Page 49 of Maneater

“Your lifeforce will fade without the offerings mortals bring,” Raithe explained. “You have to make divine bargains, Odessa. That’s what will feed your ossiraen, what will keep your power alive.”

“And how does one begin to do that?” I asked, letting the breeze brush across my cheeks as I stared into the distance.

We were no longer in the Ossarith. We had passed through the iron gates and returned to the forest of Torhiel. But the world looked different now, changed by the lens of my newfound divinity. Everything shimmered with a silver sheen, though colors still bled through vibrantly.

Raithe’s eyes had settled into a steady gold, no longer flecked with amber.

He was still beautiful. Still perfect. Still otherworldly.

But I knew that would change when we crossed into the mortal realm.

His gaze would turn sharp again, yellow as a predator’s.

His beauty would shift into something more haunting than holy.

Would I change too? Was that how mortals saw me when Wrath took hold? When I saw my reflection in the still water, I saw her. Odessa, hair black as midnight, cheeks stained with onyx tears. A wraith. A revenant. A daughter of divine rage.

“You’ll hear them,” Raithe continued on.

“The prayers. The pleading.” He looked out at the setting sun beside me.

“Eventually, their voices will come. You’ll learn to drown them out, or focus on one.

Being a demigod of Vengeance, I hear too many to count.

I only answer the ones who offer something valuable enough to summon me.

And you, a daughter of Wrath, will have to make those same choices. ”

“Will you help me?” I asked. “I don’t know where to start.”

“Always,” he said with a small smile. “In time. But for now, focus on what you’ve become. Your soul has endured an extensive transformation. It’s enough, for now, that you simply exist.”

“Are there others, Raithe?” I turned to him. “Others like me? Other demigods of Wrath.”

He fell silent, and I saw it in his eyes, something unspoken, something he was holding back.

“I’d like to know,” I insisted, more bold this time. “Please.”

“There were others,” Raithe answered at last. “Only a few. The Ossirae is far more selective when it comes to the offspring of the greater gods. Their children carry immense potential. For glory, yes, but also for devastation. The scales of fate tend to balance such extremes.”

“You said were,” I pointed out. “Past tense. What happened to them?”

He sighed. “We’re immortal, Odessa. But that doesn’t mean we’re invincible.”

I turned to him, taken aback. “You mean… we can die?”

“The true gods themselves cannot. Even if they fall, they are reborn. Their ossiraen never fades, never withers. But us halflings, we aren’t afforded that same protection. If the wound is deep enough, the strike true enough, we die. Divinity or not.”

He paused, as if choosing his next words carefully.

“The other demigods of Wrath were powerful. Wrath gives power, more than most emotions. But it’s also volatile.

It’s a fire that doesn’t discriminate. Mortals feel it, demigods are born of it.

And it demands to be used. Power like that, unchecked and untempered, is dangerous.

” He gave me a serious look. “The others made deals too heavy to carry. Took on burdens they couldn’t bear. And in the end, they paid the price.”

“I… I didn’t know.”

“I am careful with my Vengeance,” Raithe advised, “and you must learn to be with your Wrath. If your ossiraen is weakened, even a mortal blade could end your life.”

“Then why?” I asked, searching his face. “Why did you share your power with me? Years ago, and now. Doesn’t that burden you?”

Raithe inclined his head. “As I told you, Odessa, no bargain, no pact, no divine contract can ever exist between us. Our nature won’t allow it. Most gods never share their power. I’m among the rare few who do, and even then, it’s not without risk.”

Raithe turned to me, taking my hand in his. His thumb moved over my knuckles.

“When I offer you my Vengeance, I open myself to you. And you, in turn, could draw too deeply. Enough to weaken me, enough to dim my ossiraen. But even knowing that,” he said quietly, “I’d offer it to you willingly. Every time.”

Raithe’s voice dropped lower, to something more intimate. “We’re not like others. You’ve felt it. Seen it. Both in flesh and in power. If only you could’ve heard the sound your soul made when you cried out from Brier Len. It called to me, sang to me. A song only I could hear. And I came.”

He looked down at our joined hands. “And if you ever called again, Odessa, I would come. Again and again. The way our divinity binds, it’s not just rare. It’s sacred.”

He met my eyes once more. “In time, you’ll understand.”

I slowly drew my hands from his.

There was so much between us that was tangled and unresolved.

I owed Raithe more than I could ever say.

He had seen me undone. At my weakest, my most shattered, and still, he had stood by me.

After Falhurst, it was his hand that pulled me from the wreckage.

It was he who led me toward the Ossirae, toward something greater.

For that, I would always carry a piece of gratitude within me.

“I can’t, Raithe,” I confessed, shaking my head slowly.

He didn’t let go. His hands stayed firm around mine, his golden eyes dark with conviction.

Strands of black hair fell across his brow, his gaze burning with want and something far more dangerous.

Even I couldn’t ignore the spark that flared in my chest under that look.

It was the gaze of a god who would set the world ablaze for me if I only asked.

My heart pounded loud enough, I was sure, that he could hear it over the hush of the forest.

“Odessa…” His voice strained with wanting. “You and I…”

There was truth in his voice, so raw and unguarded it landed like a strike to the center of me.

My breath caught as he gently pulled me closer, our faces separated by little more than a breath.

His eyes searched mine, gold gleaming against black, looking for something I wasn’t sure I could give.

Beneath all the layers of armor I’d built, a single thought slipped through: What if?

What if there was something real in this?

In him? But before it could root, I pushed it away.

No. Not again.

I was a god now, and everything I felt ran deeper than before.

That included the part of me that craved touch, the collision of skin and lips, of heat and need.

Raithe’s hand rose, brushing a strand of hair from my face before resting against my neck, his touch painfully gentle.

His gaze flitted down to my lips, and I felt the hitch in his breath as if it were my own.

My heart stuttered in my chest wildly.

He leaned in, lips just a brush from mine, waiting. Not taking, not assuming, just waiting for the smallest sign that I wanted this too. But I gave him nothing .

The light in his eyes flickered, the hope behind them turning fragile, then dimming away altogether. Slowly, he drew back, his hand falling away from my skin, and with it went all his warmth, leaving me standing in the chill that followed.

His face shifted, not with anger or sorrow, but into something still and hollow, like stone.

His golden eyes dulled, and the walls I’d let fall between us rose again.

Something inside me twisted and a part of me wanted to close the distance.

To reach for him. To take away whatever pain I’d just carved into his soul. But I knew the truth.

I was the source of his pain, and I couldn’t give him what he wanted from me.

Whatever he felt between us had been nurtured over years, shaped by time and memory, while I had only truly known him for a fleeting moment in comparison.

Yes, we had shared power, our divinity intertwined in ways only we could understand, but my heart remained closed.

The walls I’d built around it weren’t accidental, they were forged through moments of pain, of betrayal and fear.

And though love might be the greater emotion, it was the heartbreak that terrified me most.

So I let Raithe walk away. I watched his back as he disappeared into the trees, carrying with him a kind of love I didn’t know how to believe in.