Demonic Po*nstar System Chapter 744: Vespera’s Decision

Alice's eyes wandered over to Bastet, still lounging sprawled on Kaiden’s lap, her head nestled on his left thigh with hands gripping his knee in a possessive hold. The felinid had observed the whole exchange without raising her head, purring steadily, and displayed no desire to shift anytime soon.

"Yes, big brother," Alice responded with an utterly flat expression. "For all of you."

She baked fourteen cookies in total. Her intention was for him to consume thirteen.

"Let me feed you!"

Alice shifted to settle onto his lap.

Yet a problem blocked that plan. The position proved impossible to claim.

"Move, cat. You’re in the way."

Bastet's nose nuzzled deeper into his left thigh as a deep, rumbling purr resonated through the cushion—clear enough for Alice to catch and pointed enough to broadcast supreme comfort with no interest in altering her spot.

Alice glared down at the felinid.

Bastet's golden eye eased open. Just one. The second remained shut, as though the intruder merited only half attention.

Alice hissed.

Bastet's ear pinned flat. Lips drew back to reveal teeth, retaliating with a low, throaty hiss—the authentic version from someone born to it.

Alice hissed louder.

Bastet matched volume for volume.

"Girls," Kaiden sighed wearily.

Two heads snapped toward him. One teenaged. One feline. Both projecting total certainty of their innocence.

Kaiden tapped his right side with one hand while leaving his left embedded in Bastet’s hair.

"There’s room for both of you."

Alice dropped into place at once, behaving as if the spot awaited her eternally and Bastet amounted to a mere paperwork mistake. Bastet responded with poise, sealing her eye shut once more.

Alice lifted a cookie.

"Say ’ahh,’ big brother."

"I can feed myself, Alice."

"You’ve had a very long day and I’m taking care of you. Open."

His mouth parted. With surgeon-like precision, she slotted it between his teeth and scrutinized his face during the chew.

"How is it?"

"It’s good."

"How good?"

"Very good."

She radiated joy. Pure sunlight.

Across the table, Nyx pinned Alexandra firmly in her lap as Luna and Aria viewed the pandemonium with tolerant warmth from women long accustomed to this group's lack of tranquility.

Calypso, at the couch's remote end, snatched a cream puff. She chomped, savored, and her brows arched high.

"This is tasty!"

"Thank you, Cali!" Alexandra yelled from Nyx’s lap, wriggling still. "Now if you’d help me get ’unstuck’..."

"I’m good."

"..."

"Why don’t you show mother what you’ve learned?" Kaiden asked Alice.

The radiant smile wavered. Raw hope surged in— the look of a girl raised in an icy home devoid of baking, presenting her inaugural handmade treat to the silent woman who nurtured her.

Alice snatched a cookie. She pivoted to Vespera, her recent boldness from the turf skirmish dissolving entirely. Arms extended rigidly, eyes enormous, she proffered it with both hands.

"I learned to cook, Mother. Alexandra taught me." Her voice softened. "Would you... like to try one?"

Vespera inspected the cookie. Her eyes rose to Alice, analyzing her daughter's visage with typical razor focus. Then they flicked beyond to Alexandra, secured in Nyx’s lap, holding steady briefly.

Her crimson eyes fixed back on Alice.

"You made these on your own."

Not a query, but a ruling. The Shadow Monarch had weighed the cookie, creator, and mentor, arriving at her judgment.

Alice beamed. "Yes!"

Vespera accepted the cookie from her daughter's grasp and took a precise bite. Neat, controlled, refined. She masticated stone-faced, each quiet tick ratcheting Alice's heart visibly toward her throat.

She consumed it fully. Entirely.

Alice quivered in place.

"How was it?"

Vespera regarded her daughter.

"Can I have a second one?"

Alice's features flashed through shock, doubt, tear-edged bliss, and a blaze bright enough to flood the room. Her mother—who commanded, approved, dismissed, never pleaded—had requested another cookie.

"Yes!" Alice’s voice broke. She seized two, then three, halting before excess. Arranging them on a tray, she passed it to Vespera.

The Shadow Monarch eyed the pile, then the girl behind it. No shift in her face, yet she locked eyes with her daughter a heartbeat longer than usual.

"I’m proud of you, Alice. Records indicate that you’re the first woman in the Ashborn lineage who learned how to cook properly, at least in the past two centuries."

For a fleeting half-second, Alice's lower lip quivered before she whirled toward Kaiden, pressing her face into his shoulder, staying utterly silent and concealing every emotion, since uttering a word now would unleash her tears—and she was an elegant young lady who wouldn't break down before such a crowd.

Kaiden's hand gently settled on the back of her head.

Nobody uttered a single remark about the moment.

That gentle warmth hung in the air a little longer until Kaiden's face underwent a subtle change.

"Mother. Did you really have to give up the Ashborn manor as well?"

Vespera's thumb paused midway over the cookie clutched in her grasp.

"That house is where I failed you." Her voice carried no emotion. "It’s where I failed all my children. It’s where my parents failed me, and their parents failed them. Generations of Ashborns learning to be cold in cold rooms."

Silence stretched out briefly.

"I do not wish to live there anymore."

Kaiden held back from probing deeper. He permitted the quiet to endure, then posed a straightforward question: "I understand... So what comes next?"

Vespera met his gaze. Then her fingers snapped sharply.

The noise pierced the air, booming with unnatural volume for any human snap. It ripped across the lounge like the blast of a gun.

"Come in."

The door swung open. Figures poured in—men and women dressed in sharp suits, battle-ready gear, and elaborate awakened formalwear. Shock rippled over the girls' expressions as familiarity struck: names whispered in stories, faces from news feeds, icons whose legends spanned years. Combatants. Leaders. Legal experts. They arrayed themselves along the opposite wall, motionless and attentive.

Vespera rose gracefully. She strode across the distance from the couch to the waiting ranks, pivoted sharply, and confronted her son.

Her arms spread wide.

"I present to those gathered here my child, the only recognized living male member of the Ashborn bloodline. On this day, I officially declare him the rightful heir of everything my ancestral heritage represents."

Her eyes locked onto his.

"My son. You are a blessing I do not deserve, and a man who will become greater than I ever could. As leader of the Ashborn, it is my duty to make this decision."

"Everything I own, everyone who follows me, every Chronos to my name. I wish them to be yours, should you choose to accept it."