"What do you want for dinner?"
The question did Simon swallow. He didn't want to hurt Isabelle's feelings, but he also knew that now they had advanced in their relationship, he had more intimacy to decline the offer.
However, with Izzy whip ensnared in her wrist, he preferred not to risk.
"Why we don't go out for dinner?", he asked quickly, sitting in the kitchen's chair by the counter.
Outside of the Institute, the snow fell relentlessly, leaving negative temperature. Still, Simon didn't feel cold, and wore a black leather jacket just for the compliment Isabelle had made about him wearing it.
"Out for dinner?", she repeated, wrinkling her nose. She put herself on tiptoe to catch a pot on the upper cabinets. She was far from being convinced, and Simon began to get nervous. "This invitation to a romantic date is a cover for your unfounded fear of being poisoned by my food?"
"Of course not!", protested the vampire, getting to his feet. In fact, there was a part of him that wanted real blood. How many days since the last time he had eaten, exactly? "And no one said it would be romantic. I can be rude, chewing with my mouth open and blowing on the napkin."
Isabelle laughed and gave up looking for the pot. She turned to him, her dark eyes shining.
"And what would be the point of this meeting, then?", she asked, crossing her arms across her chest. She was obviously having fun with the task of making him sweat (if vampires sweated), as if testing how far he would go to go out on a date with her.
Simon scratched his neck, his mind working with fervor.
"The Valentine's Day!", he exclaimed, surprising them both.
They had forgotten the date, but that explained why the Institute was so empty without Alec, Jace or Clary.
Simon saw Isabelle get uncomfortable with the idea, but she tried to work around the situation:
"Oh, I don't think it's a good idea. With the underworld creatures' deaths and this blizzard…"
"Wow, you just used the two most famous excuses to deny a meeting in the same sentence: murder and climate. How can you be so cruel?"
Izzy smiled at the joke and Simon assured:
"Come on, I'll be fine. After all, I have this, right?" He pointed to the Cain mark on his forehead.
Isabelle shrugged.
"Yeah, I think it'll be fine, won't it?" It seemed more a guarantee to herself than to Simon. "I'll just get my coat."
Half an hour later they came down from the taxi in front of Taki's, a restaurant that used glamor to become invisible to mundane's eyes and housed Shadowhunters and Underworld's creature.
Isabelle was stunning, with black hair framing her face and down to her waist, the high-heeled boots sinking into the sidewalk snow and clothes made of a red scarf around her neck, jeans and leather jacket.
They entered the warm room and settled on a side table. The Taki's was busy that night, so slow to serve.
When the fairy waitress gave her back to them taking their requests away - onion rings to Iz and a glass of blood O+ to Simon - an uncomfortable silence fell upon them.
"So", Isabelle was the first to break it, "you really won. Just don't let Jace know about this, or he'll use this excuse every holiday to never eat at the Institute."
"It wasn't an excuse", said Simon before stopping himself. The thirsty made the words scraped in his throat and made his voice hoarse. "I really think we have the right to celebrate Valentine's Day too."
Izzy put a strand of hair behind her ear.
"When Alec went out this morning, I had no idea what he would do. Of course, I knew without a doubt that it involved Magnus… but I don't know. These superficial things seem so far away now, you know? After the war and Max's death…"
She didn't continue, but the loose phrase in the air didn't need an ending. Simon understood exactly what she meant. Now, ordinary things of his past, as the band or his secret love for his best friend, seemed distant and superficial compared to becoming a daylighter vampire, participating in a war and almost killing an innocent little girl.
"Do you think this will change someday? This feeling?", he asked.
She shrugged.
"I think this feeling is like a scar." Unconscious, she traced the Horus eye contour that marked her as a Shadowhunter in her hand's back with her finger. "It'll always be there as a reminder of an experience, but one day you'll get used to it."
Hypnotized by her gesture, Simon covered her hands with his. She shivered slightly and involuntarily. It was hard to forget that the blood that warmed him didn't run through his veins anymore, and his touch should be even colder with that wintery weather.
He started to remove his hand, but Izzy began to protest:
"No…" Her head lifted and their eyes met. Then her mouth broke into a panicked expression. "Oh no…"
Simon took a second to realize that she had seen something over his shoulder. Turning his head, he saw a tall, dark man entering the restaurant. He looked a few years older, with a thin beard on the chin, but shouldn't be more than twenty years old.
"What? Who is he?", asked the vampire, turning to the girl.
"Werewolf. Ex-boyfriend." She grimaced. "Long story. Didn't end well."
Simon didn't know what to do because he never had been in a situation like this before. He knew that Izzy had a long list of ex-boyfriends, but he thought she no longer cared about them.
Instead of asking what had happened, he asked:
"Do you want to get out of here?"
She nodded with relief and gratitude in her eyes.
Still with hands clasped, they got up and walked to the door of the back of the restaurant, without bothering to cancel the order, even if Simon really needed it.
The output of Taki's funds led to a typical alley of New York, with cat urine odor and garbage. The bins and buckets were lined up on the outside wall of the restaurant, parallel to a brick wall, which housed two thin and dirty cats.
The brown slush penetrated Simon's tennis, but, again, he didn't feel cold. The moonlight was the only lighting there. Away, at the mouth of the alley, was a post on the sidewalk, but the lamp was burned.
"Sorry about that", Isabelle said. She made no effort to remove her hand from his grip. "In the end, I think we'll have to be satisfied with my food anyway."
Simon nodded, even if it was blood he needed. "Are you fine?"
"Of course", guaranteed Iz. Now that they were outside, she seemed much calmer, even that the smells intoxicated the vampire's nostrils. "Caleb's just a little temperamental, didn't accept well when I finished our relationship."
Then a shadow jumped the fence in one movement. By the silhouette's size and the thud produced when he landed in the alley, Simon could tell it was a man, although it was difficult to define when he was wearing a hood.
And that's what made his alert senses awaken.
A second hooded man followed the first one, materializing by his side. Suddenly, Simon knew that the lamp on the pole hadn't burned simply and they were trapped.
Simon also knew, in a burst, they were part of that group that had been chasing him all week. So he tried to warn Isabelle when she advanced to them in instinct that they should do nothing, so the Cain mark would act because they were only interested in him, not her, but she couldn't know, and didn't hear when Simon started to prevent it.
Attacking the first man, who was closer, Izzy knocked him by throwing her body's weight on his legs. In a second, the whip hung loose and free.
The second turned away from the fight and advanced to Simon.
"Man, I wouldn't do that if I were you… Do you know what happened to your colleagues?"
But he didn't listen. No one there seemed to want to do this tonight. He drew a dagger from his jacket, long, sharp, and wielded toward Simon. He tried to throw his hair to the side of his head, show him the Cain mark, but the man invested forward.
As an invisible barrier, the blade stopped inches from Simon's chest and bent back, like it was made of aluminum foil. The man let out a cry of pain that echoed through the busy night of Valentine's Day in New York, making the cats run away, with hair bristling and snarling meows.
In front of the black hood, a bloodstain began to form, circulating where his heart was. Someone with normal senses wouldn't separate the two colors in the darkness, but Simon could smell it, intoxicating and toxically sweet.
The flesh against flesh sound awakened him from the trance produced by the blood. Isabelle had hit a punch in the first man's nose, making the cartilage snap and popping his head backward on the sidewalk. The brown snow around him had a touch of the scarlet-red color of blood.
More blood.
Izzy got off the man, rubbing her palms back and forth to keep the whip. She straightened a lock of hair that had fallen over her eyes and turned to the vampire.
"Simon?", she called, worried. "Are you okay?"
His face should report all the despair he felt being exposed to two pools of blood perfectly consumables, still warm in their veins.
"Simon", she said, walking toward him cautiously, but with determination. Shouldn't she know better than that that was strictly forbidden to stay close to a thirsty vampire while being a walking bag of blood?
"It's okay", she assured, reaching out to touch his shoulder. Even with the fabric of the jacket and shirt, he could feel the pulse of her veins in her fingers' tip. "Let's go back inside and ask a cup…"
He shook his head, remembering: "The werewolf…"
"Simon", she said, hardly believing the reason for his reluctance. "I won't let you hungry because of a stupid ex-boyfriend…"
He stood still as a statue. She sighed.
"Unless I don't let you starve." She began to unwind the scarf from her neck and Simon's mind took a moment to process the gesture.
He turned away as if she had struck him with her whip.
"Oh, please." She rolled her eyes. "It's not like I was doing a striptease."
"Isabelle, I won't let you do this…"
"It's my decision, okay?", she said, with her chin up. "It was my fault we left Taki's and you didn't have your blood, besides we were attacked thanks to me."
She finished taking the scarf off and exposed her neck's soft white skin.
"It's only a little. Believe me, I won't let you drain me. For Raziel's sake, it's Valentine's Day. Consider it a gift."
Simon realized she was babbling because she was nervous. If they really would do that, he wanted to relax her. Lowering his head and putting his hand at her neck's base, he pressed his lips against hers softly.
But there was nothing soft in Isabelle. She was like the fire that consumed everything. She wrapped his neck and pulled him close, pressing her body against his. Simon put his other hand on her waist and went forward until he was pressing her body against the wall.
Suddenly, even with all the winter clothes, he was aware of every last detail of her body, her smell, her taste.
Her taste. The information came late to his brain. In the voracity of time he had bitten her lower lip, and her blood infested his tongue like a party. She didn't seem to have noticed the wound, earnest in return all his affection.
Separating himself from her with a great effort (he definitely would sweat if he was still human), he started giving wet kisses down her uncovered neck.
"Are you ready?", he whispered against her skin. His breath tickled her skin and she nodded minimally.
He tried to be as careful as possible, but the pain of his fangs digging into her skin was inevitable. She bit her lip to keep from crying, letting out a muffled noise, and felt the taste of her own blood on her tongue as well as Simon, when the elixir reached his.
She let out a low moan as he swallowed languidly, fingers entwined in her hair, pulling her closer. But he knew when it was time to stop. It wasn't as hard as the first time. He just had to remind himself that this was Isabelle - which was easy - and he would hate himself forever if he hurt her.
He turned away from her, licking the line of blood that fell down his chin. She let out a groan of protest, but then her mind cleared and she winked her eyes to stabilize herself.
Simon leaned his forehead against hers to recover himself from that ecstasy's wave.
"Happy Valentine's Day", she whispered, with humor in her voice.
"Happy Valentine's Day", he answered.