Chapter 61 – When Dreams Mix With Reality
The Gard's prison had little to do with human dignity. That part of the building – dark and cold – reminded me more of the Silent City, with the sparsely spaced witch-light torches and the long corridors lined with closed doors. An impression that was reinforced by the increased presence of runes and other symbols. The Nephilim had made it a habit to distribute their runes throughout Alicante; for protection, happiness, health and dozens of other reasons. However, not comparable to the extent that the runes took here.
The construction of this part of the Gard must have been intended from the beginning to keep the creatures inside rather than outside. While the rest of the building was constructed on the level of a hill, there was only a single staircase leading from the ground floor into the mountain here. The cells were almost entirely underground, except for a single small window at the top of the square room secured with bars. It was the only source of light here and the only opportunity to catch a glimpse of the part of the city that lay in the valley, if one was lucky enough to inhabit a cell on the south side. And if one were tall enough to look out or strong enough to pull oneself up on the bars; if one were indeed reckless enough to touch them at all.
I for one wish they had just left out the windows, because without the insulation of glass, the temperature of the room was constantly tied to that of the outside. With my cell facing the valley, a never-ending wind whistled in, which, thanks to the season, brought me closer to death from freezing with every breath. Probably not really, but at least it felt like it. The fact that Jace had left me his winter coat in front of the Ashdown country house had me almost ecstatic. Even with the thick jacket on, I sat slumped on the small bed, which, apart from a toilet and a sink, was the only equipment in this cell. The blanket, whose fabric was thinner than my pinky, did nothing to protect my body heat from the shivering cold of nature.
My only consolation was knowing that Blake's surviving friends were no better. Although I couldn't hear them shaking through the walls, I was sure they were suffering just as much as I was. That was almost worth it. But only almost and only until the next gust of wind blew through the window and I could ignore the trembling in my own muscles. Outside, the sun was leaning south. It was already casting long shadows in my small room. It wouldn't be long before it would sink, taking with it any warmth that day had provided.
Slowly, I let my eyes move over the walls – a feeble attempt to divert my attention to something that would make me forget about the cold. Like the corridors, everything here was covered in runes and other cultural symbols. For each creature a unique torment to keep them from breaking out: The bars in the windows made of silver, Stars of David and crosses embedded in the walls, phrases in one of the demonic languages inscribed on door and window frames, uttering spells.
We would have to wait in here until the Inquisitor decided what to do with us. She had spoken of a trial. Hopefully not like my last one. I believed that few things angered me as much as the fact that Jonathan and my father had stolen the Angel's Sword; every doubt about the truth now justified and clearing the way for new, more torturous methods.
By the time Imogen's guards had brought me here, I had managed to push the weight of the past few hours away quite well. So many things had happened, so many things had piled up on top of each other that I was literally running from one catastrophe to the next. It had left my attention divided and unable to process anything realistically. But slowly the images seeped into my brain; I slowly realized what had happened and what I had contributed to it all in the rush of emotions.
First the kidnapping by Malachi, waking up in Blake Ashdown's secret armory, my father's monologue about my future and his plans, being shipped off to the Ashdown's country house ... And despite all the fanatic madness, my emotions only began to unravel from this point onwards. As if everything had been fine up to this point; as if nothing serious had happened up to this point. Had I already gotten used to so much malevolence? Followed by ... the torture ... the escape attempt ... the many deaths ... the fight with Blake ... Adam ... Blake ... death ... his mother.
In my brain, Cynthia Ashdown's distorted, desperate scream was mixed with my own after my mother's death. I had caused her similar suffering that Jonathan had caused me. And I didn't regret it any more than he regretted our mother's death.
But you regret her pain, a voice whispered in my head. Does he regret yours?
I jumped off the bed, shaking my head. Trying to shake off the cold, I stretched out my shaking arms and hopped in place, running in circles. Anything that would distract me. Anything that would get the stiffness out of my veins. And as I went through exercise after exercise that I had been doing since I was a child to warm up before training, the low temperatures actually faded into the background. The breath that escaped my mouth now formed thicker clouds against the air of the room, but at least I was warm. The only thing that sport didn't give me was distraction from my thoughts.
I was still reeling from the events of the last twenty-four hours when suddenly a murmur came from the thick adamas door. A metallic clacking sound reached me, like someone opening the lock with a key. It was nonsense, of course, because they used steles to unlock the doors. My feet stopped and I took a few steps away from the entrance to my cell when the door began to shudder and finally opened inwards with a resounding groan.
Was the time already up? Had the Inquisitor already made a decision?
A Gard guard came into view. Shrouded in darkness beneath a furry hood, I couldn't make out her eyes, but given her passive posture, she wasn't here to take me anywhere. A second later she stepped aside and someone else stepped into the cone of sparse witch-light.
Jace. His blond hair fell in short curls just above his ears and cast long shadows across his face. Our eyes met across the short distance and he blinked several times. As if he was unsure whether I was actually standing there in front of him. Then he turned his head to the guard, nodded to her and walked into my cell. Not a moment later, the door behind him closed with a thud. Jace's lips lifted slightly.
"What are you doing here?" was the first thing that came out of my mouth. There were at least a dozen more important questions I should have asked.
"I thought that you might need some things to survive the night in this shithole," Jace explained full of energy and only then did my gaze drop to the actually unmissable pile of clothes in his hands. "It's really freezing in here."
I watched Jace in silence as he walked over to my bed, put the pile down, and fished out a witch-light from his pants. When he turned to me, there wasn't much of the cheerful expression left on his face. So just put-on. The glow of witch-light gave his features a piercing exhaustion, and I could see the strain again, the concern that I had noticed just before we jumped through the portal.
"Why is your hair wet?" Jace asked, taking one of my water-sticky, cold strands of hair between his fingers. His warm breath stood out in the chilly air, as did mine; collided against my skin and made me lean more into him.
"I was trying to wash myself," I explained, pointing to the small sink on the wall behind me. I had been covered in blood and dirt when I had been dumped here. While I had cleaned my face and hair with shaking hands, I hadn't been able to bring myself to wet the only clothes I owned in here as well. Getting my hair wet had been lesson enough. Hours later, they felt just as wet as they did after drying off.Haa
Jace snorted in disbelief. "By the Angel, Clary, sometimes I think you really have a death wish." Despite the accusation, his words didn't sound accusatory. He grabbed my wrist and pulled me over to the bed. "I brought you something that will help." He rummaged through the pile and then held out a bundle of dark clothes to me. "The winter gear from your closet. It should warm you more than what Blake gave you. And I have your coat with me too."
I couldn't stop the sigh that left my throat. "Thank you." My voice sounded relieved and chilled, even to my ears. But the smell of my own clothes loosened the knot in my chest a little. The thought that Jace had bothered to bring half my closet here touched me more than I expected. "Do you want your coat back?"
Jace shook his head impatiently and now something like a smile crept onto his face as he pointed down at himself. "Don't worry. I have more than enough coats to get me through this very bitter winter. But you don't if you keep standing here." With that he turned away from me, his hands clasped behind his back to give me all the privacy possible here.
Two minutes later, when I was dressed in my own clothes – black Shadowhunter gear lined with sheepskin and matching leather boots that would withstand a blizzard – my breathing was already a little more balanced. "You can turn around again," I murmured, pulling my own winter coat over my shoulders.
Slowly, as if to make sure I was finished, Jace turned back to me. His smile widened and he seemed quite pleased with himself. "Better?"
Instead of answering, I surprised both myself and him when I closed the little distance between us and wrapped my arms around his middle. For an agonizingly long moment, Jace's body leaned against mine, stock still, and I already regretted throwing caution to the wind. Prison hadn't made me more in control of my emotions, quite the opposite. But then Jace woke up from his rigidity and his arms, which until now had remained motionless at his sides, shot up to me, carefully wrapped themselves around my back and pressed me closer to him.
"So much better," I whispered into the heat radiating from Jace.
"That's all me." I didn't have to look at him to hear his grin. "The infallible savior in times of need."
"Although I would certainly have survived the night without you. I've survived worse."
Even though I didn't mean anything bad, it seemed to bring Jace back down to earth. "Of course you have," he said, and as he leaned away from me, I looked back into the more serious version of himself that I had seen most in the past few weeks. "Which doesn't mean that your friends can't help you where possible. You're not alone. Even if the hours since Malachi's kidnapping may have felt different."
The mention of Malachi also brought me back down to earth. For a fraction of a moment I had been able to forget everything around me. I wondered if it would always just be these snippets of individual moments. Jace, feeling my muscles becoming more passive against his, pulled away from me and sat on my bed.
"What about your injuries?" Jace's scrutinizing gaze swept over my body and stopped at my hip. "You look ... healthy."
"They sent a healer here to take care of anything life-threatening."
"At least." The news seemed to take an urgency out of his gesture that had just been there. "I brought you something else." His hands pulled on a fur blanket and a round can appeared underneath, which he carefully picked up. When he removed the lid, I was met with a smell so delicious that my stomach clenched almost painfully. I sat next to Jace faster than I could blink. "Maryse cooked it. It's still warm."
In fact, bright clouds of mist from the soup drifted towards the ceiling. A sigh escaped my mouth as Jace pushed the can into my fingers, the warmth balm for my freezing body. Jace's look alone stopped me from wolfing down the soup in one gulp. I wouldn't have cared if it burned my throat. Right now, I would have given anything to lie in scorching hot water.
Jace handed me a spoon and I quietly began to eat. I tried my best to drink sip after sip of the soup and not overwhelm my stomach. That way I would be warmer for longer. As I ate, Jace sat cross-legged across from me and explained what had happened after I had been taken to prison.
"The Clave has been meeting for hours. My grandmother informed it of everything that happened. We no longer have a Consul, Malachi is in prison too. Cynthia Ashdown has mobilized her people, but there are not enough of them to do anything against the Clave. Adam will get through, he's still in the Basilias. His parents, who supposedly had no idea about anything, are trying to somehow blame you, but they're not succeeding. Apparently, enough people saw Adam getting you wasted at the festivities. It's clear that he will not get out of this unpunished either. Otherwise, the Clave is very divided. It's best for us that Blake is dead. If he had kidnapped any other Shadowhunter, they would have immediately stripped him of his runes, but because it's you, many are hesitant to demand harsher punishments."
"That all sounds great. They probably want to punish me for his death, right?" I sounded bitter enough that Jace's lips curled.
"Very likely, yes," Jace noted as neutrally as possible. "But with the others ..." He shrugged. "We believe it could come down to self-defense. It will all be decided when the Clave takes your statements."
With a ragged nod, I drank the last of the soup and looked down at the empty can in disappointment. In one gentle movement, Jace took it from me, closed the lid, and pushed it aside. "While we're at it," he spoke quietly, avoiding my gaze. "I know it's hard for you to talk about it. I noticed that back at the mansion earlier. But would you tell me about it? Everything that happened after I ... left you standing outside."
There wasn't much left of the self-absorbed young man from a few minutes ago. Jace's worried, remorseful eyes had taken on his dark tone. He rubbed his fingers together as he spoke, as if he was getting colder and colder with every minute he spent here. I was already waiting for him to jump up and announce his retreat. But even though he was obviously cold, he didn't move an inch. His questioning demand alone demonstrated the opposite.
I didn't raise my head to meet Jace's face, but I copied his posture as I sat cross-legged across from him. Our knees touched in a feather-light touch, but neither he nor I acted on it. I realized he was waiting because he didn't know how I would react. Maybe part of him thought I would send him away. Part of me didn't want to tell anything, but it was like today at midday, out there in the snowy fields of Idris. Something inside me wanted to open up to him; wanted to share it with him.
Jace gave me a strange feeling of security. I had felt safe all my life. I was strong, stronger than most Shadowhunters. I was able to take care of myself, protect myself. But Jace gave me a different kind of security. A facet I hadn't even known existed. Not a feeling of security in the sense of strength, force or power, but of closeness, unity and trust. A feeling that not even Jonathan's brotherhood could give me.
That was why I told Jace what had happened from beginning to end. From the kidnapping, the fact that Jace had been just a few feet away from me in Blake's basement, the torture and the escape, to my first fight with Blake, Adam's sudden interference, and his own arrival. I told him everything. From the words my father and I exchanged to the instruments Blake used. Everything so detailed it hurt. I surprised myself with it.
When I finished there was silence. I couldn't say for how long. Ever since Jace had walked through that door, everything felt strangely timeless. I raised my head expectantly, unsure of what to expect. Jace hadn't said a word, hadn't interrupted me while I had been talking. Even though I had spent a lot of time with him in the last few days, I didn't know whether it was a good or bad omen.
What surprised me was the blazing fury in Jace's eyes, which glowed like the flames of a raging fire. He bared his teeth and with a lightning-quick bend of his body, he was in my private space. I didn't flinch, didn't get defensive. I just sat there and returned the contact of his pupils with ... I didn't know if I had dropped my mask while speaking. Probably. I wasn't crying tough – thankfully not again – but I could feel the crushing depression in the muscles of my cheeks.
Even more surprising were the words that Jace uttered next. In a tone I hadn't heard from him since probably our first encounter. "I would kill him. If he wasn't already dead, I would kill him," Jace hissed, the anger between us palpable like the sharp edge of a knife. I knew immediately he was talking about Blake. "He was lucky you killed him. You spared him, granted him a quick death. I don't think I could have controlled myself like that or let him get away with just cutting his throat. I regret that he is dead because he didn't get the ending he deserved."
"I would have taken my time if you weren't there," I admitted, but didn't explain the double meaning of my words. "There were too many variables to consider. I wanted to end this once and for all." My attention flickered from him to the locked door. "How long are they letting you stay?" He had been here quite long for a prisoner visit.
Jace shrugged. The heat of his temper softened. "No idea. They'll come when I'm supposed to leave." He hesitated. "Do you want me to go?"
I shook my head. "No, I'm ... glad you're here. Thanks again for all the stuff."
"Don't thank me for that." Jace reached for my hands, taking them between his fingers and squeezing them tightly. His skin was as cold as mine. "I would have to do a lot more to somehow make amends for what I did last night. This isn't even the bare minimum."
"You don't have to feel guilty, Jace. Really not." I removed my fingers from his and moved away from him a little. It was the same scenario as a few weeks before, after I had saved his life from the demon, and he couldn't bear to leave my side because of his guilt. His kindness meant something to me. His gestures made me feel accepted. But not if the only reason was his conscience. He shouldn't do any of this just because there was a debt to pay. That ruined everything. Made everything worthless. And even though I could hardly avoid my honor myself, often acting in its interests because that's how I was raised, I hated when Jace followed his own call to honor.
"But I have a bad conscience and rightly so. If I hadn't acted like the biggest idiot in history, I wouldn't have left you out there alone. Then maybe none of this would have happened, you might be fine. You wouldn't have to sit in this cell. So yes, I feel guilty and rightly so." Jace seemed to become more upset with every sentence. As if he had been thinking about it for hours.
"I don't want your pity," I growled in response and tore myself away from him completely. Jace recoiled from my reaction, startled. "I don't want your guilty conscience." I don't want you to have done all this just because of that. I don't want you to feel like you have to maintain the kiss behind the Accords Hall just so I don't get kidnapped. I just want you to act of your own free will. Of course I didn't say any of this out loud. "I ..." Jace's astonished expression was enough to seal my lips to the truth. A truth that probably would have pushed us further apart than I was just ready to accept. I had already lost Adam and as selfish as it was, I didn't want to listen to his reason for breaking the kiss. I couldn't. "I should be sleeping," I muttered instead. "I need sleep. I didn't sleep a wink last night."
Jace nodded mechanically but made no move to get up. Instead, he moved toward me again, slowly and swayingly, the uncertainty clear on his features. When he raised his hands and cupped my cheeks, I stopped breathing. The cold in his fingertips pulsed against my skin, even though he held my face so gently that I could have imagined the touch. Jace's dark pupils were clouded with melancholy as mine met them. They dodged mine as if they couldn't withstand the weight in mine.
"I regret leaving, you have to believe me, Clary," Jace whispered into the silence between us. His warm breath tickled my face, sending heat rushing to my cheeks. "I have never regretted anything more in my life. I almost became sick with worry, with despair, when I realized you were gone. You haven't had a chance to talk to Izzy yet, but the first thing she would tell you about would be the scene I made because of you." He snorted and rolled his eyes at a memory, but I couldn't move. Even without the chilly wind blowing in from outside, I would have been frozen in place.
The questions were just bubbling up in my head. My lips twitched with the need to voice them one by one; to move this conversation in a definitive direction. But even though Jace's expression seemed completely sincere and devoted, I was afraid of the certainty. Because something inside me said that he would speak the truth no matter what I asked him. And the fact was, I didn't know what the truth for him was. It could be the same truth as mine, there was evidence to suggest it, like the way he was clutching my cheeks right now. Or the look of liquid gold in his irises. But the truth could just as easily be the opposite of my own, there was enough evidence for that too. The look he had given me after our kiss at the Seelie Court or how he couldn't even stand our kiss last night and fled.
Who was I to know the truth? Didn't one always see what one wanted to see? The fact was that I hadn't spent enough time in the company of other Nephilim outside of my family to have any real social experience. All I knew about humans was what my father had taught Jonathan and me in psychology, and that didn't have much to do with love. Hadn't Adam's love remained hidden from me until the bitter end? Without his confession, I probably would never have become aware of his affection. The fact was that I had no idea about anything outside of the battlefield. The fact was that Jace had said he wanted to try to be friends with me. Nothing more.
And aside from all that, there was Jonathan and the impending war to win. I couldn't allow myself any distractions. Living among the Nephilim had already unsettled me enough. My focus had to be solely on Jonathan. Instead, I had allowed myself to be drawn into intrigue and conspiracies and had gotten just a little bit closer to my ultimate goal of being strong enough to stand up to my brother.
"Jace ..." Weak and exhausted, I leaned away from him. Until my cheeks slipped from his fingers and they remained in the air between us. "I can't talk about this right now. I can't think about this right now. Let's talk about it when this is all over." If I'm still alive then. I didn't want to commit myself, I was afraid of it. At least that's what the sharp, rational part of me told myself; how it silenced the longing, suffering part. If you've endured this long, you'll be able to carry the burden with you for a little longer.
Jace looked like I had hit him. Not physically, but psychologically. As if I had driven my fist straight into his heart and ripped his soul out of him in one brutal, jerking motion. His eyelids fluttered as if he was trying to keep his emotions in check. Still, I could see the disappointment and defeat cross his face for a split second. Like lightning you only noticed out of the corner of your eye. Then he straightened his shoulders, dismissed all feelings with a nod of his head and rose smoothly but far too frantically from the bed.
"It's late," he yawned and adjusted his outfit. "I hope the blanket helps keep you warm."
At the foot of the bed, next to my dirty clothes that I had taken off, was a neatly folded blanket that Jace had brought with him along with the other things. Made of padded fur, it was thick enough to keep me warm. "Thank you," I repeated for what must have been the hundredth time today. This time, however, a guilty conscience crept into my chest.
Jace didn't respond to my gratitude again. Instead he walked to the door. "See you tomorrow then." I didn't answer and watched in silence as he knocked on the door with his clenched fist. Three times. The dull tone higher than a wooden door. Loud enough to wake my cellmates from their dreams. We waited in vain for a reaction. Jace repeated his knock. But there was no trace of the guard behind the cell door. In all likelihood she had given up waiting to return to her original post.
"How exactly did they want to get you out of here?" I asked skeptically after his fourth attempt to get the other side's attention.
"We ..." Jace sighed and pulled his hair out. "We didn't agree on anything. I thought they would take me out after visiting hours ended. Well, there was never any mention of visiting hours, but they always exist in prison." He turned his back to the door and leaned against the adamas. "They can't just forget me here."
"Maybe there was a changing of the guard," I speculated, probably surprising both of us when I started laughing.
Jace's eyes widened in response and he looked taken aback for a moment. Aware of how rarely I laughed, his mouth twisted into the slightest of smiles. He shoved his hands in his pockets and grimaced. "At least I'm wearing something warm," he grumbled, clearly annoyed.
I peered up at the small window. Darkness had fallen behind the bars. Without the witch-light in Jace's hand, the room would be plunged into complete darkness. My gaze slid back to him and finally to the bed. It was true when I had said I needed sleep. The exhaustion had been tearing at my limbs for hours. With a stifled sigh, I rubbed my eyes and finally waved Jace over.
"Come here." The request was more of an open invitation, which I conveyed in a neutral tone. "The bed isn't big, but it's still better than freezing to death on the floor. I think your grandmother would actually kill me if she wasn't already planning my execution."
Jace hesitated and the reason was obvious. After breaking off our conversation just minutes before, the prospect of having to spend a night in the same bed with me was hardly appealing. If it had even been tempting before. "This is just about survival," I tried to emphasize.
"You're right." Jace sat down on the mattress next to me, this time with an arm's length between us. He grinned slightly. "I don't feel like getting out of here as a block of ice tomorrow."
I kept my winter coat on, removing my boots alone as I grabbed the blanket and moved toward the wall so Jace could lie down next to me. He dawdled, it took him half an eternity until he had freed himself from his own shoes and placed the countless weapons on the floor. Like me, he didn't take off his jacket. When he was finally lying flat next to me, I handed him the right end of the fur blanket and our chilled fingers brushed against each other. A shiver ran through my body and Jace's eyes flashed in response, but neither of us responded. Shoulder to shoulder, we took up the entire width of the mattress, with Jace taking up almost twice as much space as me. I was already pressing myself against the wall and ignoring the ice that seemed to emanate from it.
Jace didn't say a word when he finally put down the witch-light, plunging us in the deepest blackness. For a few moments I didn't dare breathe. The thought of lying under the same blanket with him, his body leaning directly against mine, albeit hard and unresponsive, drove the warmth through my veins of its own accord.
You're heading to your doom, the rational voice in my head whispered, forcing me to turn my back on Jace.
Despite the dozens of thoughts in my brain, it didn't take long for the fatigue of the last twenty-four hours to take over and drag me into a deep sleep.
oOo
My body twitched. A moment later I opened my eyelids only to be confronted with darkness. For several heartbeats I felt like I was drowning. I was breathless without being able to say why.
Something had woken me up . But even when I closed my eyes again to listen into the night, there was no sound that answered me. The room was dead quiet, and nothing reached my ears from the window ... Only the breathing of the person next to me stood out from the rest of the silence.
It took me several tries before I remembered where I was and who was lying next to me. Jace didn't move, his chest rising and falling in a steady rhythm. I didn't want to wake him up, so I suppressed the groan that pressed against my vocal cords.
Despite the cold let in from the cell window, it was surprisingly warm here under the blanket. Jace's body was glowing next to me. Except he wasn't completely next to me anymore. Nor had I still turned my back on him, as I had last remembered. Rather, the upper half of my body pressed against his. The remaining tiredness clouding my thoughts fell away as I realized my head was leaning against his chest; away from the flat pillow. I tried to sit up on the mattress far too hastily. I did not succeed. There was a weight on my shoulders that I couldn't identify in the darkness. I reached out my hand to–
Suddenly the steady rhythm of Jace's breathing began to waver. He moved to the side, in the opposite direction from me, only to stop, half asleep, already hanging over the edge of the bed. Jace stretched his arm and the weight from my shoulders disappeared.
"Clary?" Jace didn't really sound present. My name consisted of two swallowed syllables, which he barely managed to string together.
A silent hum was my only reaction. He would probably have forgotten it in a few seconds anyway. I leaned on my arms and was about to sit up when Jace's hand suddenly shot to my back. In a blink of an eye he had grabbed my waist and pulled me toward him. I had just enough time to let out a hitched breath before I found myself sitting on his lap and Jace's lips crashed against mine.
Although the whole situation happened far too quickly, it took me surprisingly little time to think about it and throw all the contradictions I had made up in our previous discussion overboard. All of a sudden, Jace's fingers were on my spine, shooting up to my neck and pulling me close to him. He had sat up and was now leaning against the wall, his legs bent and pressed against the small of my back, his arms wrapped tightly around me, trying to bring me even closer.
Pushing my inner conflict into the distance for a moment, I returned Jace's kiss without pausing. His warm mouth pressed demandingly against mine and parted my lips in search of my tongue. I saw stars. I felt like my soul was leaving my body.
My fingers found Jace's shoulders, wrapping around his neck. I moved my hips forward and Jace groaned beneath me. He murmured my name, paying homage to it as if I were a creature worthy of worship. Our bodies, charged together like magnets, became so warm that I had to push the blanket around us aside to get some air.
The cold seemed to break the curse. Because just as suddenly as Jace had transported me into his lap, he now petrified in his actions; his lips now hard and unresponsive against mine.
"Clary?" Jace asked again, this time a lot more collected than before. Bile rose in my stomach as I heard the terror in his voice.
I immediately saw the kiss behind the Accords Hall, from which he had broken out just as frantically. I was grateful I couldn't see his face in the darkness. Just his breath on my nose and the fact that his arms were still behind my back told me how close we still were. I remained silent, unsure of what would emerge from my throat if I tensed my vocal cords. Adrenaline coursed through my veins, forcing me to lean back. Only to feel his knees against my backside.
Jace, not missing the tremors in my body, cleared his throat. His voice sounded no less hoarse and breathless. "Please say something."
Like I was the one who had just broken a kiss for the second time. As if that was the only sensible response to kissing me. Just because my last name was Morgenstern didn't mean I didn't have feelings, and he should know that by now. "Why ... did you stop?"
For the first time, I didn't care about my vulnerable tone. Even though I wanted to avoid confrontation, I couldn't help but ask. On the one hand there was my wounded pride, but even worse was the feeling of rejection that lay beneath it. Just like yesterday, this lump formed in my throat; closed like a wire around my neck and forced tears into the corners of my eyes.
"I thought I was dreaming," Jace said meekly, the confession heavy as lead on his tongue.
"You thought you were dreaming?" I couldn't contain my astonishment.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to take you by surprise," Jace said instead of elaborating. The way he spoke, he sounded almost ... embarrassed. He didn't seem to be able to find any words. Or didn't want to.
"So you didn't want to kiss me?" I braced myself for the knife in my chest, hoping it wouldn't be too painful, even though I was just fooling myself again. It would hurt.
"What? No– Yes." Jace sounded more confused than the hint of emotion in my core felt. Suddenly the world spun around me, and I had to dig my fingers into his shoulder to keep from falling against him. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have done that. This is not the time." As he spoke, he unclasped my fingers from the back of his neck.
My heart lurched and stopped. The following breath from my lungs shook and I had to pull every fiber of my being to keep the tears from falling. "There will never be a right time."
"Hey, wait. Wait!" As I tried to pull away, Jace's voice suddenly became nervous. His fingers trailed up to my cheeks. "Are you crying?"
The fact that he said it out loud and the obvious shock in his tone pushed me over the edge. I shook my head too violently but knew that every word out of my mouth would be a whimper or perhaps, worse, a sob. Actually, it didn't matter. His fingertips traced below my eyes, wiping away the moisture.
"I'm sorry, Clary, I am so sorry." Then Jace kissed me a second time. A short, loving, gentle kiss that made me gasp. "In your presence, I can't seem to express myself like a normal person. I start talking nonsense because– You confuse me. You make me forget my head."
"But why these ambiguous signals? Why do you push me away every time?" I let Jace's arms lull me into a soothing rhythm; allowed him to stroke the back of my neck; running his thumb comfortingly over my skin.
"Yesterday, I– No, forget yesterday. Yesterday's Jace no longer exists. If yesterday's stunt taught me anything, it's that my own instincts try to deceive me. You are who you are, and I don't care. You are who you are, and I wouldn't have it any other way. No more hesitation. If anyone has the right to hesitate, it's you. I've treated you like shit for so long that if you can't forgive me, I would understand. I was so blinded by the stories about Valentine and my parents that I couldn't see you. Now I see you. The brightest star in the sky. The only star in the sky." The words tumbled out of Jace, sentence after sentence, as if he had been trying to hold them back for far too long. "About just now ... I wasn't sure what you wanted. Your signals aren't exactly clear either, just so you know. After our discussion, I wasn't even sure if you would have kissed me without all the alcohol. You were so reluctant to talk about it that I thought you weren't interested."
"So does that mean you wanted to kiss me?" That's all I managed to get out. My voice was as thin as a silk thread and could be cut just as quickly. My head was spinning again, but this time a wave of heat exploded in my stomach.
"I still want to kiss you," Jace stated matter-of-factly, leaning his face towards mine. "May I?"
All I could manage was a curt nod. Despite the darkness, he seemed to notice because a second later our mouths merged again. The contented sigh that escaped Jace made me gasp in fulfillment. He didn't let me go as he pulled me closer to him in his lap.
My fingers found their way to his hair and the higher position allowed me to bend over him for once. Our tongues collided and I was sure I would have fallen if Jace's arms hadn't stabilized me. Panting, I tried to regain my balance and I heard Jace laugh against my lips; a deep, rough sound, the vibration of which spread to my body and gave me goosebumps. I pressed my fingers harder into his hair, pulled it and elicited a corresponding sound from him.
My mouth curved into a smile as I let go of him to take a breath. The heart in my chest was running a marathon, it couldn't stop, it could barely contain the desire. Beneath me, Jace was humming contentedly, in the same frenzy I was, and I was sure his pupils were big and dilated and pointed straight at me. Just inches away from me, even though the blackness hid his face. I wondered if the darkness made it easier for us.
With my thoughts here and nowhere at the same time, I leaned back towards Jace, who was already tightening his arms around me in response. I could feel his breath on my mouth and was about to press it back onto his when suddenly, a hair-raising scream echoed through the night from outside.
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Sooo they're kissing again. What do you think about all of this? Please leave a like and comment if you liked this chapter! :)