Page 32 of Vylit: Glowing for Her
Slowly, carefully, Kazmyr lowered one massive hand to pat her back with excruciating gentleness, as if she might shatter under his touch. "There, there," he mumbled, the phrase clearly learned from some outdated human cultural database. "The emotion is... acceptable."
Maya released him and turned to Silvyr, who took a dramatic step backward, hands raised in mock terror. "Warning: emotional contagion detected. Firewall activating."
She laughed and grabbed him anyway, her tiny form nearly disappearing against his silver bulk. The emoji drones around his head exploded in a confetti of hearts and shocked faces before he gave in, returning her embrace with surprising warmth.
"Your human displays affection most efficiently," Silvyr observed over her head, his tone clinical even as his arms tightened around her. "I find it... not entirely objectionable."
I watched them, my glow pulsing with emotions too complex to name. These warriors, my brothers since youth training, now bound to my mate through bonds of loyalty and blood. Something ancient and primal settled in my chest… the completion of a circle I hadn't known was broken.
When Maya returned to my side, her eyes were bright with unshed tears, but her smile blazed with fierce joy. I pulled her against me, her back to my chest, my arms encircling her protectively as we faced my battle brothers.
"The hunt begins," I declared, my voice dropping to the formal cadence of Mavtrosian oath-taking. "Asset P has corrupted the Registry, violated the sacred trust of genetic complementation, and threatened what is mine." My biolights flared with controlled fury. "I claim blood-right of pursuit."
Kazmyr stepped forward, his obsidian skin cracking open along the Ember Marks as heat poured from his core. "I stand with my brother in blood-oath. Asset P will burn."
Silvyr joined us, his silver form solidifying as he locked down his code streams into battle configuration. "I stand with my brothers in blood-oath. Asset P will be unmade, line by corrupted line."
The ancient words hung in the air between us, binding us together in purpose. Maya watched with wide eyes as Kazmyr drew a ceremonial blade from his belt—curved obsidian that glowed with internal fire. Without hesitation, he dragged it across his palm, molten blood welling from the wound.
"By fire," he intoned, extending his bleeding hand.
Silvyr produced a thin silver stylus that transformed into a needle-sharp blade. He pricked his palm with clinical precision, digital blood beading silver-bright on his skin.
"By code," he continued, adding his hand to Kazmyr's.
They both looked at me expectantly. I released Maya gently, reaching for the blade at my hip, living crystal that responded to my touch, sharpening to molecular precision. I didn't hesitate, drawing it across my palm, luminous fluid spilling forth.
"By light," I finished, placing my hand atop theirs.
Our blood mingled, Kazmyr's burning, Silvyr's crackling with data, mine glowing with ancestral patterns. The oath sealed between us, ancient and binding.
Maya stepped forward before I could stop her, her eyes fixed on our joined hands. "Wait." Her voice cut through the ceremonial moment. "I want in."
Three pairs of non-human eyes fixed on her with varying degrees of shock. Blood oaths were not for humans… their fragile systems couldn't withstand the genetic transfer, the cellular rewriting that accompanied the ritual.
"Maya," I began, warning in my tone. "The blood-oath is?—"
"Part of this fight," she interrupted, her jaw set in the stubborn line I'd come to both dread and adore. "Asset P tried to make me a pawn. Tried to control my genetic destiny. This is my battle too."
Kazmyr's expression darkened. "Human biology is incompatible with oath-blood."
Silvyr tilted his head, calculations racing across his skin. "Not necessarily. The mate-bond has already altered her cellular structure. Theoretical models suggest?—"
"No models," Maya stated flatly. "I'm doing this."
Before any of us could move, she reached out and placed her hand atop our joined ones. Her soft skin pressed against our alien blood, and I felt our bond flare with sudden, terrifying intensity. My biolights exploded in warning patterns, fear racing through me as our mingled blood touched her unprotected palm.
"Maya!" I moved to pull her away, but it was too late.
The blood-oath activated, power surging between the four of us in a visible shock wave. Maya's body went rigid, her eyes widening as the genetic transfer began. I wrapped my free arm around her waist, supporting her as the oath rewrote something fundamental in her DNA.
Instead of collapsing, instead of burning or breaking as human flesh should, she... changed. Subtle at first—a shimmer beneath her skin, a new clarity in her eyes—then more pronounced. The moss-liner covering her rippled in response, and beneath it, faint tracers of bioluminescence appeared along her veins, echoing my own patterns in miniature.
"What the absolute fuck," she gasped, staring at her arm where delicate lines of blue light pulsed beneath her skin.
Kazmyr's molten eyes widened with rare surprise. "Impossible."
Silvyr's code streams accelerated to blinding speed. "Fascinating! The bond must have prepared her system for genetic assimilation. Her cells are adapting to the oath-blood rather than rejecting it."
