When Celeste Vale's luxury diplomatic cruiser crashes deep inside the forbidden Ash Wilds, she expects to die.
Instead, she wakes inside the shelter of a monster.
Draev is everything civilization warned her about - a savage exile feared across Virexia. A scarred alien warrior who lives alone beyond the red marshes. A male so dangerous even hunters avoid his territory.
But the terrifying outcast who carries her through storms and sleeps outside her shelter to guard her scent is also the first person who has ever touched her like she matters beyond usefulness.
No bargains. No performance. No conditions.
As corporate recovery forces close in, Celeste discovers the truth behind Draev's exile: the empire branded him a monster after he refused orders to massacre civilians. Mercy destroyed his life. Loneliness became his punishment.
She has spent her entire life being valuable to people who cannot love her.
Draev is the first person who has ever loved her without making her valuable first.
The civilized universe is coming to take her back.
And she doesn't yet know if she's ever been brave enough to choose herself.
Claimed by the Alien Exile is a dark, emotional sci-fi monster romance featuring a touch-starved alien hero, wilderness survival, protective obsession, forced proximity, and a love so reverent it ruins them both.