Chapter 1
The hunt wasn’t supposed to be messy.
One witch. Low-level hexes. Some back-alley rituals and dead cats.
Easy job.
Dean had gone alone. Halley was supposed to be two towns over, working on research. She’d promised to stay out of it — and she meant to.
But something pulled her in.
Something wrong.
Now she stood just outside the warehouse. Wind biting her cheeks. The acrid stench of sulfur and singed hair clung to the air like fog.
The body lay in the center of the room — a woman, barely thirty, skin blackened from the fire that had erupted from her own spell gone wrong. Dean had gotten to her first. He always did.
He stood over the body, panting. Blood ran down his cheek. His knuckles were split open, his jaw clenched so tight it looked like it might crack.
Halley stepped in. Slowly. Quietly.
Dean didn’t hear her at first. He was still staring at the corpse like it owed him something.
Then he said it.
“You know what I hate most about witches?”
Halley froze mid-step. Her stomach dropped so fast it made her knees weak.
“They smile when they curse you,” Dean growled. “They talk all sweet, all high and mighty, like they’re saving the goddamn world — right up until they carve a sigil into your heart.”
His voice was raw. Shaking with rage.
Halley’s breath hitched.
He hadn’t even looked at her yet.
“She screamed,” he added, quieter now. “Begged. Said she wasn’t like the others.”
Then he turned.
Saw her standing there.
And something in her face must have shown too much — because his brow furrowed.
“You okay?” he asked.
She forced a nod. “Yeah. Just… caught up.”
But she knew she wasn’t hiding it well.
His eyes lingered on her too long. His hunter instincts kicking in.
“You look pale,” he said slowly.
“It’s the smell,” she lied, clearing her throat. “Burned meat. Always gets to me.”
Dean looked back at the body. “She almost took me out. Had some kind of barrier — invisible, strong as hell. But she overplayed her hand.”
“Did she say anything?” Halley asked — carefully, gently.
Dean laughed bitterly. “They always say the same crap. That they’re not like the rest. That they were born this way. That magic isn’t evil.”
He spat on the floor. “Tell that to the guy she flayed open last night for his goddamn liver.”
Halley’s mouth felt like sandpaper.
“I don’t care if they cry,” Dean said, voice cold again. “Witch is a witch.”
She nodded once.
And didn’t say a word.
It started small.
Dean’s jacket went missing — turned up a day later without a rip in it, even though he’d shredded the sleeve on a hunt.
The busted EMF meter she’d been “fiddling with” sparked to life again — perfectly calibrated, better than Bobby’s.
She knew things she shouldn’t. Local lore that was barely digitized. Symbols he’d only seen in ancient journals.
And once, when he came home bleeding and furious from a banshee hunt gone wrong — Halley had touched his ribs, just for a second, and the pain stopped.
Dean didn’t say anything.
Not then.
But he started watching.
Not obviously. Not like a hunter. More like a man who really, really doesn’t want to be right.
Because if he was right… he’d have to kill the woman he loved.
Three weeks later, Dean was asleep in the motel.
Halley thought he was out cold — whiskey-heavy, dead to the world.
She sat cross-legged on the bed across the room, one hand pressed to a candle, whispering something soft.
Dean cracked one eye open.
The flame turned blue.
The sigil she’d drawn on the motel floor glowed faintly. Then vanished.
She didn’t see him watching.
She never saw it.
Dean packed quietly the next morning.
Halley woke up to the sound of a zipper.
“Going somewhere?” she mumbled, rubbing her eyes.
Dean didn’t answer.
Not right away.
Then: “Need to check something. Bobby wants me in Duluth.”
She sat up straighter. “Want me to come?”
His face was blank. Like stone. “No. Not this one.”
She watched him like she was trying to see through his skin.
He kissed her on the forehead before he left.
And she knew.
He knew.
The knock comes at 2:13 a.m.
Halley jolts upright, breath catching, heart in her throat. She already knows it’s him.
She opens the door without thinking.
Dean stands in the dark, rain dripping from his jacket, face unreadable.
She steps aside.
He doesn’t move.
“Are you gonna come in?” she asks softly.
“I don’t know yet.”
That alone is enough to make her chest cave in.
But she steps back anyway. And Dean crosses the threshold like it’s a line he doesn’t want to cross.
He’s silent as she shuts the door.
“Long drive?” she asks.
He doesn’t answer. Just stands there, water puddling at his boots, looking at her like he’s never really seen her before.
Like he’s trying to memorize the last page of a book he doesn’t want to finish.
Finally, he says, “I saw you.”
Her stomach drops.
“I’ve seen you do things, Halley,” Dean says. “Things that shouldn’t be possible.”
She opens her mouth. Closes it. Then, barely audible: “How long?”
“Three weeks,” he says. “Maybe four. Time gets blurry when you’re trying to decide if the woman you love is gonna kill you in your sleep.”
She flinches like he slapped her. “Dean…”
“Don’t. Just—don’t lie to me.”
“I’ve never lied about you.”
“You lied about everything else.”
The room feels too small. The silence between them isn’t silence at all — it’s a scream with no voice.
“I didn’t mean to lie,” Halley says, voice cracking. “I just… I didn’t know how to tell you. And once I knew how much you hated witches…”
Dean laughs — not a funny laugh. A bitter one. “Yeah. Guess watching me burn one to death isn’t a great opening act.”
She looks down at her hands. They’ve stopped shaking. She wishes they still did.
“I should’ve told you,” she whispers. “But I couldn’t. Because I knew what you’d do.”
Dean doesn’t deny it.
And that hurts worse than anything.
“I’m not like them,” she says.
“Don’t say that,” Dean snaps.
“Why not?”
“Because that’s what they all say.” His voice is rising now, sharp and raw. “They all say they’re different, that they use magic for good, that they don’t hurt people unless they have to. I’ve heard every version of it. I’ve buried every version of it.”
“I am different.”
He stares at her.
And for one second, she sees it.
The fear.
Not for himself. For her.
“I believed you,” Dean says. “I let you in. You’re the only thing that made this life feel even a little bit normal. And now I have to look at you and wonder if every smile, every touch, was part of some spell.”
“I never used magic on you.”
“I don’t know that!” he shouts.
She jumps.
Dean looks away. His jaw tight. His fists curled like he’s holding something in that might break him in half.
Then quieter. “I don’t know anything anymore.”
Halley swallows. Her voice is thin. “So what happens now?”
Dean’s eyes flick back to her. Red-rimmed. Hollow.
“I should kill you.”
She doesn’t move. Doesn’t beg. She just nods, eyes wet, throat tight.
“I know.”
Dean steps forward.
Close enough to touch. Close enough to kiss.
And he doesn’t.
“You saved my life,” he says.
“You saved mine.”
He shakes his head. “You lied to me.”
“I loved you.”
A beat.
Dean’s voice is hoarse. “Still?”
She doesn’t hesitate.
“Yes.”
His breath stutters.
He raises a hand. Not to hit. Not to curse.
He cups her face like she’s glass and he’s already breaking.
She leans into it like it’s the last thing she’ll ever feel.
And then, just as gently, he lets go.
“I don’t know how to love you and hate what you are at the same time,” Dean whispers.
Dean’s eyes close. His jaw tightens.
And when he pulls back —
he draws his gun.
Slow. Reluctant. Shaking.
But steady.
The barrel points straight at her chest.
Halley doesn’t move.
She doesn’t scream.
She doesn’t even blink.
“I don’t know what you really are,” Dean says, voice cracking. “But I know what I was trained to do when something like you lies to me.”
“Dean,” she says — gently, softly — like she’s still trying to soothe a wounded animal. “Please don’t do this.”
“I have to.”
“No,” she says. “You want to. Because it’s easier to kill me than to admit you loved something you were taught to hate.”
He falters. Just for a second.
“Are you even human?” he spits.
Her eyes change.
Not color. Not shape.
Just… depth.
Like something behind them woke up.
Something ancient.
Something other.
“I was,” she says. “Before I died.”
Dean stiffens. “What?”
“I’ve died, Dean. I’ve stood in the in-between. I’ve seen Death’s face. And I came back with his mark on my soul.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“I am not just a witch,” Halley whispers. “I am Master of Death.”
Her voice doesn’t echo — but it feels like it should.
The shadows behind her flicker.
The lights in the motel buzz, dim.
And for one breathless second, Dean feels it.
Power.
Unfiltered. Unrestrained. Not evil — but vast.
Bigger than any demon he’s ever faced. Older than any curse he’s broken.
And it’s her.
Standing in front of him, rain drying from her hair without touching heat, eyes glowing faintly gold.
Dean’s hand trembles on the gun.
Halley steps forward, slow and calm.
“I didn’t enchant you,” she says. “Didn’t bind you. Didn’t take your will. You loved me because you chose to. And if you pull that trigger, you’ll never know if it could’ve still been real.”
Dean’s breath is ragged. His finger rests on the trigger.
But he can’t move.
She’s right in front of him now. One more step, and the barrel would press into her heart.
But she doesn’t look afraid.
She looks heartbroken.
“I could stop you,” she says. “With a thought. I could strip the oxygen from your lungs or turn the bullet mid-air or make you forget this entire night ever happened.”
Dean swallows hard.
“Then why haven’t you?”
She looks at him like it’s the saddest question in the world.
“Because I’d rather die than take your choice away.”
His hand falters.
The gun lowers. Just a little.
“I’m not a monster,” she whispers. “But I am powerful. I didn’t want to be. But I am.”
He stares at her. Rain still pattering outside. The storm outside nothing compared to what’s in his chest.
And then—
Dean drops the gun.
It hits the floor with a soft, final thud.
He’s breathing like he’s drowning.
Halley steps back. Not in fear.
In grief.
“I would’ve given it all up for you,” she says. “I still would. But I won't stand here and apologize for surviving. For being what I am.”
Dean doesn’t respond.
Because he can’t.
Because for the first time, he’s the one who doesn’t feel human.