Page 52 of Maneater

Black tears streamed from my eyes, thick and heady. They flowed endlessly, as if pulled from something deep and storm-laden. The covenant between Raithe and the mortal had been sealed, bound to hold until their promise had run its course. But with it, came the truth of what she had bargained for.

She wanted a man dead.

The woman wasn’t much older than I had been when I was mortal, yet her suffering had taken a different shape. Life had worn her down, not with a single blow, but with years of unbroken cruelty.

Even so, I was now a god, and the virtues of humanity no longer belonged to me.

That was the nature of divinity. There was no morality, no compass pointing to right or wrong.

Justice and truth no longer held weight.

Only Wrath mattered. Only the bargains struck between gods and mortals carried meaning.

My ossiraen, and the power I commanded through it, were all that held significance.

To say channeling my Wrath was effortless would be untrue, to say it was instinctual would be closer. Raithe had already given the mortal a taste of his Vengeance, the bond forming between them coming to pass. I, however, had not yet fully offered her my Wrath.

Raithe had told me that every demigod’s power manifests differently.

That each binding, each bargain, takes its own form.

Some methods are common, others rare. His, he said, was traditional.

A blood-pact, where god and mortal mix their blood.

Only through that ritual could his Vengeance be shared and drawn from the one who made the promise. Only then could he take what was owed.

But mine, mine was different. I could feel it.

I hadn’t yet seen how my Wrath would take shape with mortals or how it would be bound, but I could feel it pulsing inside me instinctively.

Like the way a creature knows how to breathe or flee or strike without ever being taught. It wasn’t something I had to learn.

Once the tears began, I knew what had to follow. They slid down my cheeks in thick, inky trails. Dark as obsidian, and heavy with the weight of what was to come.

I approached the woman again, and I could see the tremor in her body before I met her face.

Fear was written across it. In that moment, I understood what she saw.

My reflection in the river did not withhold the truth: I looked exactly as I was meant to.

Frightening, wrathful, divine. Yet the mortal was mistaken to fear me.

There was no cruelty here, no malice behind my fury.

Only Wrath to give, and a bargain that demanded it.

I stepped closer, closing the gap until only a pace separated us. Her breath caught. Though panic twisted her features, she sank to her knees, as if some part of her understood what awaited. Her bloodied hands trembled as they came together in a pleading clasp.

“Please,” she begged, caught between desperation and awe.

I looked down at her, obsidian tears still falling, dotting the earth like oil spilled from something hallowed.

I wiped one from my cheek with the pad of my finger.

There was no pity in me. No comfort to offer.

Only power. Anticipation coiled beneath my skin.

The woman’s eyes lifted, locking onto the finger I now held inches from her lips.

“I will grant you my Wrath,” I said quietly. “If I am given what is owed.”

Her eyes flicked to the tear-stained fingertip. Then, slowly, without hesitation, she parted her lips.

A faint smile ghosted my lips as I pressed my finger to her tongue, streaking it with black. I stepped back, watching as she closed her lips around the taste, her eyes fluttering shut as she swallowed.

My Wrath surged to life, pulsing with energy as it bound itself to its first mortal bargain. The rush was electrifying and fierce, nearly stealing my breath and sending a shiver through me. The pact was sealed, the power awakened.

Now, it only needed to be used.

Raithe and I moved behind the woman like shadows in the night.

Now bound to her, we shared her senses, felt her pain, and hungered for the Vengeance and Wrath she carried.

There was nothing like it. The Wrath I drew from her was intoxicating, almost overpowering.

It could bring me to my knees if I let it.

Yet, it felt utterly right, as natural as the sun rising or setting.

I understood then why Raithe’s ossiraen was so vast. Even I knew this pact was far from ordinary.

There was no question that bargains like these were rare and heavy with consequence.

Gods might form divine contracts with mortals as easily as breathing, but for a pact this profound, it took a god of equal power to uphold it.

Death was no trivial matter, even for the immortal. It could come for us all.

The price the mortal owed was her own life. A death for a death. Yet in her soul, there was no hesitation, no regret. Only anger, sorrow, grief, and violence .

The woman who had only moments before seemed so small and fragile now walked with steel. A cloak hung around her, hiding her form, and she stopped at the corner just across from a brothel. Raithe and I waited silently, watching as the mortal kept her eyes fixed on the entrance.

The night was growing late, and for a chime, we stood with her as she watched men, young and old, stumble in and out of the brothel’s doors.

After what seemed to be the hundredth man, the woman straightened without warning.

Her anger surged through me viscerally that it blurred my vision.

But I was tethered to her now, and neither she nor Raithe made a move.

The man who stepped out next was older, with sallow skin and a stomach that pushed out over his belt.

The hair on his head had thinned to a patchy ring near the base of his skull.

His tunic hung crooked and loose, stained with dried ale.

The lamplight caught the flush in his cheeks and the sag of his jaw as he passed.

He stumbled on one of his boots, caught himself, and then kept walking, completely unaware.

The woman didn’t move. She stayed still, her body frozen.

But as soon as the man wandered farther down the street, she began to follow.

Wherever he went, she mirrored his steps.

Always in the shadows, never too close, never too far.

It was a careful dance. A slow and silent game of cat and mouse. But like all things, it came to an end.

The man staggered into another alley and drifted toward a forgotten corner. He belched loudly, then began mumbling a tune, words slurred and stumbling. Turning to face a stone wall, he clumsily pulled down his trousers and began to urinate on the cobblestones.

Then suddenly, something changed. I could feel the divinity rising through Raithe, powerful and almost chilling, as if the ground itself might crack beneath us. A transformation was taking place, subtle enough that I barely noticed it at first. It was a fusion of soul, mind, and body .

There was Raithe. There was me. And there was the mortal.

Slowly, we became one.

I saw the man in front of us through Raithe’s eyes.

I felt the weight of retribution through the mortal’s body.

I sensed my own Wrath from within, colored by my own perspective.

At first, the blending of our emotions and souls felt strange.

It felt unfamiliar. But the unease faded quickly, replaced by something steadfast and whole.

We moved together toward the man, our boots clicking loud against the cobblestones. The sound grew until he finally turned, irritation tightening his brow.

“Who’s there?” he demanded, yanking up his trousers, as if we had violated some unspoken code of decency. He turned fully now, unbalanced, raising a trembling hand to point. “Show yourself!”

The woman’s fury surged white-hot. She stepped out from the shadows, her figure emerging at last. The face she wore was expressionless, carved from stone, but there was revulsion that radiated from her like heat.

“You,” the man slurred, pushing off the wall and staggering toward her. His eyes narrowed. “Do I know you?”

The woman’s expression burned with rage. I felt it rise within her, ready to break free. Her anger stretched, growing and reaching beyond its limits. And it called to me then. It sought out the demigoddess of Wrath, begging for more. More power, more fury, more outrage.

For me, the sensation of it was heavenly.

My power answered, rising eagerly in response to her plea. I gave her a fragment of my divinity, a sliver of my Wrath. Her heart pounded with hate as she tilted her head and stared him down. It was the kind of look that promised ruin.

“Don’t you remember?” Her voice echoed down the alleyway.

“Huh?” The man squinted, his expression twisting in confusion. “What in the gods’ name are you spewing on about? ”

She stepped forward slowly, just the way I would have, and her voice had a hollow edge to it. “You really don’t remember?”

“Say what you came to say,” he slurred. “Or piss off. I’ve no coin for beggars or the plague-ridden.”

“Look at me.” Her tone sharpened. “Look at me and tell me you remember.”

The man grunted, “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. This is your last warning, get out of my sight.”

My Wrath surged as the woman took another step, closing the gap between them.

The man’s nostrils flared as he shouted, “I said get lost, you hear me?”

When she didn’t, the man whipped around awkwardly and swung at her, aiming for her jaw.

But the punch he threw was sloppy, and the woman sidestepped it easily, circling behind him.

He scowled as he missed, and threw another wild swing.

Again, it hit nothing. When it missed, the woman clicked her tongue in a taunting manner.

The sound of it seemed to push him over the edge, and with a growl, the man charged at her.

Just as he lunged, the woman’s arm shot out.

It locked around his throat, elbow ramrod straight.

A strangled grunt slipped from his lips, followed by a flicker of disbelief in his eyes.

I could feel her Wrath clawing through me, demanding more, and I gave it freely.

She believed it was hers by right, and in that moment, I allowed it to be.

Her fury was absolute, elemental, and I felt there was nothing in the world more worthy than surrendering my own rage to fuel hers.

My Wrath. My rage. My power.

“I said,” she seethed, low and feral, “look at my face.”

He gargled, throat still caught in her vice-like grip.

He stood a full foot taller, but it didn’t matter.

Her hold was something more than human. It was unnatural.

It was god-like. His arms flailed, fists swinging wildly, but they never quite reached her.

Eventually, he grasped her wrist, desperate, clawing, trying to pry himself loose.

But her grip was immovable. Nothing he did made her flinch, not even a fraction.

Then his panic bloomed. His eyes widened, not with anger now, but with raw, frozen fear. He let out a sound that was high and broken. A half-whimper. Half-scream.

I felt Raithe’s Vengeance rise, as if the woman herself were sunlight to his ossiraen, blossoming beneath her glare. His power swelled into something monstrous, into something beyond comprehension. And I stood in awe of him. I could’ve sunk to my knees in worship if we all weren’t bonded as one.

“Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten,” she snarled. “Or I’ll make you remember.”

With a single thrust, she slammed the man back. His spine struck the alley wall with a sickening crack.

“A week ago, you visited the very brothel you just stumbled out of, didn’t you?

” Her tone turned cold, conversational, as if recounting an errand.

“You paid for a girl. Any girl. You said, ‘I don’t care which whore you give me, just make sure she has brown hair.’ And the Madame gave you exactly that. ”

She paused, voice dropping to a quiet, simmering rhythm.

“But you didn’t stop there. No, you got greedy. Selfish. You took more than what you paid for. So tell me, what did you do?”

Her grip loosened on his neck just slightly. An invitation to speak. But the man only thrashed his head from side to side, whether in denial or protest, it was hard to tell.

“Picture my face,” she said, voice like venom. “But younger. Softer. Eyes a shade darker than mine. And a voice so sweet even sugar itself couldn’t be made of it.” Then a sad smile ghosted her face. “Do I look familiar now?”

He kept shaking his head frantically. But something in his eyes shifted. A clarity crept in, sobriety slicing through panic. I recognized that look. It was recollection .

“You paid for her,” she said, voice flat. “But then you did something awful. Something worse. Something wrong.”

“No,” the man cried out, voice ragged with terror. “A—a devil! You’ve come back to kill me!”

“So you do remember,” the woman said, voice as vicious as it was victorious. Tilting her head mockingly, her lips formed a pout. “It’s a shame, really, with you being both right and wrong. I’m no devil risen from the dead, but I have come to kill you.”

“Help!” he screamed gutturally. “Help me! By the gods, help me! H?—”

His voice choked off as her grip closed again.

“Her name was Enid,” she continued quietly. “She was my sister.” Her eyes were wet, but her words sounded hollow. “And when you were done with her, you killed her.” She leaned in, her face inches from his. “Now, you’re going to die the way she did.”

The man tried to scream. He tried to fight.

But the woman held the strength of two gods in her veins.

Both of her hands were locked around his throat, pinning him harder against the alley wall.

The sheer force of her Wrath and Vengeance was blinding, but it was the only thing keeping her from shattering.

Raithe and I poured more of our divinity into her, feeding the bargain that bound us. It was ravenous, that pact. It demanded everything. And nothing else mattered but the terms.

Her thoughts flooded into me relentlessly. They crashed through my mind in waves of pain and grief, guilt and fury, sorrow deep enough to drown in. So much of it was unspoken, shards of emotion too raw for words.

Why did you kill her?

I couldn’t protect her.

It should have been me.

I’ll make you suffer like she did.

I have nothing without her .

I miss her.

I will make it right.

I will see her again.

Each thought hit like a drumbeat of a heart too broken to stop. And still, she held on, because Vengeance and Wrath was all she had left.