Star Fallen : Claimed by the Alien Prince

—— Starbound✩ ——

The woman in my arms shouldn’t exist.

Human.

I’ve lived thirty-four cycles without touching one, much less wanting to. Now her heartbeat—too fast, too weak, too human—is the only rhythm my long ears can separate from the jungle’s chaos. Her scent floods my lungs, sweet and warm beneath the blood, and my body reacts as if it recognizes something my mind does not.

Humans are myths on Rau—soft-worlders who stumbled through portals and died screaming.

I should not have followed the jungle’s restlessness to the Throat of Veyra. I should not be carrying her small broken body through the shadows toward a lodge even my father does not know exists. Yet the moment my claws touched her skin and retracted instinctively, something ancient roared inside me.

Vhara. The word rises from somewhere that predates language, predates royalty. It lodges in my chest like a blade forged to kill the man I was.

Cherished. Claimed. Chosen by something older than the moons themselves.

I shouldn’t feel this roar building in my chest that drowns out every law, every duty. I tighten my arms around her.

The laws of Rau are simple: what you can hold, you keep.

And I’m keeping her.

She shouldn’t have survived five minutes in jungle that devours warriors twice her size. But she fell through a portal I felt rip the veil like a wound in reality.

Landed in my territory.

On my watch.

Broken and bleeding in the Throat of Veyra where the river plunges into blackness.

In my arms.

Mine.

—— 𖤓 𖤓 ——

I am Zeke, son of Dhum and blood-heir to the Obsidian Throne. Rau shaped my body for this jungle—seven feet of midnight fur, muscle and claws capable of opening armour—but none of it can command the human’s heart to keep beating.

Her pulse falters beneath my palm, seventy beats and falling, with pauses long enough to sharpen my fear.

My ancestors crashed on Rau soft-skinned three thousand years ago. The ones who survived became predators capable of hearing death before it breathed. Now every sense they passed down to me is fixed on the heat draining from her wounds.

Claws that can rend armour remain fully retracted as I hold her. She feels breakable enough to punish carelessness.

My people can hear heartbeats from a hundred paces.

The jungle knows I carry forbidden cargo. Vines whisper warnings. Moss dims—predators near, turn back, death ahead. My ears track her weakening pulse, razorwings circling above, the groan of ironwood bending.

Her blood calls them through the jungle, promising soft flesh to anything hungry enough to challenge me.

I shift her weight. She’s nothing, physically, a scrap of softness against my chest. Each breath ghosts over my throat. Each shudder makes protective fury coil hot in my gut.

My hand spans her ribcage completely. Cracked bones shift beneath my palm.

I move faster.

The path narrows.

I curl my body around hers so nothing touches her but me.

Her clothing hangs in shreds—thin fabric meant for gentler suns, softer worlds.

And there, catching the bioluminescent glow filtering through leaves: A thin band of metal circling her left ring finger. I stop breathing.

Claimed.

The word slices between my ribs like a blade I never saw coming.

Someone out there is waiting for her.Someone she chose. Some weak off-worlder dared mark what’s mine before I even found her.

“Who gave you this?” My claw traces the cold band. The smoothness is insulting.

“Did he fight for you? Did he bleed?”

She doesn’t answer. Can’t.

“Good. Means I won’t feel guilty when I take his place.”

What if she wakes and chooses the ghost on her finger over the prince in her flesh? I want to rip that band free with my teeth, melt it down, erase every claim but mine.

But she’s dying and fury is a luxury I can’t afford yet.

Later, when she wakes whole and healed and understands exactly who saved her, who claimed her, who she belongs to now.

I will make her tell me about the male whose claim she wears. I tighten my grip and move faster.

—— 𖤓 ☼ ——

The path to my lodge is long, through territory even my father’s hunters avoid.

The jungle throws everything at me.

Serpent vines coil left—warmth-seekers that would crush her. Death-blooms glow right, petals black as rot. Razorwings descend lower, braver.

I carry her through the razorvine instead. It scores my thighs. Venom-itch burns where it cuts deep. Copper tang of my blood blends with hers in the humid air.

It doesn’t touch her.

Nothing touches her while I breathe. Not while I have claws to rend and teeth to tear and a chest that still holds a heart beating only for her.

She whimpers softly against my throat. The sound spears straight to my cock—small, broken, trusting in ways that make control fracture.

I should not want her like this. I should not catalog how her breast curves beneath torn fabric or how her dark hair spills across my arm like silk begging to be tangled in my claws.

Control, Zeke. She’s dying and you’re rutting like a beast.

I am a beast. Seven feet of predator built for violence and claiming.

But I’m not a monster.

—— ☼ ☼ ——

The lodge rises from the jungle—hidden beneath ironwood roots, woven from shadow. My father’s hunters have passed within twenty paces and never seen it.

I carry her beneath the high ceiling into walls lined with furs and cultivated moss. Here, hidden from my father’s hunters, I lower her into the nest as if she is made of something more precious than flesh.

Too gently.

Her head turns toward my body heat, seeking warmth even in unconsciousness. It is instinct, nothing more, but the possessive creature inside me accepts it as trust anyway.

The nest is lined with silks and cured hides, soft things meant for skin unlike mine. I have never used them because I never expected to need them.

Until her.

I tear strips from my own loincloth, claws fully retracted.

I am crown prince. I could kill anything in this jungle. But I’d rather lose a finger than accidentally cut her.

The gash on her thigh is deep, edges ragged like something with claws tried to open her from hip to knee. Deep enough that I see bone.

It will scar. She’ll wear this night and my claim on her thigh forever.

I score my palm with one claw.

Press my blood into her wound. Royal blood seals flesh faster than any medicine on Rau—but this isn’t medicine.

Blood-gift. It’s a vow written in cells.

The first step of royal bonding on Rau.

My father’s voice echoes: “Your blood is a vow. Give it only to those you’d die for. Give it only to your—”

Vhara. The one meant for you. The one the moons choose.

I look at her. Pale as moonlight. Delicate in ways that make my chest ache. Dying in my nest.

Mine.

My blood will tether her to me in ways she can’t refuse. And stars help me—I want her to try.

“You live.” I force command into the words, although everything inside me is already pleading.

Her wound knits beneath my palm. Her breathing steadies.

And somewhere deep in her chest, where her heartbeat used to beat alone—

It beats with mine now.

As it should.

The bond settles beneath my palm. Then her spine arches, fitting itself to my hand as if Rau designed her for this violation.

I seal the wound with pressure and glow-root salve before binding her ribs. Her breast presses against my knuckles through the ruined fabric, impossibly soft.

I could pretend the contact is necessary. That I need to check each rib, ensure the wrapping holds.

But her nipple brushes my palm through the fabric, pebbling against my skin, and my cock throbs so hard I see stars.

I bind her ribs.

Slowly.

Learning the shape of her through every layer.

The bruises will fade. I already know the memory of her beneath my hands will not.

—— ☼ ☽☽ ——

Outside, something screams—a razorwing, maybe, or one of the bone-crushers that prowl at dusk.

The jungle breathes with the sounds of things hunting and being hunted.

But beneath the screams, something else. A rhythm—distant, pulsing—like the planet itself has a heartbeat. And hers, steadier now beneath the bindings, is learning to match it.

Everything feeds on everything here. That’s the law.

But not her.

She’s mine to protect.

Mine to tend.

Mine to claim properly when she wakes and understands what falling into my world means.

I finish my work and sit beside the nest, watching until her breathing steadies.

She is alive because of me and bound to me for the same reason.

Two truths. One heart.

I settle beside the nest, close enough that my body heat reaches her, far enough that I won’t crush her if I sleep.

I won’t sleep. My ears track every sound beyond the lodge. My eyes never leave her face.

Dark lashes tremble against bruised, pale skin. Her full lips remain parted, drawing breaths that grow stronger with every passing moment. River moss tangles in her hair, and a pale scar cuts through one eyebrow. She’s been hurt before. Survived before. She’ll survive this too.

—— ⚫☽☽——

The triple moons rise outside—silver, lavender, crimson—bleeding light through root-gaps.

My people believe they see everything. Judge everything. Bless or curse based on what they witness.

Let them see me choose this fragile, impossible woman over duty, over throne, over every rational choice a crown prince should make.

She fell from the sky into my arms like destiny made flesh.

And on Rau, what the moons deliver, you don’t refuse.

In my arms, the star-fallen breathes softer now.

Trusting. Unaware.

I press my mouth to her hair.

“Sleep, star-fallen. I’ll be here when you wake.”

She rests beneath my mouth, unaware that my blood now moves through her veins or that it has begun a bond Rau does not easily break. She’ll learn, all of it

She’ll learn what it means to be claimed by the son of Dhum. She’ll learn the word vhara and why I speak it like prayer and possession both.

She’ll learn that on Rau, there are no accidents. No coincidences.

Only fate.

And she’s mine.

Lhar’va. Moons witness.

Forever.

Her eyelids flutter.

My entire body locks.

Heart slams against my ribs so hard I feel it in my teeth.

She’s waking.

She’ll see me.

She’ll be afraid.

The thought should make me pull back, give her space, let her adjust. Instead, I move closer towering over her to make sure the first thing she sees is me.

Her lashes part. Storm-gray eyes meeting mine.

She blinks.

My scent the first she’ll breathe.

My name the first she’ll learn to beg for.

—— ⚫☽☽ ——

🖤 Welcome to Rau, babe. 🖤

If you woke up in Zeke’s nest tomorrow — would you scream? Or say YES DADDY ?