Page 4 of Vylit: Glowing for Her (Consumed by the Alien Heat #1)

MAYA

I sat up from the moss nest, my skin still tingling from Vylit's ethereal glow and the press of his heat against me.

My mind reeled with the intensity of what we'd shared, but the low hum that suddenly rattled through the hull shoved me back into panic as surely as a physical blow.

The vibration crawled up my spine, instinctual warning signals firing in my brain before I could even process what I was hearing.

Something was wrong. Deeply, fundamentally wrong.

Vylit's body went taut beside me, his bioluminescent patterns dimming from their post-flirtation glow into sharp, wary flickers of blue and green. The change was immediate, and inherently I understood his mood went from lover to warrior in the span of a heartbeat.

"The Gate has marked you," he muttered, his massive form shifting to shield me from whatever unseen threat loomed beyond the walls. "Its beacon is not just sound. It is signal."

The noise intensified, a grinding, pulsing rhythm that vibrated in my bones. It wasn't merely mechanical… it felt predatory and calculating, like the focused attention of something vast and hungry. My scientist's brain scrambled to categorize the sensation while my human instincts screamed danger.

"What the fuck does that mean?" My voice cracked, throat suddenly parched. The sound had a direction, a purpose. It was calling to something or someone.

The realization hit me like arctic water… it was calling others to us.

I scrambled upright, nearly tripping over the living moss that had cradled us so comfortably moments before.

The sentient growth puffled and contracted with an indignant whine, its tendrils clinging to my ankles as if offended by my sudden departure.

The damn thing sounded like a sulky cat denied attention.

"Let go," I hissed, kicking free while scanning the chamber.

Vylit stalked to a crystalline panel at the chamber's edge, his movements fluid despite his massive size.

His palm pressed against the surface, and streams of light unfurled from his fingertips, bleeding into the crystal until the panel transformed from opaque to transparent.

Beyond it, the underwater reef sprawled in all its alien glory.

Barnacle-like nodes clung to the coral structures, pulsing with a sickly green light in perfect rhythm with the beacon's sound. I moved closer, professional curiosity momentarily overriding fear.

"This isn't natural." I said, my breath stuttering as I recognized the pattern. My fingers traced the air above the display, mapping connections. " This isn't environmental response. This is deliberate—someone placed these throughout the reef matrix."

Vylit's glow dimmed further, his eyes narrowing to luminous slits. "Yes. They have been dormant for cycles. The Gate's interaction with your genetic structure has activated them."

"What does that mean in non-cryptic terms?" I pressed my palms against my temples, fighting the headache building there.

"It means any alien species within range will sense you now.

" His voice dropped lower, resonating with a dangerous harmonics that made the water in my nearby cup vibrate.

"Mates are rare across the galaxy. Your compatibility with me will be detectable to others. There are those who hunt such prizes."

"Hunt?" The word lodged in my throat.

"Entire crews specialize in finding and claiming unbound mates. They are known as mate pirates." His massive hand curled into a fist. "They would take you before our bond could fully form."

The words landed like ice in my gut. Not just abducted from Earth, then. A fucking prize. A beacon for predators. Cosmic catnip for alien abductors.

Fury chased fear up my spine, hot and electric.

I wasn't some passive damsel to be handed from one alien captor to another.

Years! I'd spent years fighting for respect in male-dominated research vessels.

Hell, I'd survived three days lost at sea when a research expedition went wrong.

I'd faced down bull sharks during mating season.

I shoved past Vylit, ignoring how his skin temperature dropped at my touch… a warning sign I was still learning to read. My finger jabbed at the display, pointing out flaws in the reef lattice.

"We should be able to disable or destroy them." Years of studying communication systems in the deep-sea finally had a practical application. "I can help disable this. I'm not sitting here waiting to be stolen."

His massive hand closed on my arm, not painful but immovable. Possessive. His voice roughened with what I was beginning to recognize as desperation beneath the warrior's control.

"You must stay hidden where you will be safe." The glow beneath his translucent skin intensified. "I will protect what is mine."

"Oh, no you don’t buster." I jerked away, pulse pounding in my ears.

My finger pointed at him aggressively as I glared at him.

"I'm not your cargo, Vylit. I'm not your fucking prize specimen.

" My breath came in ragged bursts. "I didn't consent to be a pawn in some cosmic breeding game.

I'm a marine biologist with three published papers on bioluminescent. So, I can help, and I will. Then you’re fucking taking me home. "

His glow flared, anger or admiration, I couldn't tell which. Maybe both. The translator patch on my neck heated as it struggled to convert my defiance.

"Floor warrior romantic challenge accepted," it finally announced in its artificial voice, completely mangling my meaning.

"What the actual fuck is wrong with this thing?" I snarled as I felt around on my neck. The damn thing shocked me when I touched it.

Vylit's composure cracked for a fraction of a second, the rigid lines of his face softening despite the danger. His eyes, however, burned with something deadlier than laughter… determination, possession, and beneath it all, fear.

"I did not select a docile mate," he conceded, the translator doing a better job with his simpler phrasing.

Before I could respond, the ship jolted violently, throwing me backward. Vylit moved with impossible speed, his arms locking around me like a living shield. His body curved protectively over mine, his skin temperature rising until the air between us shimmered with heat.

"Proximity alert," a voice crackled through hidden speakers. Kazmyr, if I wasn’t mistaken. "Vylit, If we don't sever it, mate pirates will converge within seven pulses."

Another voice followed, drier and more distant... Silvyr. "Asset lit like a signal flare. Mate raiders already sniffing the currents." The translation glitched with static, but the meaning was clear enough.

My throat went dry as I caught my reflection in the holo screen. My skin shimmered with a faint luminescence, and the Breather Mask pulsed in perfect rhythm with my heartbeat.

"It's me," I whispered. "I'm the beacon."

Vylit's gaze burned with contradictions… reverence and dread tangled together. His thumbs traced my jawline with surprising gentleness.

"Yes," he said. "The Breather adapts to your biochemistry. Our bonding has made you visible to my kind… and to others."

The moss beneath us stirred restlessly, tendrils reaching to pull me back into its protective embrace. I kicked free.

"I need to see the reef directly. Not through displays." I grabbed the Breather, securing it around my neck. "If I'm the beacon, I need to understand exactly how it's working."

Vylit swore, the translator failing entirely with whatever guttural language he slipped into. His luminous patterns shifted through colors I couldn't name, emotions I couldn't read. When he finally spoke again, the translator struggled to keep up.

"Dangerous beyond measure," it managed. "Cannot risk your capture."

"Can't risk doing nothing either." I stepped toward him, close enough to feel the electrical field that seemed to surround his skin. "Unless you plan on locking me up somewhere… I'm not asking permission. I'm asking for your help."

His inner light pulsed, a war playing out beneath his translucent skin. Finally, he conceded with a gesture that reminded me of a bow.

"On one condition." His voice deepened, the translator giving his words a strange, formal cadence. "I never release you from my reach. Not for a single pulse."

I rolled my eyes at the possessiveness, but my chest betrayed me with a thudding pulse. There was something about his fierce devotion, however misguided and alpha male it might be, that sent heat coursing through me. Damn my body's reactions.

"Fine. Consider me your barnacle." I secured the Breather tighter. "Now how do we get out there?"

In answer, the skiff's hull began to peel open, splitting along previously invisible seams like a living gate unfolding.

The sea rushed in, not flooding us as I expected, but creating a controlled pressure gradient that felt like walking through heavy mist. The scent hit me first, salt, ozone, and something sweeter, like crushed flowers mixed with metal.

Vylit's arm wrapped around my waist, solid and secure. "Breathe normally. The Breather will adapt."

Together we stepped through the opening, and cold water swallowed us whole.

The Breather activated fully, creating a thin membrane over my face that felt like nothing at all yet somehow converted the seawater to breathable air.

Scientific curiosity momentarily overrode my fear.

The technology was beyond anything human science had conceived.

Currents tugged at my body, trying to separate us, but Vylit's grip remained firm.

His massive form moved with surprising grace through the water, his multiple fin-like appendages propelling us forward.

I'd never felt so simultaneously powerful and helpless.

. carried by an alien being through an alien sea, hunted by threats I barely understood.

The reef spread before us in all its terrible beauty.

Bioluminescent growths stretched for what seemed like miles, every pulse synchronized to the beacon's call.

What I'd previously studied as fascinating xenobiology now revealed itself as something far more sinister…

a galactic invitation system, lighting up like runway lights for every pirate and predator in range.

Vylit's glow blazed around us, sending warning signals I couldn't decipher but instinctively understood.

His body tensed against mine, pulling me closer as if daring the galaxy to try to take me.

Through the water, a low rumble vibrated, an unseen presence that might have been engines or something far more dangerous.

My lungs burned with borrowed air, my nerves screamed with dread, yet a dangerous thrill coiled inside me.

If I was bait, then together we would have to fight off the hunters, or be claimed by them.

For a scientist who'd spent her life observing rather than participating, the stakes had never been so viscerally, terrifyingly real.

"How many are coming?" I managed to ask, my voice strange through the Breather's filtration.

Vylit's response came not in words but in a pulse of light that spread from his body to mine, a visual representation of incoming threats. Three distinct patterns, approaching from different vectors.

"Can we disable the beacon before they arrive?" I pointed toward the largest node cluster, its pulsing now so rapid it appeared almost solid.

His glow flickered… uncertainty, I guessed. "We can try."

That was all I needed to hear. If I was going to be hunted across the galaxy, I'd damn well understand the mechanism before I became prey. The scientist in me wouldn't accept anything less. Once I was hunted, then I could find a way home.