Read the
original, longer version of the Clary and Jace “manor house” scene from City of
Glass, chapter 9. I toned it down for the published version of the book, mostly
for pacing reasons. No, it is not particularly racy—but it’s a bit more
detailed than what made it into the book, so if you’re wanting more Clary/Jace
it might be up your alley.
The roar of the collapse faded
slowly, like smoke dissipating into the air. It was replaced by the loud
chirruping of startled birds; Clary could see them over Jace’s shoulder,
circling curiously against the dark sky.
“Jace,” she said softly. “I think it’s
over.”
He drew back slightly, propping
himself on his elbows, and looked down at her. They were close enough that even
in the darkness she could see herself reflected in his eyes; his face was
streaked with soot and dirt, the collar of his shirt torn.
Without thinking, she reached up,
her fingers brushing lightly through his hair. She felt him tense, his eyes
darkening.
“There was grass—in your hair,” she
said by way of explanation. Her mouth was dry; adrenalin sang through her
veins, and not just because of the danger she’d just been in. Everything that
had just happened: the angel, the shattering manor, seemed less real than what
she saw in Jace’s eyes.
“You shouldn’t touch me,” he
breathed.
Her hand froze where it was, her
palm against his cheek. “Why not?”
“You know why,” he said, and then, ‘You
saw what I saw, didn’t you? The past, the angel. Our parents.”
“I saw.”
“You know what happened.”
“A lot of things happened, Jace—”
“Not for me.” The words breathed out
on an anguished whisper. “I have demon blood, Clary. Demon blood. You
understood that much, didn’t you?”
“It doesn’t mean anything. Valentine
was insane. He was just ranting—”
“And Jocelyn? Was she insane?” His
eyes bored into her like golden drills. “I know what Valentine was trying to
do. He was trying to create hybrids—angel/human, and demon/human. You’re the
former, Clary, and I’m the latter. I’m part monster. Part everything I’ve tried
so hard to burn out, to destroy.”
“It’s not true. It can’t be. It doesn’t
make sense—”
“But it does.” There was a sort of
furious desperation in his expression as he looked down at her. She could see
the gleam of the silver chain around his bare throat, lit to a white flare by
the starlight. “It explains everything.”
She shook her head so hard that she
felt grass tickle her cheek. “You mean it explains why you’re such an amazing
Shadowhunter? Why you’re loyal and fearless and honest and everything demons
aren’t—”
“It explains,” he said, evenly, “why
I feel the way I do about you.”
Breath hissed between her teeth. “Jace—what
do you mean?”
He was silent for a long moment,
staring down at her—for so long, in fact, that she wondered if he ever planned
to speak at all, or if just looking was enough; after all, she was staring at
him just as helplessly. Their gazes were locked like gears; she could no more
have looked away than she could have breathed with water in her lungs.
“You’re my sister,” he said,
finally, “My sister, my blood, my family. I should want to protect you—” he
laughed soundlessly and without any humor—“to protect you from the sort of boys
who want to do to you exactly what I want to do to you.”
Clary’s breath caught. He was still
looking down at her, but his expression had changed—there was a look on his face
she’d never seen before, a sleepy, deadly, almost predatory light in his eyes.
She was suddenly and acutely conscious of the hard pressure of his body on her
body, the bones of his hips fitting themselves against hers, and she ached
everywhere that she didn’t touch him, ached with a nearly physical pain.
What I want to do to you, he had
said. Not thinking of anything else but how much she wanted him, she let her
fingers trail down his cheek to his lips, outlining the shape of his mouth with
the tip of her index finger.
She was rewarded by the catch in his
breathing, the sudden darkening of his eyes. He didn’t move.
“What is it, exactly, that you want
to do to me?” she whispered.
The light in his eyes was a blaze.
Slowly he inclined his head until his lips were against her ear. When he spoke,
she felt his breath tickle her skin, making her shiver: “I could show you.”
She said nothing. Even if she could
have gathered her scattered thoughts to compose the words, she didn’t want to
tell him to stop. She was tired of saying no to Jace—of never letting herself
feel what her body wanted her to feel. Whatever the cost . . .
She felt him smile, his lips against
her ear. “If you want me to stop, tell me now,” he whispered. When she still
said nothing, he brushed his mouth against her hollow of her temple, making her
shiver. “Or now.” His lips traced her cheekbones in the lightest of kisses, a
butterfly kiss. “Or now.” His mouth traced the line of her jaw. “Or now.” His
lips were against hers, his words spoken into her mouth. “Now,” he whispered,
and kissed her.
At first the pressure of his lips
was gentle, seeking; but when she responded instantly—sliding her arms around
him, tangling her hands in his hair—she felt the cautious tension in his body
change to something else. Suddenly he was kissing her with a bruising pressure,
his lips crushing hers. She tasted blood in her mouth, but didn’t care. There
were rocks digging into her back, and her shoulder ached where she’d fallen
from the window, but she didn’t care about that either. All that existed was
Jace; all she felt, hoped, breathed, wanted and saw was Jace. Nothing else
mattered.
He broke off the kiss, drawing back,
and she released him with a soft noise of reluctant protest. His mouth was
swollen, his eyes huge and dark, nearly black with desire. He reached for the
buttons of her coat, tried to slip the first one free, but his hands were
shaking so badly he couldn’t manage it. Clary put her hand over his, marveling
inwardly at her own calm—surely she should be shaking as badly as he was?
“Let me,” she said.
He went still. He watched her as she
undid the buttons, her fingers working as fast as they could. The coat fell
open. Beneath it she was wearing only a thin blouse of Amatis’ and the cold
night air struck through the material, making her gasp. She raised her arms up.
“Come back,” she whispered. “Kiss me again.”
He made a stifled noise and fell
into her arms like someone coming up for air after nearly drowning. He kissed
her eyelids, her cheeks, her throat, before returning to her lips: their
kissing was frenzied now, almost clumsy in its fever—so unlike Jace, who never
seemed to rush, or to hurry anything . . . Without the coat between them, she
could feel the heat of him, burning through his shirt and hers; his hands
slipped around her, under her the strap of her bra, tracing her spine, his
touch scorching her bare skin. She wanted more of his touch, his hands on her,
his skin on her skin—she wanted to be touching him everywhere, to hold him
while he trembled like he was trembling now—and for there to be no more space
between them.
She tugged his jacket off and then
somehow his shirt was off, too. Their hands explored each other’s bodies: she
ran her fingers down his back and felt soft skin layered over lean muscle, and
something she had not expected, though she should have—scars, like thin wires
laid across his skin. She supposed they were imperfections, these scars, but
they didn’t feel that way to her; they were the marks of Jace’s history, cut
into his skin: the raised, topographical map of a life of killing and fighting.
She stroked the star-shaped scar on
his shoulder and raised herself up to brush her mouth across it. Something
banged against her collarbone with a sharp cold shock. She drew back with an
exclamation of surprise.
Jace raised himself up on his elbows
to look down at her. “What is it?” His voice was slow, almost drugged. “Did I
hurt you?”
“Not really. It was this.” She
reached up and touched the silver chain around his neck. On its end hung a
small silver circle of metal. It was ice cold to the touch.
That ring—the weather-beaten metal
with its pattern of stars—she knew that ring.
The Morgenstern ring. It had been
Valentine’s, and Valentine had passed it along to Jace, as it had always been
passed along: father to son.
“I’m sorry,” Jace said. He was
tracing the line of her cheek with his fingertip, a dreamlike intensity in his
gaze. “I forgot I was wearing the damn thing.”
Sudden cold flooded Clary’s veins. “Jace,”
she said, in a low voice. “Jace, don’t.”
