Page 45 of Maneater

I pulled away from Raithe’s touch, swiping an angry tear from my cheek. “I see now why the folk of this realm call you a devil.”

“I am a god,” he said.

“A demigod,” I corrected.

“And still, a god no less,” he replied.

I let out a hoarse, bitter laugh. “Vanity remains one of your more prominent traits.”

“And brutality, one of yours,” Raithe replied almost admiringly.

“I’ve watched you through the years, my light.

Waiting for you to come. I had to be sure you were safe.

I never spoke a word of you. Not to anyone, not even to those who suspected you existed.

I let you live the life you chose until Torhiel demanded your return. ”

His voice held firm. “Your cries went unanswered by all but me. Maybe they were a song only I could hear, or a message only I was meant to understand. But I kept you safe, Odessa. Until you came back to me.”

“I’m not like you,” I said, shaking my head .

“Did you not nearly kill your father?” Raithe pressed.

His words sliced through me like a blade.

That truth was the hardest to face. It was the first time the darkness inside me had slipped free.

Wild, untamed, and beyond my control. Back then, the pain had been unbearable, so raw and consuming it cried out loud enough for Raithe to hear.

He granted me a fragment of his power, and I answered by summoning my ravens to defend me.

They were all I had.

I was young then. My powers had not yet matured, not like Raithe’s, honed by a life born and lived in Torhiel.

The birds I called tore my father apart.

Picked at him until there was little left.

Then Mag arrived. She found me in Raithe’s grip and pulled me back.

Wrenched me from Torhiel’s gaze. Healed my father.

Mended my mother. She kept me hidden for as long as she could.

“And what about the men in Brier Len? The ones who begged for mercy? The ones who stole from your companion ,” Raithe spat the word with bitterness.

“What did you do when they spoke of their wives, their children? When they offered the coin in their pockets or the clothes off their backs? What did you do then, Odessa?”

My lips pressed into a line, but they still trembled.

“I know what you felt when you killed them,” he said.

“We were tethered, our powers entwined, stronger together, more complete. I felt everything. The way you savored their fear, their screams. The rush that coursed through you as they fell, one by one. Your Wrath... gods, it was the most exquisite thing I’d ever seen.

I watched you ravage them, and I knew in that moment I would love you until the end of this earth. ”

Raithe stepped closer, gently drawing me into his arms.

“And then, silence. Years passed, and I heard nothing. Not your voice. Not your call. The absence nearly broke me. I was a madman, aching for even a whisper of you. I knew Torhiel still wanted you. She always had. Since you were a child. But you resisted her. Somehow, you resisted. Until you didn’t. ”

He looked into my eyes, searching, his hands trembling slightly at my waist.

“Finally, you called to me again. And this time, you asked for more than you ever had before. You drank from me with hunger, and I know you felt it too. That rightness, that terrifying perfection between us. You killed hundreds in the name of Vengeance. You were fury incarnate. And I fell to my knees in awe of you.”

He paused, voice thick with something between reverence and desperation. “I loved you more than I thought myself capable. And I know you loved me too. I felt it, in the way our powers fused, in the way you opened to me. We are meant for one another, Odessa. And I will always choose you.”

My mouth opened wordlessly, until finally, I said, “I don’t love you, Raithe.”

His expression twisted with pain, but still, he drew me closer.

“You will,” he murmured.

I pulled away, slipping free from his arms.

“No.” My eyes hardened. “I will never love again. To love is to suffer. To love is to lose yourself. To love is to be shattered. And I will never let myself break again.”

The pain in my chest worsened. The longer I stayed in Torhiel, the more my body faltered. The infection was spreading, and I could feel it in every heartbeat. If I wasn’t treated soon, I was going to die.

Raithe’s concern grew heavier by the chime, until it pressed on me like a weight I couldn’t escape.

“We need to go, Odessa,” he said sternly. “Please. Torhiel has patience, but even that runs thin. You have to decide. ”

“I’m not ready,” I said, shaking my head. “I don’t know what to do.”

“Yes, you do,” he replied. “Torhiel won’t allow you to heal because you’re not in the mortal realm anymore. Your wound is mortal. And I can’t help you this time. You’re rejecting your birthright, your divinity.”

He stepped forward, a flash of desperation in his eyes.

“Please, Odessa. I need you to live. You’ve felt it for years, that divide within you.

The pull between mortal and immortal, between what you were raised to be and what you were born to become.

I’ve lived it. I know what it means to be torn apart.

And I made my choice when Torhiel offered it. Now it’s your turn.”

My mother’s words echoed in my mind, faint, but sharp as ever: child of pain, woman of wrath.

She’d known this day would come. She’d fallen with child with a god.

With the god of Wrath himself. But how had we ended up in Brier Len?

How had she convinced my mortal father that I was his?

My mother was born in Torhiel, I knew that.

But could mortals even live here? Could they survive among gods and demigods?

Torhiel was known as the land of devils, so why had she been here at all?

“I don’t know what I want,” I said quietly.

“I’ve seen you wield your power,” Raithe said with conviction.

“I’ve watched your Wrath take shape, and in all its ruin, I saw beauty.

This choice will come just as easily. I knew the moment you crossed into our realm that it was you.

You didn’t come to the Ossirae, even when it called for you, but I found you.

At death’s edge. Fate brought us together again, Odessa. Let me bring you to it.”

His words only caused my confusion to grow. “What do you mean? The Ossirae?”

“Every demigod is drawn to the Ossirae. It’s the tree of gods,” Raithe answered, voice tight with urgency.

“Every tree in Torhiel branches from it. Its nectar sustains us. It’s our food, our lifeblood.

These trees only carry a fraction of the Ossirae’s true power.

That’s why you feel relief when you drink the sap, but it won’t heal a mortal wound. ”

He stepped closer, almost pleading, “You must go to it, Odessa. It’s the only way.”

“What did you do when it called to you?” My voice was even as I ignored the strain in his.

“I drank from it,” Raithe said, before falling silent for a moment. “The Ossirae’s sap is both a gift and a test. If your blood accepts it, your power will root itself in something eternal. But if it finds you undeserving, it will kill you. You’ll die.”

“So I could die,” I repeated.

“You won’t.” Raithe’s voice was firm. “I don’t believe anything can stop you, except yourself. Not even the Ossirae.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I’ve watched hundreds take the sap,” Raithe’s pitch sharpened.

“Most survive. Those who didn’t either lacked the strength of will or their bloodline was too thin.

They were children of minor gods, with barely a thread of divinity in them.

But you,” his gaze locked with mine, “you were born of Wrath. One of the oldest and most powerful gods in this realm. Wrath is fed by humanity itself. As long as mortals feel rage, Wrath endures.”

Something dark stirred behind his eyes. “And so will you, Odessa. When you drink from the Ossirae, you won’t die. You’ll rise.”