Demonic Po*nstar System

Chapter 911: Misguided

The second tower of the afternoon stood eight blocks from Corvant’s, and Nyx spent the short drive re-reading the Hale Industries file with mounting suspicion.

”On paper, this one is the best of the offers,” she reported from the middle seat. ”Energy contracts, awakened equipment manufacturing, zero history with New Dawn. And their opening terms are fair.”

”Hmm...” Aria only made a low sound like that, prompting Nyx to smirk.

”Well said, yandere bestie.” Nyx closed her laptop. ”We’ll have to wait and see.”

Bastet watched the city slide past the tinted glass, tail draped across her lap. ”We can’t fail Master by making the wrong choice.”

”Naturally,” the other two agreed.

...

On the executive floor of Hale Industries, Preston Hale straightened his cufflinks and allowed himself a moment of gratitude toward the Shadow Monarch.

The Regent of Eclipse, the woman his father’s generation discussed in the careful tone reserved for natural disasters, was not attending. She was sending the young ones alone.

His father had read that confirmation email and made a decision Preston considered the first genuinely modern thing the old man had done in his life.

”If Lady Vespera trusts her new generation with the talking,” Edwin Hale had said, sliding the deck across the desk, ”then Hale will answer in kind. You’ll run the pitch. Show them we speak their language. And Preston... don’t make me regret it.”

He wouldn’t. Preston knew he was ready to take over the business. It was time to prove it.

He’d also done his homework. He and his team had crammed in hours of Valhalla’s Sinners stream archives on short notice.

The intercom chimed, and his father rose to greet the guests personally.

They were more in person, all three of them, in ways the streams had flattened. The pink-haired one filled a doorway like a dream come true. The felinid queen padded in barefoot, gold chiming at her ankles. And Aria Levander walked past him trailing the kind of beauty that made Preston briefly forget his own opening line.

He recovered. He was a professional.

And for fifteen minutes, it went perfectly. Licensing structures, equipment lines, revenue splits.

When Nyx asked whether Eclipse’s smiths would receive schematics access or finished products only, he had the answer ready, and he watched her nod slowly and make a note.

At the edge of his vision, his father had begun permitting himself a small nod at the end of Preston’s answers, which from Edwin Hale amounted to a standing ovation.

An assistant circled the table refilling coffee. Aria thanked her softly, then returned her attention to him, silver hair catching the window light, listening with a small, polite smile.

Preston filed that smile away.

She kept looking at him like that. Attentive, warm, patient. The cat girl watched him too, golden eyes half-lidded, unreadable in a way he chose to read favorably.

His father was wrapping up the numbers when Preston decided the moment had arrived.

”Before we close,” he said, buttoning his suit jacket as he stood, ”may I say something a little more personal?”

His father’s pen stopped moving.

”Miss Levander. Miss Cosmos. Lady Bastet.” Preston nodded to each of the three women in turn, warm and confident, like he was raising a toast. ”I’ve watched your streams. You are remarkable performers. I mean that as the highest compliment.”

”Preston,” Edwin said quietly.

”Father, please. We’re all adults here.” He put on the practiced warmth that had closed every room he’d ever wanted closed, and lowered his voice into man-to-woman honesty.

”There are no cameras in this room, ladies. No chat, no donations, no brand to maintain. You can breathe. And I want you to know that some of us see how much work that brand must be. Sharing one man and selling the world a smile about it? Exhausting. Anyone with eyes can see it.”

Nyx’s page-turning stopped.

Bastet’s ears flattened, slow as a drawbridge closing, while Aria only watched him, her polite smile unchanged.

Preston took the silence as permission to bring it home.

”Kaiden Grey is extraordinary. Nobody denies it, least of all me.” He spread his hands generously.

”I may not be an Anomaly-tier awakened, but everything else a woman could want from a man? Hard-working, young, successful. Men like me are everything else. Wouldn’t you agree?”

The conference room went very quiet.

Edwin Hale was staring at his son, gray-faced, watching his estate burn down in real time with the insurance papers unsigned.

Then, from the other end of the table, came a giggle.

It was small at first, pressed behind Aria’s hand, and Preston’s instincts composed a gracious response to what was obviously delighted flattery.

”Yeah?” He smiled.

”This is the part where you say ’gotcha,’ isn’t it?” Aria asked, blinking.

”???” Preston was confused.

”Ah. I see.” The giggles stopped. Every single trace of humor left the woman’s delicate features.

Preston looked to Nyx and Bastet for rescue, and found them already on their feet, unhurried, like they’d seen the ending of this film before it started.

”Take your time, Aria,” Nyx said, sliding her laptop under one arm. ”We’ll wait in the lobby.”

”Another one bites the dust... These people really don’t know what they’re doing,” Bastet sighed, tail swishing with disapproval. ”Amateurs...”

”Mister Hale.” Nyx addressed his father alone. ”For what it’s worth, your terms were good, and the first fifteen minutes of that pitch were genuinely excellent. Congratulations on your heir.”

The door clicked shut behind the two of them, and Preston Hale was alone with his father, a frozen assistant, and the most beautiful woman in the world. She was smiling at him with wet lashes and boundless warmth.

”You’re right,” Aria said.

He blinked. ”I... beg your pardon?”

”You’re right, Mister Hale. I thought about it very carefully just now.” Her voice stayed sweet enough to pour over pancakes. ”’You are better than my Kai at everything else besides his awakened tier.’ Except.”

She lifted both hands and began counting on her fingers.

”His face. The way his eyes settle on a woman like she’s the only one alive, even with a room full of us. His voice, and I mean the ordinary one he uses to ask who wants breakfast, before we even discuss the other one. His hands. His shoulders. The way a room rearranges itself around him without him asking it to.”

”Miss Levander...”

”His kindness to people who can do nothing for him.” With the same sweetness, she kept folding fingers down one by one. ”The way he remembers a thing you mumbled at two in the morning three weeks later. The fact that when the sky opened above this city, dread itself peered down, the whole world tried to hide but he gazed back.”

Edwin Hale sat motionless, fingers laced, absorbing the destruction of his succession plan with the discipline of his generation.

”The fact that he agreed to let us come here alone, with his guild’s entire future on the table, and hasn’t called once to check on us. That one is my favorite today.”

She soon reached the end of her second hand and paused, out of fingers with more still to give. ”I could keep going until dinner, Mister Hale, but you did not stand up to hear about him. You stood up to be looked at. So let us look at you.”

”This is...” Preston’s collar had grown very tight. ”This is hardly appropriate...”

”You told three women in a business meeting that their love is a performance and offered yourself as the exit,” Aria said, tilting her head with unspoiled friendliness. ”We’re well past appropriate. Now hold still. I assessed bodies for a living before I met the love of my life, so consider everything that follows a professional opinion.”

She circled him, slow and unhurried.

”Shoulders built in front of a mirror, for photographs. A jacket cut generously enough to promise things that aren’t under it. Hands softer than most women’s.” She completed the circle and folded another finger, thoughtful. ”And the voice. It drops half an octave whenever you address one of us. You did it eight times today. It’s meant to sound like his. It does not.”

Then Aria blinked, and her chattiness was gone, evaporated as if it never even existed. ”Actually, I’m done wasting time on you.”

She turned to the assistant. ”Thanks for the coffee. It was delicious.”

...

In the lobby, Aria rejoined the other two with a serene expression and light steps.

Bastet studied her, lips moving upward. ”Feeling better?”

”Telling losers like that how much better my Kai is...” Aria smiled softly, like a serene queen, ”is shaping up to be my favorite hobby.”

Then she walked toward the exit. ”Alas, today is about business.”

Both Nyx and Bastet grinned as they fell into step behind the girl who looked ready to end all their meetings at a moment’s notice.

...