Page 13 of Vylit: Glowing for Her (Consumed by the Alien Heat #1)

MAYA

M y head rose and fell on the motion of his breathing. For a long time, neither of us spoke. Every neuron in my body thrummed with the newly forged bond, a living, pulsing cable soldering our nervous systems together and feeding back on itself in microtremors.

It was perfect for the length of one breath. Then another. By the third, reality slithered back into the space between us, coil by cold coil.

He brushed damp hair from my forehead, his touch hesitant. "You are safe," he said, each word pronounced as if he feared they might bite me. "No pirate or council or world will ever take you. You are… part of me. Even after you leave." The words hung, incomplete.

"So what happens now?" It came out weaker than I wanted, almost a whimper. I pushed up onto one elbow, bracing for the answer like bracing for a slap.

Vylit’s glow flickered, the blue retreating into a thin line along his jaw. "When the pirates are stopped, and the Agency threat is neutralized, I will return you to your home. Earth." His eyes dropped away from mine, heat leaching out of the air between us.

My brain translated… You will be sent home. Like a rescued lab rat, released into the wild.

It shouldn’t have hurt. But it did. It hurt so badly I could barely breathe. The punch of it landed square in my solar plexus, folding me over my own ribs. A laugh, sick and wild, slipped out before I could stop it.

"Just like that?" I pressed my palm against the ship’s membrane, the edge of the hammock, something, anything to keep from curling into myself.

"We do all of this, you risk your life for me, and then you’re just going to dump me back on the curb with a ‘thanks for the genetic material’ and a bag of kibble? "

He flinched. The glow on his arms stuttered in jagged, shameful patterns, a digital display of every feeling he refused to put in words.

The silence stretched, an ugly, festering wound. Beneath us, the Nest Moss shivered, its puffling intensifying to a high-pitched whine. Tiny tendrils wriggled up around my hips, kneading comfort into my skin like a clowder of cats trying to reset the mood with sheer tactile persistence.

I yanked the moss off, letting the living blanket spiral to the floor in a petulant heap.

"Why can’t you just say it?" My voice rose, scraping raw against the inside of my throat. "You don’t want me. Not really. Not once the chemicals wear off, not once the pirates are gone and the Agency’s satisfied. You’ll take me home and log a successful mission and never think about me again."

Vylit didn’t answer. He concentrated on something, but I couldn't tell what. But what he didn't do was protest. Not a single word of reassurance.

I sat up fully, the motion sending a shiver of cold along my now-exposed skin. The hammock adjusted, trying to swaddle me with insistent little hugs, but I shrugged it off. The chill in the chamber felt deserved, clarifying.

"I just want to know if any of this meant anything," I said, and I hated how much my voice shook.

His reply came in a different language than what I'd heard him speak, guttural and ancient. Then, in perfect translation, "Everything means more than I am allowed to want. But you are not a prisoner." His words froze in the air, half-explanation, half-apology.

The air pressed in. My skin prickled with goosebumps. The bond, that hot river of connection, felt knotted and sick, like someone had clamped a fist around it and squeezed.

I needed to get out. Anywhere but here, anywhere but with him watching me unravel. It was my fault, falling for him after saying I wanted him to promise to take me home if I asked… but I hadn't asked. He'd just decided.

The hover-hammock detected my shift in mood and peeled open an exit slit in the side of the chamber, bioluminescent ripples guiding my path out.

The Nest Moss trailed behind me, a puffled shadow clinging to my legs.

I didn’t know if it was trying to offer comfort or just programmed to follow the nearest warm body.

I stalked naked into the corridor, ignoring the moss’s protest, the odd trickle of cooling fluid still leaking from my hair and the persistent ache in my thighs from being double-penetrated by an overachieving alien.

For a moment, I thought about slapping a Breather back on, but the air in the ship had been tweaked perfectly for my lungs now.

Even when he was devastating me, Vylit thought ahead.

I hated that I found that endearing.

I made it to the galley and braced my hands against the counter. The surface reacted, sensing my agitation, and morphed into a flat plain of obsidian black. The person staring back had eyes flashing with anger, swollen lips, and hair that was a tangled mess.

A shudder rippled through my body. I felt the bond between us go slack, a rubber band that snapped back so hard it stung behind my sternum.

The anger I’d carried in here melted into something else…

grief, maybe. Or the hollow, echoing certainty that this was always how it was going to end.

A rescue, a high, a biological imperative, and then the slow slide back into alone.

I was still naked. The ship, bless its programming, extruded a fresh skin of Moss-Liner up from the floor, wrapping me in a dark, soothing sheath that smoothed over every bruise and scrape and soft patch on my body.

The feeling was both tender and accusatory.

Far better than my wetsuit from Earth. I'd miss the experience of all this alien technology when he dropped me off.

The moss made a soft, mournful noise.

"Don’t try to fix it," I muttered, running my hands over the new fabric. "Sometimes it’s just doesn't work out just like Kazmyr said."

I barely noticed the comm chime at first. The chime sounded again, more insistent, a tight staccato of noise that vibrated the counter and then the walls. The translation patch on my throat flickered to life, projecting the message as a visible pulse in the air.

INTRASHIP COMM: URGENT. PIRATE VECTOR INTERCEPTED. KAZMYR REQUESTS YOUR PRESENCE ON brIDGE.

Vylit’s voice boomed through the patch a second later, a growl that barely covered the break in his timbre. "Maya. We are needed."

I exhaled, slow and shaky. There would be no time for licking wounds. No time for either of us to figure out how to glue ourselves back together.

I closed my eyes, counted to three, and steeled myself for the next disaster.

When I entered the bridge with the help of the sentient ship, Kazmyr and Silvyr were already there.

Kazmyr’s gold glow was dialed up to maximum, the lines along his arms and chest flickering with anticipation.

Silvyr’s skin was etched with scrolling lines of code, his expression locked in a mask of cool efficiency.

Neither of them commented on my arrival, but Silvyr’s eyes flicked to the patchwork Moss-Liner clinging to my body and then away. Kazmyr grunted, probably a greeting.

Vylit stood at the console, his back to me. The patterns of light that normally danced across his skin were dull, muted to the color of overcast sky. I could tell even without seeing his face that he hadn’t recovered from our fight.

He didn’t turn. Just started the briefing in a clipped, formal tone.

"Pirate vessel has entered the suborbital trench. They track us via biological signal, but Silvyr’s masking protocol has delayed their fix." His fists tightened on the edge of the console. "They still expect to find us with a half-bonded mate."

I felt a flash of vicious satisfaction. Let them try.

Silvyr didn’t bother with subtlety. "If we complete the counterattack, we may expose the Agency mole. But we require both of you, in person, for the tribunal."

I glanced at Vylit. Still not looking at me. My voice came out cold. "What’s the protocol for appearing in front of your council when the bond is in question?"

Kazmyr let out a low rumble that might have been laughter. "Show them your scars. The Agency respects survivors."

Silvyr grinned, teeth sharp. "And if you wish, we can display your mating symbols. Mavtrosian tradition."

For the first time, Vylit looked over his shoulder at me. His eyes were shot through with luminous fractures, the usual steady white replaced by trembling, uncertain streaks. His voice barely above a whisper. "Only if you consent."

There it was again… the conditional, the escape clause. I wanted to scream at him that sometimes a person just wanted to be wanted, no fucking legal disclaimers attached.

Instead, I pulled the neck of my Moss-Liner lower, exposing the bruised, glowing patterns that trailed up from my collarbones to behind my ear. The claiming marks, bright and unmistakable, pulsed in time with my heartbeat.

"I’ll testify," I said, forcing the words through gritted teeth. "I’ll face the tribunal, I’ll help you bait the pirates and the Agency, and when we’re done—" I swallowed, the next words burning on my tongue. "When we’re done, you can send me home."

The bridge went silent. Vylit turned away, shoulders rigid, refusing to let me see anything else of him. The bond between us crackled, ragged and raw, neither of us willing to give in or give up.

Kazmyr slapped his hands together. "Then let’s prepare for battle."

Silvyr launched a display of Mavtrosian council protocols, the interface painting the bridge with ghostly images of tribunals and genetic records and historic mate bonds.

I watched, numb, as my own file blinked in the display—MAYA POE, HUMAN, GENETICALLY OPTIMAL—right next to Vylit’s.

It felt less like fate and more like a crime scene report.

The ship thrummed under our feet, prepping for acceleration. Kazmyr manned the defense station, Silvyr vanished into the navigation node, and I found myself alone on the bridge with Vylit.

He didn’t move, didn’t speak. I wanted him to say something, anything.

So I did what I always did when the world went sideways… I shut up, I squared my shoulders, and I marched forward.

The summons to the Mavtrosian tribunal blinked on the comm.

I was ready for them to judge me. The only thing I wasn’t ready for was how much I still wanted the man who would not say he wanted me back.