Delivered to the Vyder (Monster Mates #5)

Chapter 1

The Last Stop

June

The steering wheel fights me as my delivery truck bounces through another pothole, the chassis screeching like I’d personally insulted its mother. I grip tighter and squint through my windshield at a dirt path some optimistic cartographer once labeled a “road.”

“That’s it, girl,” I mutter to my truck. “Just a few more miles of this torture and we can both go home and pretend this never happened.”

The truck responds with an ominous rattle from somewhere beneath the hood.

Such trips are the reality for Hartwell Delivery Service, the last hope for packages heading into the backwoods of Montana where GPS signals go to die and mailmen fear to tread. In this town, the big companies get your stuff to the town post office, but for the wilderness beyond that?

That’s where we come in, charging premium rates to brave trails that would make a mountain goat reconsider its life choices.

Dad built this business on knowing every forgotten path in three counties. After his back gave out, I inherited the routes while he handles dispatch from our kitchen, living vicariously through my daily near-death experiences on these backwoods “roads,” if you could call them that.

“You sure about this run, Junebug?” he’d asked this morning, tapping the delivery address with his coffee mug. “Weather’s looking sketchy, and nobody lives that far out. Nobody normal, anyway.”

What he meant was: since the Great Unveiling five years ago, when monsters stopped hiding and started building dream homes in remote locations, these mountain deliveries had gotten a lot more interesting. And by interesting, I mean terrifying.

“It’s fine, Dad,” I had assured him, swiping the package. “The pay is ridiculous, and we need a new transmission more than I need peace of mind.”

And that’s the truth. We need the money. Ever since Dad became the paperwork guy instead of the delivery guy, Hartwell Delivery has been one broken axle away from bankruptcy.

So I’ll brave any road, deliver to any customer—human, monster, and anything in between—to keep food on our table and a roof over our heads.

I glance at the crumpled paper beside me, where Dad’s careful handwriting offers cryptic directions: “Follow old logging trace past split pine, fork left at standing stone. Bridge unsafe. Do not attempt.” Below that is the client’s name, Riven, and coordinates that Google Maps had never heard of.

The package rides shotgun, a lightweight thing about the size of a shoebox that doesn’t rattle, tick, or leak mysterious fluids, which puts it ahead of half my deliveries.

Not to mention the prepaid fee for same-day service would cover two months of the truck’s increasingly frequent repair bills.

Whatever it is this Riven guy ordered, it must be something important…

A massive Douglas fir split down the middle by lightning appears ahead, followed by what can only be described as a moss-covered boulder standing upright like a prehistoric middle finger aimed at the sky.

“Split pine: check. Standing stone: check,” I mutter, taking the left fork into a dark and overgrown road. “Creep factor: off the charts.”

I drive for another five minutes until the trees suddenly open to a clearing that makes me stomp the brakes hard enough for my seatbelt to remember its purpose in life.

“Holy shit.”

The house—no, mansion—no, architectural fever dream—rises before me like some luxury real estate magazine had a baby with National Geographic.

Dark timber and floor-to-ceiling windows stretch across the front, and the whole structure is built directly into the mountainside, as though the granite cliff decided to grow a house.

“Not suspicious at all,” I whisper to no one. “Just your everyday multimillion-dollar mountain lair.”

According to our records, this property didn’t exist five years ago. Which means it was built after the Great Unveiling, when monsters who could afford it came out of hiding and built the homes they’d always wanted.

It’s almost a certainty that a monster lives here, not that it matters to me whether my clients have feet or claws. But I’ll admit the isolation factor has me curious. You don’t build something this remote unless you really, really want to be left alone…

I grab the package and step out into the crisp evening air. The property is meticulous, with native plants arranged with precision, solar lights glowing in the gathering dusk. It signals “I have both money and specific opinions about landscaping.”

“Hartwell Delivery!” I call out, marching up the stone path. The massive front door, easily ten feet tall and carved with geometric patterns, remains closed. No response except wind through the pines and the sound of my boots scuffing against loose stones.

I usually don’t like venturing too deep into a new client’s property, but this package needs to get delivered one way or another. I sigh and continue my march, moving farther along the path, closer and closer to the ominously large door…

Then I face-plant straight into something invisible.

Only it’s not invisible. It’s a web. A web strong enough and large enough to stop a full-grown human.

“What the hell—” I twist, trying to pull free, but that’s a mistake.

The movement only makes things worse. Thick, impossibly strong strands wrap around my wrists, my torso, my thighs, tightening with every struggle like they’re alive. The package tumbles from my grip, landing in the gravel with a soft thud.

This isn’t possible. No spider makes webs like this.

No normal spider, anyway.

The thought has barely formed when my father’s warnings echo in my head—all those hushed stories about the people who’ve vanished from this mountain without a single track left behind. Gone, as if the forest itself had simply swallowed them whole.

My blood freezes. Is this how it happened? Did they walk into a trap just like this one, spun for prey much larger than a moth? Have I just stumbled into the lair of what everyone has been so afraid of?

The thought of screaming crosses my mind, but who would even hear me? Who, besides my captor?

Maybe I should act normal. Maybe panicking will activate whatever predator instincts this Riven guy might have.

“Hello?” I call out, trying to keep my voice professional despite being trussed up like a Thanksgiving turkey. “Package delivery! I could use a little help!”

Almost instantly, the massive door swings open silently, revealing darkness beyond. Then comes a sound straight out of my deepest nightmares: the distinct clicking of multiple heavy limbs moving across stone.

My throat closes up. I go completely still, the way prey animals do when they sense a predator. The clicking grows louder, a methodical, unhurried rhythm that suggests whatever’s making it knows I’m not going anywhere.

A colossal silhouette detaches itself from the shadows of the doorway, and for a moment, my brain refuses to process the creature I’m seeing.

The top half almost makes sense: a humanoid torso with broad shoulders and powerful arms. But below that… My mind stutters, trying to categorize the impossible.

Eight long, segmented legs flow in perfect synchronization, each step deliberate and calculated as they propel the towering dark figure toward me with terrifying elegance.

I blink hard, convinced I’m hallucinating. But when I open my eyes, he’s still there. Closer now.

“Oh my god,” I whisper, the words barely audible even to myself.

He steps fully into the fading light, and I get my first clear look at him. His upper body is covered in black chitinous plates that gleam like polished armor. His face—if you can call it that—has no nose, no lips… Just mandibles that click softly as he studies me.

And his eyes… Six golden eyes are arranged in a pattern across what should be a face, all fixed directly on me with unnerving focus.

He’s sleek and beautiful in the most terrifying way possible, like a perfectly engineered killing machine that evolution spent millions of years perfecting.

“Fascinating,” he says, and his voice is nothing like I expected, deep and resonant but with a dry, almost contemplative tone. “You’re caught rather thoroughly.”

I try to respond, but all that comes out is a strangled sound somewhere between a whimper and a laugh.

He tilts his head, the gesture oddly human despite everything else about him being decidedly not. “Are you having difficulty breathing? The silk shouldn’t be constricting your lungs.”

“Spider,” I finally manage, my voice pitched higher than normal. “You’re a giant spider.”

“Vyder, actually,” he corrects, circling me with deliberate steps. “The distinction is important, taxonomically speaking.”

Each of his legs moves with hypnotic precision, and I find myself tracking their movement despite my terror. He’s at least twelve feet tall when fully extended, his exoskeleton catching the fading light in ways that highlight its deadly elegance.

And here I am, a frumpy, squishy human wrapped up in his web like a convenience store burrito.

“This is a security measure,” he explains, gesturing to the web with one clawed hand. “Not specifically designed for delivery personnel. Though, it’s functioning admirably.”

My brain finally kicks back into gear. “That’s nice, but can you let me go now? This isn’t exactly how I planned on spending my evening.”

“Of course,” he says, then makes absolutely no move to release me. Instead, he leans closer, those alien eyes studying me with undisguised interest. “But then again… I’m curious about your physiological responses.”

“My what?” I try to shift away from him, but the silk only tightens, pressing against my body in ways that are simultaneously terrifying and… something else.

Something I never felt before.

“Your heartbeat,” he explains, one claw hovering just above my throat without touching. “It’s elevated, which is expected. Fear response. But there’s something else happening too.”