Kaiden walked back toward the couches with a twin on each arm and the distinct feeling that he was being escorted rather than doing the escorting.
The lounge hadn’t changed, but the energy had. Vespera and her professionals occupied the far corner in full operational mode, Alice orbiting her mother with a tray of cookies that was slowly being depleted. The couches still faced each other across the low table, and his girls were exactly where he’d left them.
Bastet saw him first.
Her golden eyes tracked him from the mont he rounded the table, and the instant he lowered himself onto the couch, she was in his lap. Head on his left thigh, both hands curled around his knee, body going horizontal with a speed that suggested she’d been counting the seconds since he’d stood up.
"Master." Her voice was sweet. "Your hand, back to its rightful place. Please."
He sighed and obliged. His fingers slid into her hair and found the spot behind her ear, and the purring started before his second stroke.
Kira and Rika released his arms before he sat. In the half-second gap that followed, Aria materialized on his right side.
She’d been waiting for this. Her hip pressed against his. Her hand found his arm and stayed there. The spot she’d taken was where Vespera had been sitting, and the ssage was clear to anyone with eyes: this seat was now permanently occupied.
On Kaiden’s far left, Calypso hadn’t moved. She leaned back with her arms folded and her grin already in place, watching the new arrivals with open amusent.
Kira glanced at the armchair beside the couch and settled into it, crossing her legs. Rika perched on the armrest beside her sister, one ankle hooked behind the other, tablet balanced on her knee.
From there, both twins had a clear view of the full arrangent. Kaiden in the center of the far couch with a felinid draped across his lap, a silver-haired beauty welded to his right, and a red-skinned demoness lounging on his far left. Across the table, Luna sat with legs pulled up, hugging them to her chest and Nyx’s arm was draped along the backrest. Alexandra was still pinned in Nyx’s lap, no longer fighting it, the prey having gone tired, exhausting her stamina.
Kira looked at Rika. Rika looked at Kira.
Kira’s grin was imdiate. "Okay. So this really isn’t an act for the streams."
Rika giggled. "We had a whole debate about it. Whether the dynamic was real or just really good acting for the cara."
Aria’s grip on Kaiden’s arm tightened. Her silver eyes moved to the twins, assessed them, and returned to Kaiden’s face with a look that said the threat level had been calculated and the results were pending.
"Sothing is burning in the kitchen!"
Alexandra’s voice cut through the warmth with an urgency that fooled no one. She was already pushing against Nyx’s forearms, both palms flat, legs bracing against the couch.
Nyx tilted her head. She took a long, slow, theatrical inhale through her nose.
"Hmm~" Her smile widened. "I don’t sll anything, Alex."
"Well I do!"
"Fine, fine." Nyx’s arms opened. Alexandra launched off her lap, smoothed down her skirt, and was halfway to the kitchen before anyone could comnt.
Nyx watched her go with a soft laugh.
Aria’s free hand had found her phone. Her thumb moved across the screen, quick and focused, and her silver eyes were scanning while the rest of the room was still settling.
"Kira and Rika Vaughn," she read aloud. "Co-heads of Pinnacle Productions. Youngest senior executives in Pinnacle’s history, appointed at twenty-eight." Her eyes lifted from the screen. "Currently listed as the driving force behind seventy percent of New Dawn’s top-performing content campaigns."
She looked at the twins with narrowed eyes. Being a driving force behind New Dawn did not set the twins in good light in the eyes of those who were just attempt-assassinated by New Dawn leadership.
"You didn’t ntion any of that," Kaiden spoke up. "When you introduced yourselves earlier, you said Pinnacle’s leadership walked out, and then you walked out when Mother called."
"We did say that," Rika confird.
"The leadership that walked out..."
"Was us!" Kira bead. "We are the leadership. Were the leadership. Well, part of the leadership. Vespera called, we quit, the whole thing kind of fell apart after that. Oops."
Luna scoffed. "So what? Pinnacle is New Dawn, and New Dawn are losers."
"Gremlin bestie..." Nyx’s voice was patient. "I know you hate them, rightfully so. But they didn’t beco the most influential guild in the country just by having strong fighters. Soone was running the dia side, and apparently we’re talking to those ’soones’."
Luna’s mouth opened, closed, and settled into a grudging frown.
Kira leaned forward in the armchair, and her posture shifted from casual to attentive.
"So," she began, looking at Kaiden. "We’ve been-"
"Hold on." Luna’s voice was flat. "I know you’re dia genius, padawans who beca jedi masters at a very young age and all that, and now you want to work for us. But before you start selling, I want to say sothing."
Kira leaned back. Open, waiting.
"We don’t really need help." Luna shrugged. "We’re doing pretty well. Our numbers are growing, the audience likes what we do, and we’ve been handling everything ourselves since day one. I’m not trying to be rude about it, but that’s the reality."
"Luna’s right," Nyx spoke up. "Our whole thing is that we’re not polished. The viewers tune in because it feels real, because we’re just us. If we bring in a professional production team and suddenly everything looks like a studio broadcast, we lose the one thing that separates us from every other content operation."
From Kaiden’s lap, Bastet’s eyes opened. One ear rotated toward the twins.
"Furthermore," Bastet added with a proud tone, "I have invested considerable effort in mastering the recording equipnt. Both the human caras and our unique thod..." Her chin lifted against Kaiden’s thigh. "I have beco quite proficient, and I see no reason to alter an arrangent that is functioning beautifully."
Her tail swayed, slow and satisfied.
Kira and Rika exchanged a glance. Quick, practiced, the kind of silent conversation that twins have been having since birth.
"That’s completely fair." Kira nodded at Luna. "Honestly, if you don’t want us, that’s the end of it. We’re not here to force anything, and Miss Vespera has been very straightforward as well: you accept or you do not. If you don’t, we’ll just take the money we made and start our own studio, being the owners this ti."
Rika looked at Nyx. "And we fully agree! Your content is not just ’working’ but it’s breaking the world of content creation! You’re pioneers, people us ’pros’ should look up to as the new superstars of the industry."
"But if you’d give us just two minutes to make our case," Kira pleaded with hands clapped together before herself, praying playfully, "we’d really appreciate the chance."
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