Page 22 of Vylit: Glowing for Her
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.
CHAPTER 10
VYLIT
The attack wasn't like the dramatic warnings in stories, with a slow build-up or obvious signs, but was as precise and deadly as a predator that had survived many ecological disasters and adapted. A warning stutter of the hull, the low whine of Silvyr’s proximity alarms, and then a skiff three times dead already punched into our vessel’s underbelly, tearing through the outer mesh and flooding the cabin with cold, foaming water. The impact threw me sideways into the bulkhead. My vision whited out in a flicker of pain, and by the time I blinked clarity back into existence, she was gone.
Gone. My mate. The word felt jagged, like broken teeth, as it rolled off my tongue.
I registered the pressure gradient first. Internal air hissing into the vacuum, the transition of the galley from breathable to blackwater in a single heartbeat. The moss liner peeled off the walls and ceiling as the deluge ripped it free. It wavered, reached blindly, then tore itself into a hundred shreds, all of them streaming toward the open wound in the hull. In the eye of the chaos, Maya spiraled weightless, arms splayed, hair a dark corona. I caught the exact microexpression that crossed her face as she recognized the inevitability… the precise boundary between "I’m about to die" and "fuck it, at least it’ll be quick."
