Page 33 of Vylit: Glowing for Her
I couldn't speak, could only stare at my mate, now bearing physical evidence of her connection not just to me, but to my battle brothers. The oath had marked her as one of us.
Maya flexed her fingers, watching the new light move beneath her skin. "Does this mean I get cool powers now? Because if I start glowing during sex, we're going to have a conversation."
The tension shattered. Silvyr burst into staticky laughter, while Kazmyr made the grinding sound that passed for his chuckle. I buried my face in her hair, relief and wonder battling for dominance.
"You continually defy expectation," I murmured against her ear, my arms tightening around her. "Remarkable, impossible creature."
Our moment of triumph was short-lived. The air above us shimmered, Silvyr's projection system activating without his command. Data streams erupted from his skin, coalescing into a holographic display that expanded across the loading bay.
"What the—" Silvyr stepped back, confusion racing across his features. "I'm not doing this."
The projection flared brighter, lines of data snapping into a complex lattice. Code scrolled too fast for even Silvyr to track, compressing and expanding until it focused on a single point of light. That point expanded, burning white-hot against the dim bay, forming a name that seared itself into our vision:
KAZMYR.
Gasps rippled through our small group. My grip tightened around Maya, my glow burning hotter with protective instinct even as my brother's name blazed like a target in the stars.
"What the fuck?" Kazmyr's voice dropped to a dangerous register, Ember Marks flaring white-hot along his forearms. "Explain. Now."
Silvyr's form flickered, his digital-organic hybrid nature struggling to process the information flowing through his systems. "Asset P's algorithm has shifted," he said, voice crackling with static. "New priority target identified."
"Me?" Kazmyr laughed, a harsh sound like stone cracking. "I have no mate. I rejected all Registry matches. There's nothing for them to harvest."
The projection shifted again, data streams reshaping into a genetic profile that rotated slowly in the center of the chamber. Half the sequence glowed with Kazmyr's distinctive fire-coded markers. The other half...
"Human," Maya whispered. "The complementary sequence is human."
My biolights flared with shock, patterns racing across my skin in disbelieving spirals. "Impossible. The Registry would have notified?—"
"The Registry is compromised," Silvyr cut in, his silver skin rippling with urgent calculations. "Asset P is now suppressing match notifications, redirecting compatible pairs for its own purposes." His eyes met mine, grim with understanding. "They've been tracking this match for three cycles. A human female with exceptional thermal adaptation markers."
Kazmyr stood motionless, his massive form suddenly still as death. Only the Ember Marks betrayed his emotional state, pulsing so hot they left scorch marks on the deck beneath his feet.
"You lie," he said, each word a burning coal. "I have no mate."
"You do," Silvyr insisted, projecting a blurred image beside the genetic profile. "Human female, designation Terra-9843. Current location: desert in a place called New Mexico." The image clarified slightly… a woman running through a building that was burning all around her. "Her work involves studying the aftermath of fire-burned environments."
"A perfect complement to Kazmyr's thermal abilities," Maya observed, her scientific mind immediately making connections. "Genetically optimized for survival in environments most humans couldn't tolerate."
Kazmyr's fist crashed into the navigation console, the impact sending shockwaves through the ship's living structure. "I WOULD KNOW!" he roared, his voice vibrating the air between us. "I would feel it! The bond, the pull… I would know if she existed!"
The moss-liner around Maya contracted protectively as I stepped between her and my brother's rage. My own biolights shifted to warning patterns, deep blues and purples that signaled both caution and sympathy.
"Brother," I said, keeping my voice deliberately calm. "The Registry suppressed the match. The Agency kept you apart deliberately."
"Why?" The question emerged as barely more than a growl, heat rippling from Kazmyr's skin in visible waves.
Silvyr's expression hardened, lines of code cascading down his face like digital tears. "Because your combined genetics would produce offspring with unprecedented thermal control abilities. Weapons, essentially. Or tools for mining operations in environments too hostile for conventional equipment."
Maya moved to my side, refusing to hide behind me despite the danger Kazmyr's rage presented. Her hand found mine again, steadying both of us. "Because you guys got to me before they did," she said, the realization dawning in her voice. "They learned from their mistakes."
Kazmyr's eyes locked onto the blurred image, his fury momentarily replaced by something more complex… longing, perhaps, or the first stirrings of connection. Then his expression hardened, Ember Marks blazing along his jawline.
"They will not have her," he declared, each word burning with deadly promise. "I will reduce their operation to ash. I will melt the flesh from their bones. I will?—"
"Brother." I stepped closer, risking his heat. "Violence alone won't save her. We need strategy."
"Fuck strategy!" Kazmyr snarled, turning on me with eyes like molten gold. "While we debate, they move. Even now, they could be extracting her, taking what is MINE."
