Hornet cursed herself. What a fool she’d been. She was heiress to Deepnest, would-be queen of the weavers; she should have known better!

But the predators lurking in Hallownest’s darkest corner could be insidious—wicked. The creature in the dark had known to look like another when it lured her to its den. The young spider had been returning to her mother’s chambers to pay her respects when what should she see down a darkened corridor but Herrah the Beast herself.

Hornet was no fool. Her mother was an endless sleeper, never to wake or rise. She knew that; it had been this way since she was a child. Yet the appearance of Herrah, standing silent and watching before turning her back and vanishing into some obscure warren, had been too much for Hornet. She had chased, calling wordlessly, trying to bring her back.

How oafish. In retrospect, it had been such an obvious trap: Herrah disappearing down ever-snaking tunnels, increasingly lined with silk, bearing the desiccated corpses of lesser bugs. Yet Hornet’s long-held desire to speak with her mother, even once, had blinded her to the obvious. She had followed Herrah deeper and deeper into the tunnels until—

A large open chamber. Silk draping over the entryway, trapping her. Hanging corpses, like a forest of death. And Herrah, morphing—twisting—bellowing inarticulately with a rasping voice. Perhaps if Hornet had steeled herself, she still might have made it out. But the moment’s shock and revulsion were too much. The creature—Nosk; a rarely-seen, oft-whispered, and much-feared predator in Deepnest’s farthest reaches—had lunged. Long, knifelike black legs had scuttled at her, knocking her needle aside and pinning her to the ground. A bulbous abdomen, glowing sickly orange, lit the chamber with an eerie glow. And the visage of Herrah, now twisted into a grotesque parody of life, revealed itself as merely Nosk’s terrible face, Herrah’s ‘horns’ revealed for the clacking fangs they were.

The jaws had lowered and as all became blackness, Hornet thought she had met her end.

But now, as she stirred, groaning, she realized that Nosk hadn’t devoured her. It had left her alive, though thoroughly trussed and trapped within a cocoon of deceptively delicate silk. Hornet was no stranger to spinning threads, but Nosk’s was beyond her power to break. Her head was free, as were her legs and lower body—but the rest of her was thoroughly entrapped, bound tight in sticky thread with no hope of escape, dangled from the ceiling like the rest of Nosk’s prey. She had fallen into its silken clasp.

Hornet fought the urge to shriek for help. She was too far for any of her loyal weavers to hear, and the exertion would merely tire her. She had to assume Nosk was saving her for a snack; when the monster untied her to gorge, then she would make her escape.

She dangled there for what felt like hours at least, hearing nothing but the heavy laboring of her own breaths echoing off the chamber walls. She tried not to look at the other bugs hanging from the ceiling. Some looked like Ghost, her erstwhile sibling; so a few of the vessels had met their end here. She had eliminated a fair few of her own, but she still pitied them.

After she nearly fell asleep in the silk’s embrace once more, a rough clacking brought her out of it. Nosk was returning. Dangling from the ceiling, Hornet shot a dirty gaze at the shapeshifter. “I wish mother had wiped you out before she went to sleep,” she spat. “Then you wouldn’t have sullied her image!”

The creature gave no understanding or acknowledgement of her words. It loped forward, six legs moving jerkily, head bobbing back and forth on a too-long, knobby neck. Nosk circled its prey for a moment, leaning its head in to sniff her. Hornet fought off the urge to kick at it. That might provoke it to eat her while still bound. Instead, she endured the indignity of being sniffed and pawed at. It opened its maw to lick her and she hissed at the warm sensation dragging across one of her horns. With a chittering murmur, Nosk licked her again on her cheek, and—

“Ah!” Hornet cried despite herself. The creature had suddenly bent its head down and licked between her legs.

“Wh—wh, b-but…” she stammered out, suddenly flushed. The sensation had been abrupt, sudden—and despite its thorough unwantedness, it had left the weaver princess filled with a blossoming sensation. Her body didn’t know the source of the attention, only that it liked it.

Nosk seemed pleased and dipped its head low again and this time Hornet did kick. But the towering beast easily dodged and then its head was between her legs and its tongue was at her womanhood and Hornet’s voice rose in a sharp sob as it lap-lap-lapped at her and the warm tongue traced her folds and dipped inside of her and no this couldn’t be happening she was not liking this she absolutely wasn’t the feeling her body gave her of ambrosial delight was a lie and so was the heady sigh that clawed its way out of her mouth they were both lies but Nosk didn’t care it just kept licking and Hornet grappled her legs around its head to try to stop but it just dove in harder and Hornet was sobbing and was that her voice breaking and begging in the chamber for it to stop to give her mercy why was this happening why wasn’t Nosk stopping why was the bliss building inside her loins despite herself and oh no why was she about to cum—

Hornet whined pathetically as she came despite herself, her juices rending her thighs sticky and spilling all over Nosk’s face. The predator chittered once, pleased, and then it reached one long arm up, deftly swiping the tether holding Hornet to the ceiling. The blushing, moaning spider dropped, caught and cradled by her captor, and she was gently laid to rest on the stone platform in the middle of its nest.

Nosk set her down with her back against the stone, and as it loomed above her, Hornet felt a sharp note of fear, bringing clarity even amidst the fuzzy mental state that her forced orgasm had left her with. She no longer thought Nosk intended to eat her.

“Wait,” she managed to say, voice hoarse. Her words stumbled. “I—I, we, we can… make amends, make a truce…”

As before, Nosk gave no reaction. Hornet found herself wondering if the beast even spoke. As the creature shifted above her, the glowing, swollen orb of its abdomen rested right above her—and close as she was, Hornet saw something through the translucent walls. There, nestled in the orange fluid, were eggs. Nosk was pregnant.

Which meant that the long, formidable black member unfurling from the far base of its torso was not a penis, but an ovipositor…

Oh, spirits. It had taken quite the interest in her womanhood. As swollen as it was, hunting would be difficult… but if it had someplace warm and safe to rest its eggs…

“Stop!” Hornet pleaded, suddenly desperate. She hiked her legs close together to deny access, but Nosk pried them apart almost lazily and then cemented them to the stone with more silk. “You can’t—you, you mustn’t!”

The ovipositor was fully erect now, and nearly as long as Hornet stood tall. It glistened black and dribbled orange fluid from its broad tip. With an internal grumble, Nosk shifted itself and half-crouched so the ovipositor was lined up with Hornet’s flushed, wet pussy.

“No,” Hornet babbled. “No, no, no! Please, wait! I can—I, I can offer so many thhhnnnnggguaaaahhhh!”

Nosk had surged forward, its ovipositor passing her outer lips and slipping inside. Hornet’s voice rose in desperation as it filled her. A sense of fullness she had never before encountered threatened to break her entirely. It assaulted her coherence, her focus, her very awareness itself. Coupled with it was pain, unthinkable pain… and shameful, disgusting pleasure. Oh by the spirits, why did her body like this?

Nosk trilled and inched a half-step forward, dragging its ovipositor with it, and Hornet’s body sang as it was penetrated even more. “It’s a lie,” she murmured desperately, tears streaming from her eyes and arousal coloring her cheeks. “This feeling is a lie, I don’t like it, I h-hate ittttttttttt…”

Another slide in and Hornet squealed. This wasn’t like normal lovemaking, in and out—Nosk had only one goal, and that was to deposit its cargo. Its move forward was inexorable, unstoppable. It pressed in more and Hornet wanted so desperately to just arch her back, thrash her arms and legs—not even to get Nosk to stop, just to give action to her sensation. But the silken bonds denied her even that, so she was reduced to quivering and screaming inarticulately, her voice piercing the once-tomblike chamber.

Finally, after minutes of agonizing ecstasy, Hornet hiccupped and moaned as she felt the ovipositor go as far as it could. It had finally reached her most intimate treasure: her womb. The ovipositor’s tip nestled against it as a dull, maddening pressure.

Above her, Nosk shifted, and there was a slight surge of movement. The eggs in its see-through abdomen tumbled over one another, and one slid out of sight—

And suddenly the base of the ovipositor was bulging, the shape inching closer and closer to Hornet with every breath.

She couldn’t allow this to happen!

“P-please,” she said, her voice shaky with fear and desperation and sexual bliss. “I’ll give you this part of Deepnest forever, it’ll be yours to hunt in… I, I’ll offer tribute… You’ll never go hungry again…”

The bulge moved lower, lower still. It was close to her lips, now. The member inside of her tensed in preparation.

“YOU CAN’T DO THIS TO ME!” Hornet screamed, watching the orb draw closer through teary eyes. “I’m not a mother, I’m not your incubator! I—I’m not—I—!” The bulge rested at her lips. And then with a body-wide clench, Nosk seemed to decide that she was. And with a terrible pressure, it slipped inside.

“Mmmmmmnnnnnaaaaaauuuuuugggghhhh! No, no, NO!”

If she thought that the ovipositor had been terrible to hold, then Nosk’s egg was another thing entirely. Large (for its parent was a large species), hard-shelled, unyielding. Hornet’s voice rose and then broke as she was rendered pathetic and weak the further it travelled. And why… why was the spread—so aching, so invasive—making her feel good? Why was such a violation threatening to make her cum a second time?

She felt the egg rest at the end of the ovipositor, sitting at the edge of her womb, and she despaired. “It won’t fit,” she whispered, voice hoarse. Tears trailed down both cheeks. “I’m too small… please, wait…”

But Nosk did not wait. Another clench, and—

It—

She—

Hornet broke as she came, rendered a gibbering, quivering, orgasming pet as a foreign egg was forced into her womb. Somewhere she was vaguely aware of the heaviness squatting inside of her, the way she should feel aghast, outraged. Another part of her feared as more bulbs began marching down the ovipositor, the eggs in Nosk’s stomach vanishing. Yet whenever Hornet came close to putting herself together, another egg plopped into her womb and she broke all over again. For long minutes, Nosk’s cave was filled with nonsensical, broken sighs and blissful sobs. The beast’s own stomach began to shrink as that of its prey soon began to strain against the silk holding her…

Finally, after the seventh and final egg was laid, Nosk withdrew happily. Hornet was left slumped against the floor. The silk had mostly yielded, but that was easily fixed. Nosk, enjoying its newfound lightness, deftly spun a new, more spacious cocoon about its prey, layering the silk as delicately as possible. After all, its new incubator—and her accompanying brood—needed to be kept secure and safe. It particularly enjoyed seeing her massive roundness rise and fall with every shallow, labored breath she took.

When Hornet was good and bound, Nosk hoisted her high from its chamber alongside so many of its past prey—then, it ranged out to hunt once again as Hornet was left dangling, twirling slightly, tugged down by the weight of something else’s children.

---

Deepnest’s princess had no idea how long it took to claw her way back to comprehension. It felt like a while—days, perhaps. She wasn’t sure. Finally back together, she blinked wearily as if waking from some long, primeval nightmare—

Only to gasp as she felt one of Nosk’s eggs tumble in her womb, knocking against the other. No, her nightmare had only just begun.

She tried to escape—as best she could, anyway. Pregnancy could be exhausting at the best of times, to say nothing when you found yourself suddenly incubating several offspring of a species who would eventually grow to tower over you. She would kick her legs, wriggle fruitlessly against her bonds, get nowhere—and tire after just a few minutes of activity, left panting miserably as she delicately swung back and forth on a strong silk line. It took her hours to get her strength back, which she spent dozing or simply existing as Nosk’s broodmother.

By the spirits, how could doing nothing be so exhausting? Hornet was trapped, firmly silked up and not going anywhere, but the eggs inside of her weighed her down, leaving her straining against her bonds even when she tried to rest. The sheer stretch of it was something she had to learn to get used to as well; it was omnipresent, never going away. Sometimes she could ignore it for hours at a time, but then she’d shift wrong or the silk would spin her just so and one of the eggs would roll on its side and she was left groaning as the strained feeling returned anew.

Nosk flitted in and out of the chamber, hunting and ranging. It fed her—at first Hornet had tried to refuse its gifts, only for Nosk to indicate it was well capable of forcing the issue if pushed. Hornet sullenly ate what it offered, mollified only slightly by the fact that none of the food it gave her seemed to be anything sentient. Lichens and unmoving fungi, mostly.

(She was well aware that was the dark secret practiced by so many of her fellow spiders, the cannibalism of other sentient bugs—but that was a line she herself was still loath to cross.)

She’d feared that Nosk would mate with her again, but now that she was stuffed full of young it seemed to lose interest in her as far as that went. It left her for hours at a time to potter around its lair or doze in a nook. Hornet quickly learned not to bother engaging with it. Whether the beast was dumb or the infection had thoroughly corrupted it, it was clearly incapable of understanding or returning speech. The realization that she had been bested and used as a broodmother to something that was downright feral was an extra lash of humiliation for her.

And so the days passed with Hornet despairing in the silk’s embrace, sometimes fruitlessly trying to escape, sometimes moaning as she felt the eggs inside of her shift. Ultimately, she had nothing to do but sleep, and eat, and hang…

…and grow.

She wasn’t quite sure how her body was nourishing Nosk’s young, but the eggs were clearly thriving inside of her. There were no big, visible surges, but Hornet was well aware that she was growing bigger. Her curve took on just a touch more heft to it with every day.

Soon the nest became old hat to Hornet. She’d studied every nook, every crumbling facet of the walls. She’d long memorized the faces of Nosk’s dried-out victims. Even Nosk itself could only offer so much to look at. Inevitably, she took to studying herself.

What she deduced both fascinated and frightened her. She was no longer the lithe, athletic acrobat who had ranged all over Hallownest. Even once the laying was done, she doubted she’d be able to go back to that life. Her body had taken on a decidedly maternal air… plump and round. Though the young were not truly hers, her body was working to catch up. She was taking after her mother.

Herrah the Beast… to think, it had been a daughter’s foolish, selfish desire to see the impossible that had caused all this. All Hornet had wanted was the chance to speak to the woman she had only ever known as a sleeping figure, just one chat from a daughter to her mother… And now this had happened, and Hornet was going to follow in her mother’s footsteps in more way than one.

---

Hornet had assumed that she would lay the eggs before they hatched. She was gravely mistaken.

Hatching day came on her like a storm and she woke screaming to a sudden flurry of activity. Her placid, sedentary lifestyle vanished in a hurricane of sensation. She could feel the eggs churning in her womb, the shells cracking as new forms emerged. One after the other, the eggs released their bounty.

Hornet keened madly with fear as her stomach suddenly became a field of bumps, squirming, motion. She felt the broken eggs settle down in her birthing canal and her body squeezed them free of its own accord.

Nosk was away and Hornet found herself terrified beyond belief that something was wrong that the infants’ other parent couldn’t help with. What if they got stuck? What if they tried to eat their way out of her?

When Nosk returned, it was with a flurry of pheromones. The imposter seemed pleased at the shell fragments underneath its hanging incubator and it sniffed at her churning stomach.

At least this seemed expected, then, but…

“H-how am I…” Hornet panted, her voice heady. The sensation of seven little creatures scurrying and pushing around inside of her, it was almost too much! She could feel them pouncing, skittering, fighting under the surface of her belly. It was as if she was a cage in a menagerie. “I c-can’t possibly endure…”

Nosk couldn’t understand, of course, and endure she did. For nine long days Hornet was left restless, moaning and sobbing from the feeling of the hatchlings’ ceaseless energy. They were anxious to get out of her, and sometimes she cried out sharply as one would bite at the inside of her womb with its barely-developed teeth, seemingly for no reason other than pique.

She was a mother, after a fashion, but it was impossible to forge any sort of bond with these things. She was more aware than ever that they were just parasites, using her womb as a place to securely grow and to leech nourishment from. They had no care for her, throwing themselves against her walls or attacking each other. Sleep was nearly impossible, snatched in hour-long spurts between a dozen hours of ceaseless activity. From the edge of the lair, Nosk would watch her tribulations with an air of satisfaction. The creature had grown more lethargic of late, dozing frequently, and reeked of odd pheromones.

Finally, the day came. Nosk hoisted her down and spread her on the dais, cutting open the silk. Hornet was finally free—and too heavy, too pregnant to move, completely at the mercy of Nosks’s spawn.

And the birthing began.

The first of Nosk’s children veritably threw itself at her birthing canal and Hornet nearly fainted. She tried to squeeze it out, pushing as hard as she could, but the thing scrabbled at her, trying to break free. Its head crested with a squeal and as Nosk plucked it out, Hornet heaved raggedly as another one got in line.

Finally, all seven spawn were out. They were like Nosk in miniature, tangles of black legs and eerie pale heads. Their other parent busied itself with them, and they seemed to recognize it and fell about it affectionately. They were active and energetic; quite possibly they would head out on their own soon. None of them, parent or children, seemed to care one inkling for the shaken, birth-weary weaver too weak to rise.

Hornet watched Nosk play with its children, resenting all of them, hatred burning in her heart—and then her breath caught. Nosk was wandering closer and she could spy its torso. It was bigger than it had been recently, and there were small specks inside of it. Nosk had been lethargic recently… and the pheromones…

Oh, gods. Nosk was already pregnant again.

Weak and trembling on the floor, Hornet eyed Nosk’s modestly swollen torso with misery. She was far, far too weak to escape now, and Nosk would soon catch her and tie her up again—and she had no doubt that more eggs waited in her future the moment they began to inconvenience Nosk.

So this was it. Her mother had given everything to bring Hornet into this world, only for Hornet’s weakness to see her reduced to this: the swollen, unwilling broodslave to some wild, feral creature.

Hornet began to weep as Nosk left its young and began to spin silk around her again. “I’m sorry, mother,” she said. “I failed you.” Nosk hoisted her up to wait her fate. She would doubtless be impregnated again soon. “I’m so, so sorry.”