Page 11 of Vylit: Glowing for Her
Her fingers dug into my arms. "Then we need to fight."
CHAPTER 5
MAYA
The rockfall exploded inward with a thunderous crack, sending deadly shards slicing through the air and water around us. I flinched against Vylit's chest, heart hammering as his arms tightened protectively around me. The cave mouth vomited alien bodies… pirates swarming through the breach like predators scenting blood. Their forms twisted through the water with unnatural grace, some humanoid, others decidedly not. Six, no, eight figures armed with weapons that glowed and pulsed with the same sickening rhythm as the beacon nodes. My torn dive suit fluttered around my thighs, a stark reminder of my vulnerability in this moment. These creatures had come for me. Not as a scientist. Not as a person. As property.
"Get behind me," Vylit growled, his luminescence flaring blood-red as he pushed me backward.
Adrenaline flooded my system, sharpening my senses to painful clarity. The lead pirate emerged fully into the cavern… bipedal but with a head that reminded me of a hammerhead shark, eyes set wide on a horizontal plane. His mouth split into four separate parts, each lined with needlelike teeth. The sight should have paralyzed me with terror, but instead, a strange, wild fury rose in my chest.
"The female is ours," the shark-head announced, his voice translating through my patch with an oily smoothness that made my skin crawl. "Half-bond. Easily broken. Step aside, Mavtrosian, and we'll make your death quick."
I groped blindly behind me, fingers closing around a jagged piece of coral broken loose during our mating. The weight of it felt reassuring in my palm, its edges sharp enough to slice alien flesh. I hoped. The scientist in me cataloged potential vulnerable points… gills, eyes, the exposed tubing at their necks that pulsed with fluid. I might be out of my depth, but I wasn't going down without inflicting serious damage.
"She's mine," Vylit snarled, his massive form expanding as specialized membranes unfurled along his arms. His skin transformed before my eyes, hardening into an armor-like state while still maintaining its luminous glow. "My complement. My mate."
The shark-head laughed, a wet, gurgling sound. "Not fully. Not yet." He gestured to his crew, who spread out in a semicircle formation. "Take her alive. Kill him."
Vylit exploded into motion with a speed that defied his size. One moment he stood in front of me, the next he tore through the water, his fist connecting with shark-head's face with a sickening crunch. The pirate flew backward, crashing into the cavern wall. Three more rushed to take his place, wielding weapons that seemed to liquefy and solidify at will.
I pressed my back against the cave wall, the Breather around my neck suddenly feeling too restrictive. I slipped it back over my face, not trusting the ambient oxygen to remain stable during battle. Through the transparent membrane, I watched Vylit transform into something I barely recognized… a living weapon, his every movement calculated and lethal. He caught one pirate by the throat, claws puncturing deep before flinging the body aside. Another swung what looked like a whip made of living metal. Vylit caught it mid-strike, the material searing into his palm before he yanked it away and turned it against its owner.
The violence shocked me, but not as much as my own lack of revulsion. This was survival. Primal, necessary, and strangely beautiful in its terrible efficiency.
A shadow moved in my peripheral vision. I whirled to find a slender pirate with translucent skin and compound eyes creeping along the wall toward me. His mouth opened in what might have been a smile, revealing no teeth but a pulsing dark hole ringed with stinging tentacles.
"Soft little thing," he hissed through the translator. "You'll fetch a handsome price."
I'd had enough of being someone's prize. The coral shard in my hand arced forward, slashing across his reaching arms. The creature shrieked, ichor spilling from the wound. I didn't wait for him to recover, but lunged forward, driving the jagged edge into one of his compound eyes. The satisfying pop and squelch triggered a surge of vicious triumph.
"I'm not fucking merchandise," I spat as he reeled backward.
Behind me, the battle raged. Vylit roared as he tore through another pirate, his glow illuminating the cavern in strobing pulses. Water churned with violence, thick with blood and ichorous fluids from several species. I backed away from my wounded attacker, scanning for another weapon. My fingers closed around a fist-sized stone, and I hurled it at another approaching pirate, catching him in what passed for a throat.
The tide turned against us as more pirates poured through the breach. Vylit fought like a demon, but even his massive strength had limits. A barbed spear caught him in the shoulder, the wound instantly leaking luminous fluid, kinda like a macabre glow stick. He ripped it out with a snarl that vibrated through my bones.
"Maya," he called, voice ragged. "Stay in the shadows!"
Like hell I would. I scrambled across the cave floor, collecting more projectiles—broken coral, stone fragments, anything that could be weaponized. Each time a pirate came within range, I hurled my missiles with all the strength I could muster. One caught a fish-like creature in its gills, another struck an arthropod pirate in the joint of its leg, crippling it momentarily.
The shark-head recovered, blood streaming from his ruined face where Vylit had struck him. He bellowed commands, and three pirates converged on me from different angles. I backed deeper into the cave, cursing as my heel caught on uneven stone. I stumbled, falling hard, the breath knocked from my lungs. The nearest pirate lunged, clawed hands extended toward my throat.
A blur of motion intercepted him… Vylit, tearing the creature off its trajectory and hurling it across the cavern with such force that its body shattered against the far wall. He stood over me, bleeding from multiple wounds, his chest heaving.
"I won't let them take you," he promised, voice thick with something that transcended rage.
"Behind you!" I screamed as two more pirates rushed him simultaneously.
He spun, catching one with a sweeping kick while grappling with the other. His movements were slowing, fatigue and wounds taking their toll. For every pirate he dispatched, two more seemed to appear. The horrible truth dawned on me. We couldn't win this fight. Not alone.
As if answering my desperate thought, the ceiling of the cavern exploded inward. Rock and debris rained down as two massive forms burst through the new opening, trailing light and heat in their wake. I recognized them instantly… Kazmyr and Silvyr, Vylit's battle brothers.
Kazmyr landed with seismic force, the impact sending shockwaves through the water. His lava-cracked obsidian skin glowed with internal fire, the Ember Marks across his body flaring white-hot as he assessed the battlefield. Without hesitation, he waded into the fight, each movement unleashing waves of superheated water that boiled pirate flesh on contact.
"About fucking time!" I shouted, scrambling to my feet.
Silvyr, leaner and quicker than Kazmyr, flashed me a grin as he darted past. "Miss us, little wave?" He moved like liquid mercury, his form seeming to flow around pirate attacks before solidifying at precisely the right moment to deliver devastating counters.
