Chapter 2
Bonus Package
Riven
The notification chime from my laptop cuts through the evening silence like a particularly smug cricket. Another delivery update. My fuzzy slippers are finally en route.
I lean my torso over the custom-built desk, mahogany reinforced with steel brackets because standard furniture wasn’t designed with a twelve-foot arachnid in mind, and peer at the glowing screen.
This digital realm still feels like navigating a web spun by a drunk spider, despite months of Celeste’s patient lessons. The dusty mothman had practically vibrated out of her own exoskeleton when she’d convinced me to embrace the “modern marketplace experience.”
Apparently, my perfectly functional system of having her discreetly broker my textiles to wealthy collectors was “charmingly antiquated but utterly inadequate for contemporary commerce,” and she insisted I start familiarizing myself with this Internet thing.
I’d resisted, naturally. The idea of exposing myself to the vast network of human activity seemed about as appealing as molting in public.
But Celeste had worn me down with her relentless optimism and those enormous compound eyes that somehow managed to convey profound disappointment despite belonging to a creature whose brain is roughly the size of a pinecone.
“You can’t skulk in caves forever, Grumpylegs,” she’d insisted, shedding wing scales all over my pristine workspace like the world’s most irritating snow globe. “The Great Unveiling was years ago. Humans actually want to buy things from monsters now. Revolutionary concept, I know.”
So here I am, a reluctant master of the digital age, having just completed what Celeste deemed a “milestone achievement” on something called Shop that’s expected and entirely rational. But beneath that perfectly normal physiological response runs something else entirely. Something that makes every nerve cluster in my exoskeleton snap to razor-sharp attention.
“Oh my god,” she whispers, the words barely audible.
Ah. There it is. The moment of recognition. But the web tells me something is wrong—or rather, something is wonderfully, unexpectedly right.
The high-frequency vibrations of terror are present, yes, a familiar song. But beneath them, a deeper, slower thrum has begun. A bass note I haven’t detected in a sentient creature before. Never in my own webs, at least.
I step fully into the light, allowing her to process my form. I am a living contradiction to a human’s understanding of the world, and I savor the moment her mind grapples with my existence. But just as she’s processing my appearance, I am processing hers.
She’s smaller than I expected, this delivery driver who navigates mountain roads with such confidence.
She’s perhaps five and a half feet of curves wrapped in practical cargo pants and sturdy boots.
Her brunette hair has escaped its ponytail during her struggle with the web, framing a face that’s all sharp angles and sun-kissed skin, with constellations of freckles scattered across her nose.
But it’s her eyes that snare my attention completely: hazel, flecked with gold and green, wide with shock but burning with an intelligence that refuses to be cowed even in her current predicament.
She should look fragile suspended in my silk, this small human female, but instead she appears fierce, like a wildcat caught mid-pounce.
Her hands are calloused from honest work, and her weathered clothing shows she values practicality over vanity. Something about her unpretentious beauty compels me more than any polished human female I’ve observed through my screens.
She is real in a way that makes my silk glands tighten with want.
“Fascinating,” I observe. “You’re caught rather thoroughly.”
“Spider,” she finally manages, her voice taut with strain. “You’re a giant spider.”
A common, if irksome, inaccuracy. “Vyder, actually,” I correct, beginning to circle her. The movement is calculated, designed to display my size and power, but my true purpose is to gather more data.
Her scent… it confirms what the silk is telling me. Sharp copper fear, overlaid with the rich, unmistakable perfume of burgeoning arousal. “The distinction is important, taxonomically speaking.”
I offer a perfunctory explanation about the web being a security measure while my mind races. This isn’t a simple case of a trespasser. This is an anomaly. A specimen of unprecedented interest.
“That’s nice, but can you let me go now?” she asks, trying to sound professional despite what her scent tells me. “This isn’t exactly how I planned on spending my evening.”
“Of course,” I lie, making no move to free her. Instead, I let my gaze linger on her, taking in every detail with my six eyes. The flush on her skin, the subtle parting of her lips. My curiosity is no longer purely academic. “But then again… I’m curious about your physiological responses.”
Her confusion is palpable. “My what?”
This provides the perfect opportunity to retrieve the dropped package. A test. I need to see how she reacts to a dose of the mundane amidst the monstrous. “Ah, yes. My fuzzy slippers.”
I watch her process the statement, the cognitive dissonance flashing across her face. “Your what?”
“Fuzzy slippers,” I repeat, a dry amusement coloring my tone. This is proving more entertaining than I could have imagined. “Four pairs. With memory foam insoles.”
“You ordered… slippers?”
“Is that unusual?” I tilt my head, enjoying her bewilderment.
“For a giant spider man? Yeah, kinda.”
Her candor is refreshing as I read her nametag. “We all have our indulgences, June of Hartwell Delivery.”
I say her name deliberately, watching for the effect. The silk sings with it: a sudden, sharp vibration as a shiver runs through her. It is not a shiver of fear.
The data is unequivocal.
“Your situation presents me with an interesting dilemma,” I say, setting the precious slippers aside and returning my full attention to the far more compelling package displayed in my web.
I slowly pace before her again. “Social convention suggests I should free you immediately and apologize for the inconvenience.”
“That sounds like a great plan,” she says quickly, a hint of desperation in her voice.
“And yet…” I stop directly in front of her, leaning in. “Your body is telling me something quite different from your words.”
I pluck a single strand of the web, a simple test of its tension. The vibration travels through her, and she gasps involuntarily. Another spike in the data feeds. Confirmed.
“Look, Mr.—”
“Riven,” I insist. “Vyders don’t use honorifics.”
“Riven,” she repeats, and the sound of my name on her lips sends a surge of possessive instinct through me that is startling in its intensity.
It’s time to stop experimenting and start confronting. “Tell me, June, what do you think is happening here?” I move closer still, my exoskeleton mere inches from her skin. “Your pulse spikes when I do this. Your pupils dilate. Your skin flushes. These are fear responses, yes. But they’re also…”
“Don’t say it,” she warns, her voice a breathy plea that my senses interpret as an invitation.
“Arousal responses,” I finish. “You find this situation stimulating.”
Her denial is weak, an obligatory protest her body has already rendered moot. “That’s ridiculous.”
“Fascinating,” I murmur, a low chittering of amusement rumbling in my chest. My most primitive instincts, dormant for eighty years, are awake and screaming.
This is not prey. This is a potential mate. And Vyder protocol for such an encounter is clear, brutal, and profoundly impolite by human standards.
“I never imagined I’d catch a human with such… particular tastes.”
She starts to protest again, but I silence her with a raised claw.
“Your body disagrees. Quite emphatically, in fact.” My voice drops, shedding its academic tone for something more primal.
“Tell me, June of Hartwell Delivery, have you ever wondered what it would feel like to be completely, utterly at someone’s mercy? ”
The question destroys her composure. The web vibrates with the force of her body’s silent, affirmative answer.
“I can see that you have,” I say, my own systems now preparing for what must come next.
“And now I find myself in a dilemma. Civilized human protocol dictates I should cut you free… But Vyders such as myself follow a different set of rules. You see, to my kind, it’s extremely rude to simply release a responsive female who’s displayed so perfectly in one’s web. ”
“What are you going to do?” she whispers, and the terror in her voice is now laced with an unmistakable thread of anticipation.
I allow a predatory smile to spread across my features, an expression of mandibles and sharp edges that she should find terrifying.
Her arousal only spikes.
“Why, I’m going to give you exactly what you desire,” I say, the decision made as my ancient instincts take command. “After all, what kind of host would I be if I left a guest wanting? And you, June of Hartwell Delivery, are clearly very, very wanting…”