Demonic Po*nstar System

Chapter 936: Duel in the Basement

The home quieted in layers.

Bastet was the first to go, having located the deepest cushion in their bedroom and begun her nightly descent into it roughly an hour before anyone else admitted to being tired. Calypso followed, yawning wide enough to show every tooth, one arm around Bastet’s waist to keep the sleepwalking felinid from melting into the nearest soft surface along the way.

Nyx kissed the corner of Kaiden’s mouth on her way past, trailing her fingers across the back of his neck. ”I’m stealing your pillow tonight,” she informed him, and was gone before he could object.

Alexandra cleared the last plate, dried the last glass, hung the last towel with military precision, and paused in the kitchen doorway to bow goodnight toward the table. ”Sleep well, everyone.”

Alice had to be physically extracted from the chair beside Kaiden’s, clipboard still in hand, protesting that she hadn’t finished briefing him on tomorrow’s waffle standards. Vespera collected her with practiced shadow tendrils while Alexandra provided a soothing murmur about continuing the briefing at breakfast, and the three of them vanished down the hall, Alice screeching nonsense.

Aria lingered a moment longer, pressed against Kaiden’s arm, face buried in the hoodie she still hadn’t taken off. She breathed him in, or the print of him, which she seemed to consider equivalent, and whispered something against the fabric that might have been ”goodnight” and might have been ”mine.” Then she drifted toward the bedrooms, unhurried, already certain she’d be awake when he arrived.

That left Luna.

She was sitting at the far end of the table, one leg drawn up on the bench, rolling an empty glass between her fingers. She was watching the doorway everyone had left through with an expression Kaiden couldn’t quite read, which was unusual, because Luna’s face was usually a bulletin board.

”Everything okay, Luna?” he asked.

”Yes.” The glass rolled. ”Just wired. Shit-talking and then slapping people all day long has me worked up.”

He started stacking the remaining dishes. ”I see. We can stay and just talk, how about-”

”Hey.” Luna set the glass down. ”Spar with me.”

Kaiden looked at her.

”I know we just ate, it’s late, others are sleeping, whatever. I need to move. I’m still buzzing. If I go to bed like this I’ll never fall asleep.” She hopped off the bench, rolling her shoulders. ”Come on. Basement. Ten minutes.”

The training room was two levels below the common hall, reinforced for exactly the kind of output awakened combatants produced when they stopped holding back.

Luna was already bouncing on the balls of her feet when he arrived, hair tied back, barefoot on the matting. She’d changed into a tank top and shorts that showed more of her legs than her combat gear ever did, and she was grinning, but the grin had a tension underneath it that he didn’t associate with sparring.

”Rules?” he asked, stretching.

”No mana. No stances. Just hands.”

”You want to fistfight me.”

”Speed beats everything,” Luna informed him smugly, bouncing on her toes. ”Doesn’t matter how big you are. Doesn’t matter how strong. If you can’t touch me, you can’t pin me.”

”I see.” Kaiden rolled his shoulders and stepped onto the mat. ”And if I do pin you?”

”You won’t.” The grin was all teeth.

A grin of his own responded, embracing the challenge. ”Alright.”

Luna came in first. She feinted left, darted right, and tagged his ribs with her palm before he’d finished turning, dancing back with her tongue out.

”One-nothing.”

He lunged. She wasn’t there. His fingers closed on the air where her shoulder had been and she was already behind him, slapping the back of his head on the way past.

”Two-nothing.”

The third exchange earned her a close miss. She overextended on a spinning tag and his hand brushed her wrist, close enough that her grin tightened for a fraction of a second before she ripped free and reset.

”That was close...” She cracked her knuckles, grinning madly.

The fourth exchange she won clean. Ducked his grab, spun behind him, hooked her ankle around his, and when he staggered she tagged both shoulders from behind with her palms, one-two, before vaulting backward off his back.

”Four-nothing! Give up yet?”

”No.”

”You sure? This is getting sad.”

It wasn’t getting sad. Kaiden had stopped chasing two exchanges ago. He was watching her feet. Luna’s speed was real, world-class, inhuman, but speed was a straight line, and straight lines needed room. Every exchange she won pushed her closer to the wall behind her, and she hadn’t noticed, because she was too busy keeping score and talking smack.

The fifth exchange was the trap.

He lunged forward, slow, obvious, and she darted left into the corner she’d backed herself into. Her foot hit the wall and for one instant her escape route was a right angle instead of open space.

”Oh shit-”

He pivoted, caught her around the waist, and took her to the mat.

”What a rookie blunder,” Kaiden mused. ”Perhaps you shouldn’t be interviewing candidates.”

”You motherfu-”

Luna hit the padding with a grunt, his weight landing across her hips, and she thrashed, genuinely thrashed, twisting her body and hooking her legs around his to try to roll him. She was strong for her build and she knew how to scramble, and for three seconds it was a real fight, elbows and knees and cursing.

”Get OFF!”

He caught both her wrists, one then the other, pinned them above her head with one hand, and settled his weight. She bucked against him, arching her back, trying to bridge out from under his hips, and he held her down and waited.

”Nngh-!” She twisted again, hard. He didn’t move. She twisted the other way. He still didn’t move.

”So.” He looked down at her, amused. ”Speed beats everything?”

”Fuck you. You were shamelessly strategizing while I was occupied. That’s cheating.”

”Big mouth on a sore loser, that’s a deadly combo~”

”Wipe that smug smirk off your face!”

She squirmed under him again, straining against his grip. Her breathing was ragged, her cheeks flushed, her tank top ridden up to her ribs from the thrashing. She wasn’t getting anywhere. He sat on top of her waist and watched, one eyebrow raised, while the fastest woman in the gang struggled against him with less and less conviction.

”Let go of my hands and try that again,” she hissed.

”No.”

”Coward.”

”Winner.”

She scoffed, hard, and stopped struggling. Her chest heaved beneath him. Her wrists flexed once in his grip, testing, then went still.

”Fine.” She blew a strand of purple hair out of her face. ”You win. Barely. By cheating. What’s your pri-”

His free hand slid down her stomach, past the waistband of her shorts, and into her panties.

Luna’s entire body locked.

His fingers found her, and what they found was soaking, completely and unmistakably, the kind of wet that meant she’d been like this since before the pin, maybe since before the spar, maybe since she’d sat at the dinner table rolling that glass between her fingers and pretending she was wired from slapping people.

”Well, well.” His grin widened. ”What do we have here? My fingers seem to have found a very welcoming little garden.”

Luna’s face went from flushed to crimson. ”Did you just... did you just call my pussy a garden? That is the most corny, bottom-of-the-barrel-”

He curled his fingers.

”Hk!”

Her insult died in her throat. Her hips jerked against his hand entirely against her will, and her teeth clamped down on her lower lip so hard it went white.

”You were saying?” He curled again, slow, firm, finding the spot he knew made her lose her words.

”I- you- that’s not- hngh-” She was trying to rebuild the sentence and he wasn’t letting her. Every time her mouth opened to form a comeback his fingers moved and the comeback became a sound.

”You were wet the whole time.” He leaned down, mouth beside her ear. ”The spar, the trash talk, the ’speed beats everything.’ You were dripping through all of it, weren’t you~?”

”I was NOT!”

He pressed deeper and her denial turned into a gasp she had to muffle by biting her own arm.

His arm flexed against her wrists as she thrashed, veins standing taut from the effort of holding her down, and her mind went blank.

Kaiden grinned. ”Serious Series: Obliterating Fingers.”