Demonic Pornstar System novel Chapter 955

Chapter 955: A New Message

It stood alone in the middle of the gravel with its lamps still in it, canvas walls breathing in the wind off the hills, and the family found their way back to it one by one without anyone calling a meeting. Doug was inside, finishing one last filing at the old table, and he made them all wait for it, because records had continuity or they had nothing.

For all intents and purposes, Eclipse was born in there.

The first roster had been signed on that table, Scarlet had been processed at it while four hundred strangers howled outside, and the routing-sheet night had burned through every one of those lamps until ten the next morning.

"Viking funeral," Luna proposed. "We torch it and push it into the crater. Warriors get sent off, that’s the rule."

Calypso hefted the axe she had absolutely not needed to bring. "One clean swing. It would feel no pain."

"No," Vespera said.

One word, and the funeral was cancelled.

"We’re not burning our first headquarters." Kaiden ran a hand down the line nearest him, then nodded at the crew waiting by the stakes. "I say we pack it and crate it. Knowing ourselves, we’ll need it again by winter."

The tent came down in minutes. It had taken less time to raise than any wall on the property, and it had carried more weight than all of them.

It went into storage folded and labeled, in a crate whose specifications Doug wrote personally.

The lot looked wrong without it. Everyone privately agreed, nobody said so, and Alexandra stayed at the mess hall window a moment longer than she needed to, watching the pale rectangle it left behind in the gravel.

...

That night Kaiden sat in his office with the lights half down and a coffee going cold on the giant desk, and let himself enjoy it, because he had earned that much.

Below the window the compound glowed. Dorm windows in rows, the perimeter lights, the mess hall still lit where the kitchen staff were mapping their new kingdom. No canvas anywhere on the lot. A guild with a roof over all of it.

The message backlog scrolled past on the monitor, the usual parade of sponsors, journalists, and government departments, and somewhere in the middle of it he stopped on a channel he had not opened in far too long.

Emily, Leia, and Sarah.

Three names that had been running his chat since the chat was small enough to run.

They had moderated millions of screaming fangirls and seething haters for the love of the game, taken shifts nobody thanked them for, and when the Maximilian machine came for the Sinners in the worst week of their existence, those three had stood at the front of the community and held it together.

He still owed them a meal.

The promise had survived a competition, a cosmic horror, and a guild filing by now, and it was getting embarrassing.

The compound had a roof now. The kitchen worked.

He typed the invitation himself, all three names on it, and sent it while the coffee was still technically warm.

Ten minutes later Ms. Rook added three nondisclosure agreements to the thread without being asked.

One minute after that, Alexandra informed him that she would be cooking, and it had not been phrased as a question.

Kaiden put his feet up on the desk, looked over at the folding chair holding down its corner, and grinned at nothing in particular.

...

In a basement on the other side of the screen, a notification chimed.

Leia read the message once, put both hands over her mouth, and read it again through her fingers. The scream that followed went up through the floorboards, through her brother’s bedroom, and out into a quiet street that had done nothing to deserve it.

"SHUT UP, LEIA!" The banging on the ceiling was practiced. "SOME OF US NEED SLEEP TO FUNCTION AS HUMAN BEINGS!"

"I’M HAVING DINNER WITH KAIDEN GREY!!"

Silence.

Then, muffled, and considerably less hostile: "...Can you get me an autograph?"

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