The Mortal Instruments Ficlet: Jace and Clary

City of Ashes

Summary: my take on what should have happened between Jace and Clary in City of Ashes when Maia was sick. M/F non consensual spanking of a minor. DON'T LIKE, DON'T READ!

Note: story takes place in City of Ashes. I do not own The Mortal Instruments series, nor do I own any of the characters. All rights go to Cassandra Clare. I don't make any money from these stories. The dialogue is correct up until "Alec made a noise that sounded very much like a laugh stifled by a cough as Magnus's thin hands wove a shimmering blue curtain of magic around the werewolf girl."

"Maia?" Simon said again, appalled.

"Vampire," she snarled.

He felt his head rock back as if she had slapped him. "Maia—"

"I thought you were human. But you're a monster. A bloodsucking leech."

"I am human—I mean, I was human. I got turned. A few days ago." His mind was swimming; he felt dizzy and sick. "Just like you were—"

"Don't ever compare yourself to me!" She had struggled up into a sitting position, those ghastly yellow eyes still on him, scouring him with their disgust. "I'm still human, still alive—you're a dead thing that feeds on blood."

"Animal blood—"

"Just because you can't get human, or the Shadowhunters will burn you alive—"

"Maia," he said, and her name in his mouth was half fury and half a plea; he took a step toward her and her hand whipped out, nails shooting out like talons, suddenly impossibly long. They raked his cheek, sending him staggering back, his hand clapped to his face. Blood coursed down his cheek, into his mouth. He tasted the salt of it and his stomach rumbled.

Maia was crouched on the sofa's arm now, her knees drawn up, clawed fingers leaving deep gouges in the gray velveteen. A low growl poured from her throat and her ears were long and flat against her head. When she bared her teeth, they were sharply jagged—not needle-thin like his own, but strong, whitely pointed canines. She had dropped the bloody cloth that had wrapped her arm and he could see the punctures where the spines had gone in, the glimmer of blood, welling, spilling—

A sharp pain in his lower lip told him that his fangs had slid from their sheaths. Some part of him wanted to fight her, to wrestle her down and puncture her skin with his teeth, to gulp her hot blood. The rest of him felt as if it were screaming. He took a step back and then another, his hands out as if he could hold her back.

She tensed to spring, just as the door to the kitchen flew open and Clary burst into the room. She leaped onto the coffee table, landing lightly as a cat. She held something in her hand, something that flashed a bright white-silver when she raised her arm. Simon saw that it was a dagger as elegantly curved as a bird's wing; a dagger that whipped past Maia's hair, millimeters from her face, and sank to the hilt in gray velveteen. Maia tried to pull away and gasped; the blade had gone through her sleeve and pinned it to the sofa.

Clary yanked the blade back. It was one of Luke's. The moment she'd cracked open the kitchen door and gotten a look at what was going on in the living room, she'd made a beeline for the personal weapons stash he kept in his office. Maia might be weakened and sick, but she'd looked mad enough to kill, and Clary didn't doubt her abilities.

"What the hell is it with you?" As if from a distance, Clary heard herself speaking, and the steel in her own voice astonished her. "Werewolves, vampires—you're both Downworlders."

"Werewolves don't hurt people, or each other. Vampires are murderers. One killed a boy down at the Hunter's Moon just the other day—"

"That wasn't a vampire." Clary saw Maia blanch at the certainty in her voice. "And if you could stop blaming each other all the time for every bad thing that happens Downworld, maybe the Nephilim would start taking you seriously and actually do something about it." She turned to Simon. The vicious cuts across his cheek were already healing to silvery red lines. "Are you alright?"

"Yes." His voice was barely audible. She could see the hurt in his eyes, and for a moment she wrestled the urge to call Maia a number of unprintable names. "I'm fine."

Clary turned back to the werewolf girl. "You're lucky he's not as much of a bigot as you are, or I'd complain to the Clave and make the whole pack pay for your behavior." With a sharp tug, she yanked the knife loose, freeing Maia's T-shirt.

Maia bristled. "You don't get it. Vampires are what they are because they're infected with demon energies—"

"So are lycanthropes!" Clary said. "I may not know much, but I do know that."

"But that's the problem. The demon energies change us, make us different—you can call it a sickness or whatever you want, but the demons who created vampires and the demons who created werewolves came from species who were at war with each other. They hated each other, so it's in our blood to hate each other too. We can't help it. A werewolf and a vampire can never be friends because of it." She looked at Simon. Her eyes were bright with anger and something else. "You'll start hating me soon enough," she said. "You'll hate Luke, too. You won't be able to help it."

"Hate Luke?" Simon was ashen, but before Clary could reassure him, the front door banged open. She looked around, expecting Luke, but it wasn't Luke. It was Jace. He was all in black, two seraph blades stuck through the belt that circled his narrow hips. Alec and Magnus were just behind him, Magnus in a long, swirling cape that looked as if it were decorated with bits of crushed glass.

Jace's golden eyes, with the precision of a laser, fixed immediately on Clary. If she'd thought he might look apologetic, concerned, or even ashamed after all that had happened, she was wrong. All he looked was angry. "What," he said, with a sharp and deliberate annoyance, "do you think you're doing?"

Clary glanced down at herself. She was still perched on the coffee table, knife in hand. She fought the urge to hide it behind her back. "We had an incident. I took care of it."

"Really." Jace's voice dripped sarcasm. "Do you even know how to use that knife, Clarissa? Without poking a hole in yourself or any innocent bystanders?"

"I didn't hurt anyone," Clary said between her teeth.

"She stabbed the couch," said Maia in a dull voice, her eyes falling shut. Her cheeks were still flushed red with fever and rage, but the rest of her face was alarmingly pale.

Simon looked at her worriedly. "I think she's getting worse."

Magnus cleared his throat. When Simon didn't move, he said, "Get out of the way, mundane," in a tone of immense annoyance. He flung his cloak back as he stalked across the room to where Maia lay on the couch. "I take it you're my patient?" he inquired, gazing down at her through glitter-crusted lashes.

Maia stared up at him with unfocused eyes.

"I'm Magnus Bane," he went on in a soothing tone, stretching out his ringed hands. Blue sparks had begun to dance between them like bioluminescence dancing in water. "I'm the warlock who's here to cure you. Didn't they tell you I was coming?"

"I know who you are, but…" Maia looked dazed. "You look so … so … shiny."

Alec made a noise that sounded very much like a laugh stifled by a cough as Magnus's thin hands wove a shimmering blue curtain of magic around the werewolf girl.

"Clary," Jace said catching her attention. He still held a stern glare toward her. "Come upstairs with me. I want to have a chat."

Clary looked over to Simon with worried eyes, but he was too focused as he stared at the works of Magnus in awe, as was Alec. She rolled her eyes at the scene before her and then turned back to Jace.

"Alright," she responded. Jace walked behind Clary as they both ventured up the stairs.

When they both reached the room Clary was occupying, Jace locked the door and drew a silencing rune on it. Clary furrowed her eyebrows and asked him what he was doing that for.

Jace ignored her curiosity and turned toward her when he finished. "What the hell were you thinking, Clary? We've been over this. You are not a Shadowhunter!" He exclaimed enunciating the last few words slowly and clearly.

"I had the situation under control! Don't talk to me like I'm helpless!"

"You don't understand." Jace ran his hands through his hair in a frustrated gesture. "Maia could have hurt you so easily even if she isn't well. What if she and Simon had gotten into a physical fight. If you tried to stop a brawl between a vampire and a werewolf, they would have seriously hurt you. You've never been trained, Clarissa!"

Clary tried to counter his argument but found it to be hard. All she could think of were petty comebacks: but I didn't get hurt, I'm not five years old, or calling him names. She hesitated with saying something in return, but was distracted by Jace grabbing her elbow and dragging her over to the bed.

She tried to dig her heels into the floor to stop him, but he was stronger. He would always be stronger.

"Jace! Stop it!" She said as he sat down on the bed and bent her over one thigh so that her legs were pinned under his right leg.

Her face was only inches from the carpet, and her hip bones were uncomfortable against his thigh. She knew this position all too well from when she was a child growing up, but she hadn't been spanked since she was eleven years old for being disrespectful toward Luke.

Jace circled her waist with his left arm to hold her tight against him. She was struggling profoundly, and he needed her to be still.

The first smack to Clary's backside made her go still from the shock. Once Jace found a pattern though, she started wriggling again and shouting. "Jace! Ow! It hurts!"

"That's what a spanking is supposed to do. Hurt." He said while punishing her denim covered backside. Clary tried to kick her legs but couldn't. She was trapped, vulnerable, and helpless.

"Please, stop," she begged. Her pleas were not listened to though because the Shadowhunter just kept on laying down swat after swat.

A few minutes after Jace thought she had had enough, he stood both himself and Clary up. He hugged her close to him and let her cry as he held her. It was soothing for Clary, even humbling a bit. She had gotten so cocky lately and thought she could do everything, but Jace was right. She could have gotten hurt or killed.

Jace wiped her cheeks with the pads of his thumbs after Clary had calmed down. "You want to go back downstairs?" He asked.

She declined and said she felt tired, and that she was going to rest. "Alright, let me know if you need anything." With that, he left the room and shut the door behind him. When Clary gazed longingly at the door, she noticed the rune had vanished and now it was just a plain wooden door again.