Page 37 of Vayn

“Well, you can share my last name. See you later, Charm Porter.”

His grin was the biggest I’d ever seen it. “I like that name. It’s mine now. You can’t take it back.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it.”

He placed his hands on my cheeks and whispered, “Charm Porter will see you later, Destiny Porter.”

I laughed and said, “Okay, Charm Porter.”

He stared at me for a long time, and I found myself unable to look away from him. An unexplainable bond was developing between us, and I was too far gone to try to stop it. He disappeared slowly this time.

He turned into his cloud state, then faded away little by little. His wisps against my cheeks were the last to disappear. It was as if he hadn’t wanted to leave me at all. Smiling, I touched my hand to my cheek.

Did I just give Vayn’s shadow my last name? Damn, Destiny girl, you getting bold. I laughed out loud. Just call me big, beautiful, and bold because I was okay with it.

Chapter Eleven

Destiny

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3 months later...

Things had changed between me, my guardian, and his shadows.

Subtle changes, yet they felt important. I could just be overthinking things. I was an overthinker, after all. However, I didn’t believe that was the case. The changes in my shadows were more noticeable. They treated me like I belonged to them, like I was their girlfriend or something.

I wasn’t complaining. I loved it. Of course, they hadn’t said I was their girlfriend or anything, but the way they talked to me, the way they touched me here and there, and the attention they paid to me had me feeling like I’d ventured into the girlfriend zone.

And I was okay with being in that zone. The change in Vayn wasn’t a girlfriend zone change. However, it was something. Something I couldn’t quite describe. When I used to catch him staring at me from the shadows, he always stared at me in disgust. Now, he stared at me in confusion.

Maybe he was no longer disgusted by me now that he knew I wasn’t a complete dud. However, that didn’t explain the look of confusion. And sometimes, on rare occasions, I saw interest flaring in his dark gaze. That particular look always made my heart race, gums tingle, and breath catch.

My guardian was confusing the hell out of me with his changes. I couldn’t be angry with him, though. At least he was now taking his guardian duties seriously. Perhaps too seriously. If I wasn’t in class or the training center, I was in his bedroom, practicing my dream traveling or in his gym, learning fighting techniques.

After my classes, we’d started meeting up at his place. I’d even stayed over a couple of nights – not doing anything useful, like fucking. It was always more training or lecturing. Whenever he learned something new about my ability, I had to listen to him talk about it for hours.

On numerous occasions, I’d fallen asleep on his recliner, lulled to sleep by his deep voice. When that happened, instead of returning me to my apartment, he’d placed me in his bed while he’d slept on the recliner. Each time that happened, I’d awakened to his shadows asleep on the bed with me.

There was nothing more arousingly frustrating than waking up surrounded by sexy-as-sin males while knowing they were off limits. However, not sleeping alone had its perks. I always awoke to breakfast in bed. And since I’d begun training at his gym, I kept a few workout outfits there, which meant I had space in his closet.

I rarely had a moment of free time to myself lately. However, I was okay with that. Being with him and his shadows didn’t feel like training. It felt like... I shook my head to clear it. I didn’t want to think about what it felt like. During our training, Vayn hasn’t done anything to hint at wanting to be anything other than my guardian.

Therefore, I was trying not to jump to conclusions. Doing so would only leave me hurt if things didn’t go my way. And at this moment, things were not going my way. My back landed on the training mat, again. Sweating and struggling to catch my breath, I stared up into the dark eyes of Dread.

“You did good that time,” he told me in that raspy voice of his.

“Good?” I scoffed. “I still lost.”

“You lasted two full minutes against me. That’s good, little one.”

Two minutes? That’s it? It had felt like forever. Vayn said I couldn’t pass my training portion of his program until I could go five minutes against all of his shadows. So far, two minutes was my best time. It was way better than the point two seconds I’d started out at three months ago. Progress was progress. Dread stretched his hand out to me. I took it and let him help me to my feet.

“Let’s go again,” I told him.

“You’ve trained enough today, little one. You need to rest.”

“One more,” I pleaded.