𝐑𝐀𝐈𝐒𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐇𝐄𝐋𝐋 ━━ ISABELLE LIGHTWOOD

48

"HAVE I TOLD YOU how incredibly perfect you look in that dress?" Kade asked, placing a kiss on Isabelle's neck as he stood in between her legs while she was sitting on his office table in his room.

"No," she bit her lip when she felt his teeth on her skin followed by his tongue, "you look hot in suits."

"I hate it," he muttered, his hand roaming around her body, feeling her through the fabric, "we should take this off."

She only hummed in response while he lowered a strap to the dress to give him access to her shoulder blades where he began planting small kisses. He then moved his lips to her own and kissed her with such a passion that made her knees feel weak. She was so glad that she was sitting for she was scared that she would've lost her balance and fall if otherwise.

He broke the kiss and allowed their foreheads to touch as they tried to catch their breaths. That was when he let out those three words that would change their relationship forever. Three words that she has been waiting for him to say since longer than she could remember.

"God, I love you." He breathed out and stared right into her eyes. She smiled, bringing her lips to his again as she confessed, "I love you, Kade. Took you long enough."

"Shut up," he muttered, claiming her lips again. This time, he kissed her harder than before, his tongue going past her lips as he deepened the kiss. Just as he was about to take it further, the door to his room flung open, revealing Maryse whose eyes widened at the sight in front of her. The two quickly broke apart but Kade decided to keep standing between her legs and only turned his head to look at the cockblocker. It really wasn't Maryse’s day.

"Oh my— I'm sorry," she was quick to apologize while Kade raised his brows at her, unbothered by what she has walked into, "what do you want?"

"Just..." She sighed, "Jace is calling you two downstairs. He told me to come and inform you." With that, she was off. Kade turned to his girlfriend and groaned before breaking away from her, taking a step back. He then fixed himself as much as she could as did she before they both left to see what Jace wanted.

**

APPARENTLY, LYDIA WAS attacked and the cup was stolen. The group of shadowhunters stood in front of the monitor, talking about what happened.

"How’s Lydia?" Clary asked to which Alec replied, "Better. Magnus is here and he is doing what he can to help her, but it’s bad. And the Cup is definitely missing."

"So is Hodge." Jace added while Isabelle furrowed her brows, "maybe he was attacked, too."

Kade opened the security videos of the study, "or maybe he’s the one who attacked her."

"Hodge?" Isabelle frowned at the thought, "no way. We’ve known him our entire lives. He would never do that to us." Kade said nothing as he fast forwarded the video until he got to the part where Lydia was attacked. They all saw that it was Hodge who attacked Lydia and took the Cup.

"Told you so." Kade muttered as Jace sighed, "I led him right to the Cup."

"We treated him like family." Alec gritted his teeth, "How could he do this to us?"  Kade then opened another security video of the infirmary where they saw Hodge putting on a ring.

"That’s how. What is that ring?"

"Looks like he’s talking to someone." Isabelle pointed out as Hodge showed the cup on the screen. Jace hissed, "and I can bet who it is."

"Valentine."

"Well, that explains how he deactivated the Punishment rune, but it doesn’t explain where he got the ring." Alec said to which Clary furrowed her brows, "you think someone smuggled it past the wards?"

"Maybe." Jace replied, "Hodge wasn’t the only ex-Circle member around here."

"look, I know I don’t always see eye to eye with my parents, but I know they’re not traitors." Isabelle said, looking at Jace who scoffed, "Really? Isn’t that what you just said about Hodge? It’d have to be someone we trusted, but if there was an intruder inside the Institute, we would have found them by now."

"What about the Forsaken attack?"

"No. We killed that thing and I didn’t see a ring." Alec replied earning a sigh from his sister, "he didn’t have one during the autopsy."

"Maybe there’s something in the footage," Kade spoke, fast-forwarding through the footage of the Forsaken attack.

"Go to the other camera." Alec said and he did it. Jace then pointed to the screen, "there." They saw Hodge take the ring of the Forsaken’s finger.

"So, it wasn’t a random attack." Kade groaned, "bitch was just the delivery boy. If he hand that Cup over to Valentine which he'll definitely do, he’ll create an army of Shadowhunters and with that kind of power behind him, he’ll kill thousands. This is so fuckin’ bad guys." His hand reached out to grab Isabelle's hand which was already on his shoulder in an attempt to calm himself down.

"He’ll kill thousands just creating the army. Most mundanes won’t survive that."  Isabelle explained making Clary furrow her brows, "we won't let that happen."

"Is that the only way to make Shadowhunters?" Clary questioned out of curiosity.

"The cup turns humans into Shadowhunters," Kade explained, "but there's always sex if you—"

"— Okay, she got it." Jace cut his friend off, "we need to find Hodge."