Page 53 of Maneater

“How do you feel?” Raithe asked. His eyes searched mine for an honest answer.

We sat beneath the moonlight, surrounded by the thick, living green of Torhiel’s forest. Somehow, after the bargain was completed, we found ourselves back here. How that happened, I still couldn’t explain.

“I feel good,” I replied. It wasn’t a lie. But it wasn’t the whole truth either. I felt incredible, riding the high of my first mortal bargain. It was something I was almost afraid to come down from.

“Do you understand now?” Raithe challenged. “That you are many things, but fragile isn’t one of them.”

I let his words pass without comment, instead asking, “I wanted to ask you something.”

Raithe tilted his head, brow arching. “What is it?”

“Why do you let people believe you’re a devil?” I questioned. “Back there, with the mortal, she accused you of being one, and you didn’t deny it. You even said the gods had ignored her prayers. But you truly are a god. So why pretend?”

Raithe fell silent, then said, “Because it’s easier. ”

His eyes drifted away. “If I were tied to something bright, like Love, Hope, or Compassion, it would be easier to earn trust. Mortals welcome greater gods like that. They make room for them in their prayers, in their hearts. But Vengeance, Vengeance is different. It’s not a comfort.

It’s not light. It doesn’t inspire temples or lullabies.

It’s raw. It’s ruthless. It’s born from pain.

“When mortals cry out for Vengeance, it comes from the darkest places inside them. They don’t want redemption.

They want retribution. And that doesn’t fit the picture they’ve painted of their gods.

Gods are meant to be merciful. Forgiving.

Holy. They expect gods to save, and they don’t know what to do with one who answers the call for blood. ”

His eyes flicked to mine. “Mortals have fragile minds. They cling to hope, to the idea that the gods are benevolent, that their prayers are heard with kindness. But when those prayers go unanswered, when their pain deepens, they no longer believe it’s the gods who are listening.

They start to think it must be something darker.

They twist it into something monstrous. A demon. A spirit. A devil.”

He let out a slow breath. “So I let them believe the story they’re already telling themselves.

If they see a devil, I become one. It makes the pact easier.

Cleaner. And more importantly, it feeds my ossiraen.

I need true bargains, steeped in the root of Vengeance.

That’s what keeps me tethered to this world. Without them, I’ll fade.”

Raithe’s eyes found mine. “So yes, I bend the truth, Odessa. But if I let them believe the lie they’re already ready to hear, they listen. And they choose Vengeance. That’s all I need.”

Silence lingered as his words sank deep.

“I understand, Raithe,” I murmured at last as I met the steady burn of his golden eyes. “I would’ve done the same. Better to be called a devil than mistaken for a savior.”

I turned my face to the sky and closed my eyes, letting the silence settle .

“I won’t be seen as anyone’s salvation,” I pledged. “I’ll be their reckoning.”

Only the sounds of the night filled my ears. The voices of Wrath hadn’t come for me yet. I wondered if Raithe’s song was still keeping them at bay. Even his breathing, once steady beside me, had faded into nothing.

I was still leaning back on my forearms, face turned toward the stars when I cracked my eyes open to glance at him. That’s when I saw that look again. A look I knew it all too well. It only meant one thing.

“Odessa,” Raithe’s voice was barely audible, almost broken.

I sat up slowly and shook my head, whispering, “I can’t, Raithe.”

The moonlight washed over his face, and still, it was the most achingly beautiful thing I’d ever seen.

Emotion swelled inside me, conflicting. There was so much unspoken, too much to name.

I remembered the way he’d rested his forehead against my own earlier, the way his power had tangled with mine, how it had made me feel whole.

I remembered wanting to fall to my knees beneath the sheer force of him.

But my heart and my mind, they wouldn’t separate.

I couldn’t tell one from the other anymore.

Raithe moved closer. His eyes locked on mine, searching, pleading for something I couldn’t give. He didn’t stop until he was right in front of me. Slowly, he reached up and cupped my cheek. His touch burned, but it sent a shiver through my spine.

“Odessa,” he breathed again.

His thumb brushed gently against my skin, and in his eyes, I saw a vulnerability so raw, so open, it was almost too much to bear.

I didn’t pull away, but I repeated barely louder than before, “I can’t, Raithe.”

“Tell me to stop, and I will.” He leaned in until his lips hovered just above mine.

“I—” I swallowed, my voice catching. “I can’t.”

He didn’t close the distance, but I could feel the heat of his breath, the shape of his words against my skin. “Tell me to stop, Odessa,” he said one last time.

I stayed still. Silent.

Then he kissed me.

His lips were warm and soft, like silk against skin, but behind the gentleness, there was a hunger coiled tight, waiting to unloose. He pulled me in, one hand sliding to my waist, grounding me. And before I could stop myself, I was kissing him back.

The walls I kept locked away inside me didn’t fall, but for a moment, I needed to be seen, to be touched, to be known. And somehow, Raithe had always done all of that without asking me to break.

So I kissed him harder. Breathlessly, achingly. My hands searched for him, moving over his shoulders, across his chest, into his hair. I kissed him like I needed him to remember it. Like I couldn’t breathe without it.

Something in him shifted, lightening and brightening, like I had drawn something in him to the surface.

He wrapped his arms around me and gently laid me down against the forest floor, hovering above, never breaking the connection.

His hand cupped my face as he kissed me again, like I was the only thing that existed.

Then he paused, pulling away just long enough to look at me. His molten-gold eyes burned with something deep, something real, and I couldn’t bear it. I grabbed him by the tunic and pulled him back to me, kissing him again, not wanting to let go.

But Raithe pulled back again, and the look on his face etched itself into me. It was something I knew I’d never forget. He looked every bit the demigod of Vengeance, carved from fire and fury, except for one thing. All except for his eyes.

In them, I saw his heart.

He was offering it to me. He was trusting me to hold it, to protect it. He was waiting. Hoping. For something he’d held onto for years.

He was waiting for me .

And I almost reached for him. I almost let the walls around me fall, the ones I’d built brick by brick to keep myself safe. In that moment, I nearly believed I could be what he needed. That I could be enough.

But then I remembered why the walls were there in the first place.

I wasn’t enough. I never had been.

Raithe would see that eventually. And when he did, I wouldn’t survive what was left of me.

Panic surged through me, and I tore away from him.

Whatever I felt for Raithe, I forced it down and buried it deep, like I always did.

I scrambled out from beneath him, hands slipping against the moss as I pushed myself free.

My breaths came in sharp, uneven gasps. Tears spilled down my cheeks before I could stop them.

And I ran straight for the trees, not daring to look back.

Raithe had asked me to stay. And I chose to run.

I was a coward.

A broken sound escaped my throat, something between a sob and a scream. It didn’t even begin to match the weight of what I felt inside.

The only thought echoed through my mind, over and over was:

I am not enough. I am not enough. I am not enough.

Suddenly, a hand yanked my arm back and I cried out. Fingers closed tight around my wrist, pulling hard to spin me around. And there he was.

Raithe.

His face was thunderous, fury written in every line. The image of it made me go pale.

“No,” he seethed through gritted teeth. “I know what you’re doing, Odessa, and I won’t let you do it. Not again.”

His voice shook. “I know the things you tell yourself. I know you think you hate yourself. That you’re not enough.

But that isn’t the truth. It never was.” His eyes burned as he spoke.

“You believe you have to be punished for the things that have happened to you. You push away anyone who cares because the only person you’ve ever been able to rely on is yourself.

And even then, you don’t give yourself the dignity you deserve. ”

He stepped closer, his voice rising, the truth pouring out.

“You sit in your suffering like it’s armor.

You wear it because letting go of it, letting someone in, feels wrong.

You think that if you just hurt enough, if you stay alone long enough, maybe it’ll all make sense.

Maybe it’ll feel deserved. But I’m not going to let you keep doing this. I won’t watch yourself go numb.”

Raithe’s expression was severe as he pulled me closer.

“You are a demigoddess of Wrath, and you are wrong if you think you’ve always been alone.

I’ve been here, Odessa. From the moment I was able, I stayed.

I watched you. I felt you. I heard you, even from Torhiel.

When you were hurting, I hurt. When you went hollow, so did I.

“I saw the potential in you when we were just children.

I saw what you were capable of and it left me in awe.

There was nothing in the world that could have kept me from looking at you.

You were beauty and death and violence, all at once.

I have seen you, truly seen you, not as the things that happened to you, but as yourself.

And I have loved every piece of you. Every part that shattered, every part you stitched back together.

Because you are not weak. You are not lost. You held it together, even when you were close to falling apart.

“You’ve been so afraid of breaking again that you don’t even see that you’ve already survived it.

You’re whole. It’s me that’s fragmented.

And you’re the only one who’s ever made me feel anything close to intact again.

I truly meant it when I said I couldn’t understand how you resisted Torhiel’s call this long.

Your first mortal bargain was a death bargain and you didn’t falter.

Not once. You are terrifying. And brilliant.

And unlike anyone I’ve ever met. You’re one of the strongest demigods I’ve ever seen, maybe the strongest Wrath has ever created. ”

Raithe’s voice cracked. “So tell me, how could I resist wanting you to become mine? You will always be enough for me, Odessa. You always have been. ”

My tears wouldn’t stop. They weren’t tears of Wrath, they were mine.

Tears from years of aching and emptiness.

Tears from carrying the weight of powerlessness, of responsibility, of expectations I never asked for.

I had only been a girl when it all began.

And I couldn’t help but wonder, if I hadn’t been filled with so much darkness, could I have become something else? Something softer. Something lovely.

With Raithe, I never had to pretend. He didn’t try to fix me or reach for something I couldn’t give. He took what I offered and held it gently. He believed in me when I couldn’t believe in myself. And still, he waited for me. He always would.

I met his golden gaze through the blur of my tears, lips trembling as I tried to speak. But I didn’t have to. Raithe already knew, he always knew. I never needed to explain anything.

His face folded, crumbling under the weight of it all. “Odessa,” he said, his voice like something breaking open. His arms spread wide for me.

I didn’t think. I just ran to him, crashing into his chest, because I knew he would catch me. He always did. He held me like I mattered, like nothing else in the world existed but keeping me together. I buried myself in him and sobbed.

Raithe wrapped his arms around me, pressed his lips to my hair, and whispered, “My light. My heart. My love.”