing it, and paused by the display stands on her way out. She lifted the sleeve of the prototype jacket between two fingers, rubbed the fabric once, and let it drop.

”Polyester...” she informed the room, a second and entirely unrelated conviction, and padded out after Aria.

Nyx alone took her time. She closed the contract draft, squared its corners against the table, and stood, and the look she gave the four frozen executives held nothing but goodwill.

”For what it’s worth, you referring to us as New Dawn in your slides had already killed it.” She tucked her laptop under one arm. ”But gawking at her like that...” She shook her head. ”Thank you for your time.”

The door clicked shut behind them.

Fourteen minutes. The entire meeting, elevator to elevator, had lasted fourteen minutes.