Page 5 of Vayn

Not that I’d expected his shadows to help me at all. According to the dean, all of the late manifesters have been assigned guardians to watch over them. The guardians are here for our protection, not to baby us, and make sure we don’t get wounded during training. Luckily, none of my classmates could see within the shadows. Only me.

I guess it’s part of my discernment ability. I guess that’s also why I’ve been able to see my guardian lurking in the shadows, watching me with those dark eyes for the past two months. Though I’d managed to ignore him this entire time, his presence has made it hard to focus in class. Like all of the other guardians, he was beyond handsome.

His hair was cut low, and his facial hair was always neatly trimmed. He was normally clad in guard attire, consisting of a black shirt that fit him like a glove with black cargo pants and boots. The ensemble did nothing to hide his attractiveness. He was a hulk of a man with a body that human males trained for years to get.

Even with training, they could never reach his level. This guy had muscles on top of muscles. He was huge everywhere. At least, everywhere that I could see. From my experience, men who looked like him were usually lacking in other places. I smiled to myself, glad that he was behind me and unable to see my grin.

Honestly, though, it would be so sad if he had a small dick attached to such an amazing body. If I were his mate, I’d probably cry if that was the case. But if his tongue game was on point, I’d keep him around. Especially since I cum from clitoris stimulation rather than penetration. He sniffed. My body tensed.

Could he smell the growing arousal building in me? Of course, he could! Damn it. Why was I thinking about sex around him? My cheeks heated in embarrassment, and again, I was thankful he couldn’t see my face. I reached into my bag and pulled out my phone. After unlocking it, I scrolled through the numbers and absently blurted something out to throw him off.

Sighing, I said, “I wonder what he’s doing? He’s probably at work. I won’t bother him tonight.”

I shoved the phone back into my bag. There. Now, he should think my arousal was for some mystery guy, not him. A low growl sounded behind me. I know it’s him. I’ve become accustomed to his growls. That was his, I’m irritated, growl. He’s probably thinking, how can such a useless creature actually have a boyfriend?

I resisted the urge to look back at him and defend my honor. If I wanted a boyfriend, I could have one or even three, considering many of the women here dated multiple men at the same time. And everyone was okay with that. Wait, I shouldn’t call them women and men. They hated that. The terms women and men were used when referring to humans.

The terms males and females were the terms used to describe the beings in the realm of monsters. And, of course, everyone had their own pronouns, which were respected way more here than they were in the human realm. Which was one thing I could applaud the Monster Realm for. Beings here weren’t judged based on their sexuality, faith-based beliefs, or race.

Before coming here, I’d hated the word female. Now, I was one. Sucks! What doesn’t suck is the fact that here, being with more than one male was smiled at. That was normal here. When I first arrived here, I was shocked to see that.

Now that I’ve been here for three years, it’s no longer strange to me. It’s not even kinky. It’s normal now. It helped that there was a freshman class called, Understanding Fated and Chosen Relationships. That class helped me understand why the Fallen and male descendants had one mate, and the female descendants had multiple mates.

No matter how useless my guardian thought I was, it helped knowing there were a group of guys out there who would one day cherish me and consider me the center of their world. I must admit, that was one plus side to learning I was a cursed one. Marriage between humans failed more times than not.

Mated cursed ones lasted for eternity. That was both romantic and kind of scary at the same time. While I was yearning to one day find my fated ones, my guardian was probably dreading the day he found his fated one. My guardian was rumored to be one of the most vicious Fallen ever.

It was said that he didn’t believe in love and didn’t want a family. He missed the days of wars. He was always the first one who volunteered for any mission that allowed him to kill. Even worse, his hatred of humans was legendary. Some of the other students felt pity for me when they learned who the guardian assigned to me was.

Others had been jealous. Despite his cold demeanor and bad reputation, my guardian was considered quite the catch, and not just because of his looks. Some of the more uppity students, male and female, were vying for his attention. Their families wanted the prestige of having Lucifer’s former commander in their family. They felt his offspring would be strong.

And since he’d yet to have any offspring of his own or to claim a mate, they wanted their child to be the one who caught the attention of such a powerful Fallen. As for me, I simply didn’t want the Fallen to kill me. Numerous times I’d heard him growling from the shadows when I’d lost a battle during training.

More than once, he’d muttered, “Useless human,” under his breath. His favorite thing to mutter was, “I should just kill her and put her out of her misery.” Uh, no thanks. I’d rather be miserable than dead. Why the hell did I have to get stuck with Vayn Shadow-Fallen as my guardian?

Why couldn’t I get a nice Fallen? Did a nice Fallen even exist? Dean Alykander was nice. But I sensed the underlying danger in his eyes. I had a feeling his niceness was just a facade. Like all the other creatures in this realm, there was a beast underneath his outer beauty. I was jealous of that.

I wanted an inner beast. If I had one, life here would be easier. I’d be able to protect myself against these creatures that it had taken me a long time to warm up to. And some of them still frightened the shit out of me. However, I’d learned not to let that fear show. They thrived off fear. When they sensed weakness, they didn’t try to protect the weaker party. They pounced.

That was why I wanted to work here. I wanted to protect those who couldn’t protect themselves. First, I had to get stronger, which was why I was taking this blasted night class. I wasn’t a fighter at heart. Just because I didn’t want to fight, didn’t mean this world would cease striking at me.

So, I was going to learn to hit back. If only fighting didn’t hurt so damn much. Caught up in my thoughts, I didn’t pay attention to where I was walking and almost stumbled over a rock. Before I could hit the ground, a pair of strong arms wrapped around me. I was pulled back against abs as solid as brick.

My breath hitched as a large hand splayed across my belly. My not-so-flat belly. Embarrassed, a blush flushed across my skin, heating it in mortification. I looked back, expecting to see Vayn. Instead, I saw a dark cloud, shaped in his image. A shadow. This one wasn’t Rage.

“Thanks,” I whispered, pushing a strand of my curly hair away from my face. Even my guardian’s shadows were muscular as fuck. Wisps of his dark clouds caressed my skin. Don’t think dirty thoughts. Don’t think dirty thoughts. As usual, I heard the shadow’s voice in my head.

Be careful, little one, the shadow whispered. We do not want you to get hurt.

“Uh, thanks. Which shadow are you?” I asked, or rather, thought, just as I had with the previous ones that had come to my aid.

I am Charm.

“Charm?” That wasn’t an emotion. “I thought shadows were the extra emotions the Fallen’s earthly bodies couldn’t contain?”

I am an emotion, an overflow of the energy my Fallen cannot contain, or chooses not to contain. My name is Charm, my emotion is love.

Love? Wow! Vayn’s shadow of love was holding me. Before my mind could overthink that, I resumed my conversation with Charm.