Elara, meanwhile, blinked. One after the other.
The timid girl had remained quiet throughout the exchange, pretending to focus on the floor, but her eyes crept up toward Kaiden with a look of badly disguised wonder. Her gaze lingered on his hand stroking Luna's hair, then dropped to his leg, caught between Aria's, before settling on his face.
And for the first time since they'd met, she looked at him not as an awakened, nor as some controversial streamer… but as a man in control. Her face turned a deeper shade of red, and she quickly looked away again.
"So…" Tessa spoke up all of a sudden. She had a downcast look. "I would like to sincerely apologize for the behavior of my guild members."
Silence descended on the interior of the minivan, save for Bastet's incessant purring. The members of Valhalla's Sinners exchanged glances with each other.
"The way your junior subordinates behaved is straight-up unacceptable, Miss Tessa," Aria declared.
