Page 44 of Soulmarked

I wanted to brush it off, to maintain the professional distance that had kept me alive this long. But the magic had taken more than just energy; it had stripped away some of my usualdefenses. “Wouldn't have needed saving if I'd spotted those things sooner. Should've known they weren't normal monsters.”

“Hey.” His hand tightened on my arm, forcing me to meet his gaze. “We're both still breathing. That counts as a win in my book.”

Something in his expression made my chest tight in ways that had nothing to do with magic drain. This close, I could see the flecks of color in his eyes, the way tension and concern warred in the set of his jaw. He was still holding onto me, though I wasn't swaying anymore.

“You're different,” I found myself saying, blame it on blood loss and magical exhaustion. “From other feds. From most hunters too.”

A small smile touched his lips. “Is that a compliment?”

“Don't push your luck, Sasquatch.” But there was no heat in it. We were both running on empty, the adrenaline crash hitting as the danger faded. And maybe that's why I didn't pull away when he shifted closer, ostensibly to check the wound in my side.

“We need to get you patched up,” he said, professional mask sliding back into place. But something had changed between us.

“Know any good doctors who don't ask questions about magical exhaustion?”

“Can you run?”

“Guess we'll find out. Not my first rodeo with something trying to gut me.”

He huffed out something that might have been a laugh, adjusting his hold to better support my weight. “You're impossible, you know that?”

“Part of my charm. Men dig it.”

We found shelter in an abandoned storefront, the kind of place that had probably seen its share of urban decay even before the supernatural world started bleeding through. Outside, the street was silent except for distant sirens and theever-present hum of city life. Inside, dust motes danced in what little moonlight filtered through boarded windows.

Cade pushed me onto a wooden crate that creaked ominously under my weight. Before I could protest, he was pressing something against my side, fabric torn from his own shirt, I realized belatedly. The gesture shouldn't have meant anything. Shouldn't have made my chest tight in ways that had nothing to do with injury.

“Hold still,” he muttered, completely focused on stemming the blood flow. “You're losing too much blood.”

I exhaled sharply as he applied pressure. It hurt, of course it hurt. But that wasn't what was making it hard to breathe. It was this. Cade, close enough that I could feel the heat radiating off him. His hands steady and sure as they worked, face set in lines of concentration that somehow made him look younger and older at the same time.

“Ye keep starin' at me like that, Cross,” I managed, falling back on humor like armor, “I might think ye care.”

He rolled his eyes, but his hands remained gentle as he checked the wound's edges. “I care about keeping my partner alive.”

Partner.

The word settled in my chest like a weight, like something I couldn't afford to examine too closely. Partner meant trust. Partner meant someone to watch your back, someone to lose, someone to mourn. I'd been down that road before. The end of it was always written in blood.

“Didn't sign up for a partner,” I said, but the words lacked their usual edge.

“Yeah?” His fingers brushed against my ribs as he secured the makeshift bandage, and I pretended not to notice how my skin burned at the contact. “Well, I didn't sign up for magic-using Irish hunters with a death wish, so I guess we're both adjusting our expectations.”

He finished tying off the bandage and straightened, but didn't step back. Our eyes met, and something electric crackled in the space between us. We were still at odds, still too different, too damaged, too set in our ways to ever really trust each other. But something was shifting, like tectonic plates grinding beneath the surface of what we pretended this was.

I huffed out a breath, needing to break the tension before it broke me. “So. We gonna talk about how I saved our asses with magic, or...”

“Later.” He finally moved back, and I told myself I didn't miss the proximity. “For now? We need a new plan. Those things will be hunting us, and I'm betting they're better at it than most predators.”

“Yeah, whatever these shapeshifters are, they're clever bastards.” I smirked, despite the situation and the way my side throbbed with every heartbeat. “And maybe we need a drink while we plan. I know a place that doesn't water down the whiskey...”

“You're impossible.” But there was something almost fond in his exasperation, something that made warning bells ring in the back of my mind.

I just grinned, leaning back against the wall. “That's what they all say.”

The silence that followed was comfortable in ways it shouldn't have been.

“Your magic,” Cade said finally, voice carefully neutral. “That's not standard hunter training.”

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