Demonic Po*nstar System

Chapter 739: Aaaaand Cut!

Bastet stood behind the camera.

Both of her ears were pinned forward in concentration. Her tongue was visible at the corner of her mouth, the very tip of it poking out between her lips in a display of focus so intense that it made the world revolve around only herself and her self-imposed duties as a one-woman camera crew.

Her golden felinid eyes were using the [Harem Vision] skill, broadcasting the awakened-platform feed that ran parallel to the internet stream. In her hands, she held the physical camera with the care and precision of a woman defusing a bomb.

She was doing both at once. The awakened broadcast through her eyes and the internet recording through human equipment, simultaneously, because she had volunteered for the job and declared to everyone in the room that she was ”more than capable of operating human devices, thank you very much.”

The tanned kitten was treating this occasion as her final test to prove that she had accustomed to human technology in full.

Behind her, Calypso was making frantic gestures.

The red-skinned demoness had positioned herself directly in her fellow monster girl’s blind spot, one hand held flat like a blade, chopping sideways in the universal sign for ”cut.” Her other hand was pointing at the camera’s recording light, which was on and functioning perfectly. Then she made a circular motion near her own temple, followed by an urgent thumbs-down at the tripod, which was level. Then she tapped the side of the camera twice and gave Bastet a solemn nod, as if she’d just identified a critical flaw that only she could see.

Everything Bastet was doing was correct. Everything Calypso was suggesting was wrong. The demon had zero understanding of human recording equipment and absolute confidence in her ability to troubleshoot it.

Bastet’s tail whipped backward without her head turning. The furry length caught Calypso across the knuckles, and the demon yanked her hand back, shaking her fingers.

The tail returned to its idle position. Bastet’s focus never broke.

Calypso tried again, this time miming something that might have been ”zoom out” or might have been ”the lens is dirty” or might have been an entirely original piece of interpretive dance. The tail struck again, harder, catching her across the wrist.

”Ow,” Calypso whispered. She glanced at her wrist, then at the tail, then at the camera, then back at the tail. She tried one more gesture.

The tail coiled, waited, and snapped across her fingers a third time.

Calypso gave up. She folded her arms, settled against the doorframe, and watched Bastet work with the resigned dignity of a woman who had been thoroughly defeated by a cat.

Against the far side of the room, three women stood shoulder to shoulder.

Aria had tears in her eyes. They hadn’t been pouring, but they were there, bright against her gray lashes. Her lips were pressed together in a thin line that trembled once before going still.

Nyx’s hand rested on Aria’s shoulder as she, too, looked to be overcome with emotions.

Luna stood on Nyx’s other side.

Her arms were crossed, the left one sitting slightly stiff where the healer’s work was still settling.

Vespera’s shadows had sealed the wound and kept the severed nerves fresh within seconds of the cut, and the healer she’d arranged had reattached the arm so cleanly that Luna had regained full motion within mere hours. It still ached, though.

Luna rubbed at the spot above her elbow without thinking about it, and her eyes were fixed on Kaiden with a look that, on anyone else, would have read as anger. On Luna it meant she was trying very hard not to tear up.

He didn’t have to hide who he was anymore.

All the girls were extremely happy for the man who changed their lives in such an inexplicably profound manner.

Near the door, Alexandra was not pretending.

The blonde maid stood with both palms pressed over her mouth, her shoulders heaving, tears streaming freely down her face. Her demonic maid outfit was rumpled at the collar where she’d been clutching it. Her blue eyes were swollen and red and she made absolutely no effort to compose herself because as far as she was concerned, composure had left the building approximately thirty minutes ago and was not returning.

She was crying the way Alexandra cried about everything: openly, messily, with her entire body.

On the stream, Kaiden was wrapping up.

”And on behalf of my mother, I’m grateful for all the kind messages and good wishes I’ve seen tonight.”

Alice leaned into frame from behind his shoulder, beaming, and waved at the camera with both hands.

”Bye everyone!! Thank you for always supporting my big brother and treating Mom kindly!!”

”Aaaand cut!”

Bastet lifted the camera from the tripod with both hands, checked the recording indicator, pressed a button, and set it down with a gentleness that suggested the device was a newborn and the tripod was its cradle.

”The broadcast has concluded, Master.” Her chin lifted, and the smug satisfaction on her face was radiant. ”Both feeds terminated cleanly. The human equipment performed adequately, I suppose.”

Her tail swayed behind her, slow and proud.

”I told you,” she said to no one in particular. ”It was hardly difficult for a woman of my means.”

Kaiden smiled at his amazing tanned felinid and exhaled.

It came out of him in a long, slow rush, the kind of breath a man releases when he’s been holding his entire body rigid for a long time and only just realized it. His shoulders dropped. His neck rolled. The mana he’d been keeping banked behind his ribs settled, and the room stopped humming with it.

He stood in the private wing of the Runewoven guild hall, the same suite he’d been sleeping in for the past four weeks since the competition started.

Vespera was still against his chest. Alice was still on his back, her legs dangling, her arms hooked around his neck.

Aria’s tears fell. Two of them, silent, tracing down her cheeks, and she wiped them with the back of her hand before anyone could comment.

Nyx squeezed her shoulder once.

Luna sniffed, hard and aggressive, the kind of sniff that dared anyone to interpret it as emotion. ”It’s really dusty in here,” she muttered.

Alice’s head popped up from behind Kaiden’s shoulder. Her eyes were bright. Incandescent with a joy so fierce it made the air around her shimmer.

She rubbed her nose against his hair one final time, then her gaze locked onto Alexandra.

”Lexi!”

Alice launched off Kaiden’s back like a missile.

She cleared the distance between the stool and the door in three strides and hit Alexandra at full speed, arms wrapping around the maid’s midsection. Alice was thin and compact, only coming up to Alexandra’s chin.

Alexandra was everything else: full-figured, soft, the kind of voluptuous that her demonic maid uniform framed with ruthless precision. The contrast when Alice slammed into her was immediate, the smaller girl disappearing into curves that the maid outfit’s corset pushed into prominence, her face pressing into the generous swell of Alexandra’s chest.

Alexandra caught her. Her arms closed around Alice’s shoulders and she pulled her in tight, one palm on the back of Alice’s head, pressing the girl against her.

”I’m so happy for you,” Alexandra managed between sobs. Her voice was wrecked. ”I’m so, so happy.”

”We did it, Lexi!” Alice was bouncing, the maid’s body shifting with each impact. ”Big brother told the whole world!!”

”I know.” Alexandra was laughing and crying simultaneously, which on her face resembled a woman experiencing a catastrophic system error. ”I watched the whole thing.”

Alice pulled back. Her face was flushed and her hair was a mess and the look in her eyes was the look of a girl who had just received the only gift she’d ever wanted.

”This calls for a celebration!” she declared. ”The biggest one! The most important celebration in the history of celebrations! We need waffles, cakes, cookies, and those little pastry things you taught me how to make! We need a lot of them because there are a lot of people here and big brother eats like a bear when he’s happy!”

”The puffs?” Alexandra blinked through her tears.

”The puffs!!!”

Alice grabbed Alexandra by the wrist and dragged her toward the hallway that led to the kitchen. Alexandra stumbled after her, still crying, wiping her face with her free palm while the other was locked in Alice’s grip. The two of them disappeared around the corner in a clatter of footsteps and enthusiastic shouting that faded into the sound of cabinet doors opening.

Kaiden watched them go.

He was in the middle of the room as he released Vespera, standing alone for the first time in a while, and turned to the women who had been standing behind the cameras all night.