Chapter 19 #2
She thrashes, screaming, but his silk holds. The tremors stop. The trees go still.
Riven stands over Kestra’s bound form, his massive chest rising and falling with exertion, his eyes unreadable.
“This is over,” he tells her. “You’re hurting. I understand that. But you don’t get to take that hurt out on innocents. You don’t get to become the thing you hate.”
Kestra goes limp, her rage seemingly burned out, leaving only exhaustion and something that looks uncomfortably like despair. She’s still dangerous, still broken, but the fight has drained from her.
Dale approaches carefully, his weapon lowered but ready. He looks at Kestra, then at Riven.
“What happens now?” he asks, surprisingly steady for a man talking to a giant spider monster.
Riven steps back, a clear gesture of deference to human authority, but his posture remains protective. The message is clear: if they try to hurt her, they’ll have to go through him.
To my absolute shock, Dale holsters his pistol and crouches down near Kestra’s webbed form.
“I know what happened to your grove,” he says gently. “I know what that logging company did. It was wrong, and you deserved better.”
Kestra’s black eyes fix on him, searching for deception.
“But this—” Dale gestures at the destruction around us, “—is not going to fix anything. We have places that can help you, programs that specialize in trauma for magical beings. I’ll personally make sure you get there.
” He pauses. “You haven’t killed anyone.
So if you cooperate, you can still have a future.
Maybe not the one you lost, but something. ”
I stand frozen, watching this unexpected compassion from a man I’d written off as a total jerk.
Kestra stares at Dale for a long moment, then stops struggling against her silk bonds, relenting.
Dale looks up at Riven and nods, a silent gesture that carries more respect than I would have thought possible. Riven carefully adjusts the webbing, loosening it just enough that Kestra can breathe easier, can move slightly, but not enough that she’s a threat.
And suddenly, I can’t stand still anymore. I push through the small crowd that’s gathered at a safe distance and run straight for Riven.
He turns at the sound of my approach, and I throw myself at him without hesitation. His upper arms catch me, holding me close against his broad chest, and I’m laughing and crying all at once.
“You came,” I manage to say, my voice muffled against him. “I can’t believe you came.”
His mandibles click in what I now recognize as amusement. “I was terrified,” he admits quietly, so only I can hear. “But losing you was more terrifying.”
I pull back just enough to look into his clustered yellow eyes. “I love you,” I tell him. “So much.”
His mandibles part slightly, a soft chittering sound escaping that I’ve never heard before. “I love you too,” he says, and the words sound like they’re torn from somewhere deep inside him, raw and honest and perfect.
Around us, I can hear the murmur of voices, people talking in hushed tones about what they’ve just witnessed. But for this moment, it’s just us—me and this amazing, brave creature who conquered his deepest fears to protect people who might never accept him.
The townspeople, who have been watching from a safe distance, are slowly emerging from their hiding places. There’s still fear in their eyes, still uncertainty, but there’s also something else. Something like awe.
Merry is the first to speak up, her voice carrying over the murmurs. “That spider just saved our asses.”
“He protected us,” adds another voice. “He didn’t have to do that.”
Old Man Peterson, who had been skeptical about my warnings just minutes earlier, clears his throat loudly.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” he announces to the gathered crowd, adjusting his worn baseball cap.
“I’ve seen some weird shit in my eighty-three years, but I ain’t never seen a tree lady get her ass kicked by a giant spider. ”
A few people chuckle at that, the tension breaking just slightly.
Riven’s legs shift nervously beneath him as he whispers to me, “I expected a lot more screaming.”
“Well, you did just save the entire town,” I point out. “That tends to earn you some goodwill.”
He looks down at me, those alien eyes somehow conveying a universe of emotion. “I would have come even if it didn’t.”
My heart swells to approximately three times its normal size. “I know.”
Dale approaches us again, looking like a man whose entire worldview has been forcibly rearranged. He clears his throat.
“Mr… Riven, is it?” he begins, formal and awkward. “I, uh… I owe you an apology. And my thanks.”
Riven inclines his head slightly, waiting.
“I misjudged you,” Dale continues. “Pretty spectacularly, in fact. If you hadn’t been here today…” He trails off, glancing at the destruction around us.
“Your bullets would have been ineffective against her bark exterior,” Riven supplies helpfully.
Dale’s mouth twitches. “Yeah, I’m getting that impression.” He hesitates, then extends his hand. “Thank you.”
Riven stares at the offered hand, then carefully extends one of his own. The handshake is possibly the most surreal thing I’ve ever witnessed. This massive arachnid creature and the small-town deputy, formally shaking hands in the middle of a destroyed street.
“Well,” Dale says when they release. “I’ve got to coordinate with emergency services, get Kestra secured for transport. You two take care.”
As Dale walks away, Riven’s legs curl slightly around me, a protective gesture that makes my heart flutter.
“You don’t have to stay,” I tell him softly. “I know this is hard for you. You can go back to the mountain if you want. I’ll handle things from here.”
Riven looks around at the humans cautiously moving through the debris, at the destruction Kestra caused, at the sky above Pine Ridge. Then he looks down at me.
“No,” he says simply. “I think I’ll stay.”
And just like that, my life has changed completely. Again.
Not long ago, I was a delivery driver terrified of spiders, caught in a never-ending cycle of safe, predictable routine. Now I’m standing in the middle of a supernatural disaster zone, in love with a giant spider monster who just saved my hometown from a vengeful dryad.
Dad is going to have a field day with this.
“So,” I say, leaning into Riven’s solid warmth. “What do we do now?”
His mandibles click thoughtfully. “According to my extensive research of human crisis response patterns on ‘The Real Housewives,’ this would be the appropriate time for a stiff drink and dramatic reconciliation.”
I burst out laughing, the sound carrying across the ruined street. A few people turn to look, surprised.
“Your research methods need serious revision,” I tell him with a grin.
“Perhaps,” he concedes. “But the results have been satisfactory, regardless. Look how well I’ve done so far.”
I reach up to touch his face, tracing the edge of his mandible with my finger. “Very true.”
And in that moment, I have never been happier.