The forest changed after midnight.
Damien noticed it between one breath and the next—the way the air thickened, the way sounds dropped away until only his footsteps remained. No crickets. No wind. Just the wet crunch of leaves under his boots and the voice in his head humming with anticipation.
"She knows we're here."
"You could've mentioned the spider queen before I walked into her territory."
"You could've asked."
Damien stopped walking. Leaned against a tree. Tried to pretend his heart wasn't trying to escape his chest. "I died four hours ago. Forgive me for not having a comprehensive question list."
The tree behind him shifted.
Not wind. Not his imagination. The bark moved, rough and warm against his spine, and when Damien looked up, he saw them.
Threads. Hundreds of them. Thousands. Draped between branches like moonlight given form, glowing faintly in the darkness. They stretched in every direction, a cathedral of silk built by something that had been working for a very, very long time.
"Three centuries," the Voice murmured. "She's been building this for three centuries. Do you know how lonely you have to be to weave this much beauty with no one to show it to?"
"Poetic. Terrifying. Can we leave?"
"We can't. Look down."
Damien looked.
His boots were covered in silk. So was the ground for twenty feet in every direction. The tree he'd leaned against wasn't a tree at all—it was a pillar wrapped in centuries of webbing, and he'd walked right into the center of it while arguing with the god in his head.
"She's coming."
The threads trembled. Not from wind—from footsteps, eight of them, moving with terrible grace through the darkness above.
Damien's body moved before his brain caught up. Malakor's instincts, he realized. Ancient reflexes from a time when "running" meant something different. But he didn't run. He turned, slowly, and looked up.
She descended like a nightmare wearing a woman's skin.
Above the waist, she was beautiful in the way old paintings were beautiful—severe and timeless, with high cheekbones, full lips, and eyes the color of aged honey. Dark hair fell past her shoulders in waves that caught the phosphorescent glow of her webs. Her skin was pale, flawless, untouched by the centuries.
Below the waist, she was spider.
Eight legs the color of polished ebony, each longer than Damien was tall, tipped with claws that clicked against silk with soft kachi kachi sounds. Her abdomen was massive, gleaming, patterned in gold and black like a warning. She moved with the horrible grace of something that had never known clumsiness, lowering herself until her human torso hovered at eye level, those honey-colored eyes fixed on him with an expression he couldn't read.
"Introduce yourself," the Voice whispered.
"I'm Damien."
The spider queen tilted her head. "Damien." Her voice was rustling leaves and distant thunder. "That's a small name for something that smells so large."
"You're the first person to call me large."
Her lips curved. Not a smile—the suggestion of one, the memory of something she hadn't done in years. "You're not afraid."
"I'm terrified. I'm just also really bad at showing it."
Kachi. One of her front legs tapped the silk near his foot. Testing him. "Everyone who comes to my forest is afraid. They run. They scream. They beg." She leaned closer, close enough that he could smell her—night-blooming flowers and something older, darker, like wine left too long in the cask. "You talk."
"Talking's all I'm good at."
"A hunter who talks is a hunter who starves."
"A hunter who talks," Damien said, "is a hunter who's learned that there's more than one way to catch prey."
Her eyes narrowed. All eight of them.
Eight. He'd forgotten she had eight. They were arranged in a pattern that hurt to look at directly, each one focused on him with an intensity that made his skin crawl. But beneath the crawling was something else—a warmth, a pull, the Voice humming approval in his chest.
"She's interested. Do you see it? Three centuries of loneliness, and you just said something no one's said to her before."
"You think I'm prey," Damien said aloud, holding those eight gazes. "You think I walked into your web by accident. But I've been prey my whole life. I'm done with it."
"You're done." Flat. Disbelieving.
"I died this morning." He said it casually, like commenting on the weather. "Cancer. Four months past my expiration date. And then something woke up in my head, and now my blood burns and my heart won't stop pounding and I'm standing in front of the most beautiful monster I've ever seen, wondering what it would feel like to be wanted by something that could eat me."
Silence.
The forest held its breath.
Then—shuru shuru—her legs shifted, coiling beneath her, lowering her human torso until they were face to face, close enough to kiss.
"Say that again."
"What? The beautiful part?"
"The part about being wanted."
Damien reached up. Slow. Deliberate. Giving her every chance to strike. His fingers found her jaw—warm, so warm, like skin with a fever—and traced downward along her throat. She shivered. Actually shivered, a full-body tremor that traveled through her human half and into her spider body, making the silk tremble beneath them.
"I've been dead for four hours," he murmured. "You've been dead for three centuries. I think we have something in common."
"Dead." Her voice cracked on the word. "You think I'm dead?"
"I think you're waiting. I think you've been waiting so long you forgot what you were waiting for." His hand slid lower, finding the curve where human skin met chitin, warm ceramic over trembling muscle. "I think you need someone to remind you."
Her breath caught. Haa...! A sound she hadn't made in decades. Her eyes—all eight—dilated at once, pupils swallowing honey.
"Now," the Voice whispered. "Kiss her before she remembers she's supposed to eat you."
Damien kissed her.
Her lips were soft. Hesitant. Like someone trying to remember a language they'd once spoken fluently. He felt the moment she stopped thinking—the moment three centuries of loneliness collapsed into pure sensation—because her mouth opened under his and she made a sound, a small broken nnn... that vibrated against his tongue.
His hands found her waist. Pulled her closer. Felt the impossible heat where woman merged with spider, the way her body curved and flexed in ways that shouldn't work but absolutely did.
She pulled back, gasping. "I don't—I haven't—"
"Three centuries. I know." He kissed her throat, felt her pulse hammering under his lips. "You don't have to remember. Just feel."
Chu... chu... Soft kisses down her neck. Suap suap as he found the hollow of her collarbone, the spot where her shoulder met her throat. She arched into him, human torso bending back, spider legs trembling biku biku against the silk.
"How?" she whispered. "How are you doing this?"
"I'm not doing anything. You're just remembering what it feels like to be alive."
Her claws came up—massive, curved, capable of tearing him in half—and wrapped around his back. Gently. Incredibly gently. Pulling him closer, pressing her body against his, and haa... the sound she made when their hips met was broken in a way that made his chest ache.
"I'd forgotten," she breathed. "I'd forgotten what skin felt like."
"Then let me help you remember."
His hands found the edge where her human form met spider. The transition was smoother than he expected—warm skin gradually giving way to warm chitin, the texture changing but the heat remaining. She shivered shuru shuru as his fingers traced the boundary, exploring territory no one had touched in centuries.
"There," she gasped. "There—nnn~—"
He found the spot. A cluster of nerves where her body changed, sensitive in ways he couldn't have predicted. Every stroke made her tremble, made her claws tighten on his back, made those eight eyes flutter half-closed in something that looked almost like prayer.
"How long," he murmured against her skin, "since someone touched you here?"
"I don't—I can't—" Her voice broke. "My first husband. Three hundred years ago. He died and I—I never let anyone close enough to—"
"Shh." He kissed her forehead. "I'm here now."
Her eyes opened. All eight. Wet with something that might have been tears. "Why?"
"Because you're beautiful. Because you're lonely. Because I'm hungry in ways I don't understand yet, and something tells me you're the first step."
"Step toward what?"
"Toward becoming something that doesn't die alone."
She stared at him for a long moment. Then—slowly, deliberately—she lowered herself onto the silk, pulling him with her, until they lay tangled in centuries of weaving with her eight legs curled around them like a cage.
"Then take the step," she whispered. "Take it with me."
---
The silk was softer than anything Damien had ever felt. It yielded beneath them, cradling their weight, and when Morgana moved, the whole web trembled with them.
She undressed him with claws that should have drawn blood but never did. Each touch was impossibly precise, centuries of hunting refined into something almost tender. His shirt fell away. His pants. Then she paused, looking at his body with those eight eyes, and he remembered that he was still mostly human—soft in places, scarred in others, nothing like the perfect forms she'd probably seen in her long life.
"You're staring."
"You're real." Her voice was wondering. "I thought—when they came to my web, they always screamed. They always fought. I ate them and forgot them within a year. But you..." A claw traced his chest, feather-light. "You look at me like I'm not a monster."
"You're not a monster. You're just something that got left behind."
Her breath hitched. Haa... Soft. Broken.
Then she leaned down and kissed him again, and this time there was nothing hesitant about it. This was three centuries of hunger pouring into one moment, her mouth claiming his, her tongue sliding against his with a desperation that made his head spin.
Suap suap. Wet and urgent. His hands roamed her body—her waist, her hips, the impossible curve where she changed—and she shuddered against him, making sounds he'd remember on his own deathbed.
"Touch me," she gasped against his mouth. "Touch me there. I need—I need to feel—"
His hand found the junction where her human body met spider. Warm. Wet. Ready in ways that surprised him—he hadn't realized arachne anatomy worked that way, but apparently three centuries of celibacy created certain physical responses regardless of species.
When his fingers pressed inside her, she screamed.
Not loud—a sharp Hii...! of shock and pleasure, her body going rigid giku giku as sensation flooded systems that had been dormant for decades. Her claws dug into the silk, tearing it. Her eight legs kicked biku biku against empty air. And her eyes—all eight—rolled back as she came apart on his hand.
"That's—that's—aaaah~!—"
He kept moving. Slow. Deliberate. Watching her face as pleasure broke through centuries of loneliness, as she forgot to be a queen and remembered what it felt like to be alive.
"I can't," she sobbed. "I can't—it's too much—"
"You can." He kissed her throat. "You've waited three centuries for this. Don't run from it now."
Her claws wrapped around him, pulling him on top of her. The position should have been awkward—her spider body was massive, her human torso stretched out above it—but she shifted, coiled, arranged them until he was pressed against her, skin to skin, with her legs curled around his waist.
"Inside me," she begged. "Please. I need—I need to feel someone inside me before I die."
"You're not dying."
"Then before I forget again."
He entered her slowly. Jupu jupu—the sound was impossibly wet, impossibly tight, her body clamping around him like a fist. She gasped haa...! and her claws left bloody trails on his back that healed almost instantly, primordial blood already working.
"Yes," she breathed. "Yes—nnn~!—yes—"
He moved. Pucha. Pucha. Each thrust drove deeper, pushed further, and she took it, her body arching to meet his, her eight legs scrambling for purchase on the silk. The web trembled around them. The whole cave system seemed to pulse with her pleasure.
"Harder." Her voice was ragged. "I won't break. I haven't broken in three hundred years. Harder."
He gave her harder. His hips slammed against hers pucha pucha pucha, wet and urgent, and she screamed with each impact, sounds she'd forgotten she could make pouring from her throat.
Aaaah~! Aaah~! AAAAAH~!
Her orgasm built like a wave—he felt it in the way her body clamped down, in the trembling of her legs, in the desperate nnn~ nn~ nnn~ of her moans. When it broke, she went silent, mouth open in a scream that produced no sound, her whole body rigid giku giku for one eternal moment before collapsing into shaking ruin.
Biku biku. Her legs twitched uncontrollably. Biku biku. Her human hands scrabbled at the silk. Biku biku biku. Every part of her spasmed with aftershocks while he kept moving, kept thrusting, chasing his own release.
"Come inside me." Her voice was barely a whisper. "Please. I want to feel it. I want to remember."
He came with a groan, buried deep, spilling into her with a heat that made her whimper nnn~ one last time. For a moment they lay tangled together, breathing the same air, hearts pounding in sync.
Then he felt it.
The pull.
Her essence flooded into him—warm and electric and ancient, three centuries of life and power and loneliness pouring through the bond. He saw her memories in flashes: a young arachne meeting her first husband. His death. The decades alone. The centuries of building webs no one would see. The slow fading of hope.
And beneath it all, something new. Something that hadn't been there before.
Warmth. Connection. Belonging.
"Husband."
The word echoed in his mind, and he knew—knew—that she'd spoken it with more than her voice. She'd spoken with her soul.
---
Afterward, they lay tangled in her webs, her eight legs curled around him like a cage of chitin and warmth. She hadn't stopped trembling completely—biku biku, small aftershocks still running through her—but her breathing was slowing, her heartbeat steadying.
"I remember," she whispered.
"Remember what?"
"Feeling." She turned in his arms, those honey-colored eyes searching his face. "I'd forgotten what it felt like to want something. To need something. To be alive enough that dying mattered."
"You're not dying."
"No." Her lips curved—a real smile this time, the first in centuries. "Neither are you. Whatever's inside you... it's changed you. I can taste it in your essence. You're becoming something new."
"The Voice calls itself Malakor. Says it used to be a god."
"Used to be?" She laughed softly. "Nothing that powerful stops being a god. It just... waits." Her claws traced his chest, drawing patterns in the drying sweat. "You're going to change the world, Damien Blackwood. And I'm going to help you."
"Why?"
"Because you saw me." Her voice cracked. "Three centuries of hunters and adventurers and prey, and not one of them looked at me like I was a person. Not one of them touched me like I was worth touching. You did." She pressed her forehead to his. "You're my husband now. My king. My reason."
"Well," the Voice purred. "That worked better than expected. Check your new abilities."
Damien closed his eyes and felt—new sensations flooding his awareness. The ability to move with her grace. The echo of her venom in his saliva. A connection to her webs, her children, her territory.
And beneath it all, the hunger. Still there. Still growing. But now... shared.
"What's next?" Morgana asked.
Damien looked up through the layers of silk, toward the surface, toward the world that had never noticed him.
"We build," he said. "We find others like you. Others who've been waiting. And we become something this world has never seen."
She smiled—a predator's smile, sharp and beautiful.
"Good. I was getting bored."