Bound by Nebula: My Alien's King Forbidden Touch

--- The alarms started screaming the second my spell hit the engine core. I was supposed to be stealing a power crystal. Not crashing a royal warship into a dead moon. My name is Lyra Vance. 27. Human. Last surviving mage of Sector 9. And right now, I was naked, bleeding, and handcuffed to the hottest disaster in the galaxy. The ship shuddered. Metal screamed. Gravity flipped and threw me across the cold floor of the containment cell. My thin prison jumpsuit tore at the shoulder, then at the seam down my back. By the time the crash stopped, I was in nothing but tattered scraps and my own skin. Across from me, behind the energy barrier, he stood up like the crash was nothing. He was not human. Seven feet tall. Skin like polished obsidian with veins of liquid silver running under it. Black hair cut sharp at the jaw. Eyes that glowed faint violet, like two nebulae trapped in glass. And armor. Gods, the armor. Matte black plates that shifted and breathed with him, leaving only his chest, throat, and hands bare. A crown of circuitry circled his brow. A king. “Human female,” his voice hit me. Low. Resonant. It vibrated through the floor and into my bones. “You sabotaged my drive.” “I didn’t mean to crash it,” I spat, yanking at the cuffs. The mag-lock burned my wrists. “I meant to steal it. There’s a difference.” He tilted his head. The silver veins in his neck pulsed. “You are Lyra Vance. The witch the Terran Federation sold to us for war debts.” My stomach dropped. So he knew. The Federation sold me to the Veyari Empire three cycles ago. Payment for losing a border war. I was cargo. Property. The Veyari didn’t believe in prisons for witches. They believed in mates. “The contract states you are to be presented to King Rhael at the bonding ceremony,” he continued, stepping closer to the barrier. Up close I could see the faint scars over his chest, and the way his armor retracted just slightly at the collarbone, like it wanted me to look. “You crashed my personal flagship instead.” “King Rhael,” I repeated. My mouth went dry. “That’s you.” A flicker of something. Amusement? Annoyance? “It is.” The lights died. Emergency red flooded the cell. And with it, the barrier between us sputtered and failed. The scent hit me first. Ozone, metal, and something dark and sweet. Like starlight and s*x. He didn’t move. He just watched me with those violet eyes, taking in the torn fabric, the blood on my thigh, the way I was shivering. “You are injured,” he said. “I’m fine.” Lie. My leg was torn open from the console. He crouched in front of the broken barrier in one fluid motion. The armor on his forearms peeled back, revealing skin that was warm. Too warm. He reached through and his fingers, long and cool, brushed my ankle. I jerked. The touch sent a spark up my leg. Not pain. Heat. “Do not,” he warned softly. “You will make it worse.” His hand slid up, past the tear in my jumpsuit, over bare skin. Clinical. Possessive. The silver in his veins flared brighter the closer he got to the wound. “Your kind bleeds red,” he murmured, almost to himself. “Fragile. Loud. And yet you blew up my ship to avoid a wedding.” “I didn’t know it was your ship,” I whispered. My voice was shaking and I hated it. His eyes lifted to mine. “Now you do, mate.” The word hit like a branding iron. Mate. In Veyari law, it meant I belonged to him. Body, magic, and blood. It meant the ceremony wasn’t optional anymore. It meant he could claim me right here in the wreckage and the Empire would call it legal. The ship groaned. Another explosion somewhere deep in the hull. He stood, pulling me up with him. My legs nearly buckled. He was solid. Warm. And he smelled like power. “The escape pods are gone,” he said against my hair. “We have one option. The core chamber. It is shielded. And it has a bed.” My brain caught on the last word. Bed. He noticed. A ghost of a smirk. “Do not look at me like that, little witch. If we die here, the Empire will still expect my heir. And you are the only vessel available.” He started dragging me down the hall, my bare feet slipping on coolant. His armor was opening more with every step, like the ship’s damage was making it malfunction. By the time we reached the core doors, the plates over his chest were gone. And I could see everything. ---