Isabelle Lightwood was beautifully dangerous. She always had been. She was in possession of that particular type of classic, almost Victorian beauty that girls always longed for and men always went for. Her long dark hair fell in wavy tendrils down around her face, like a curtain, mysterious and elegant as park-walk at dusk. Her eyes were silver and framed by long lashes which cast shadows on her rosy cheeks. Her lips were bow-shaped and deep pink, and her smile, when she revealed it, was luminous. She was tall and curvaceous and very graceful, all legs and hips and bosom.
Isabelle was very beautiful, but she was rare in the way that she was no helpless damsel, waiting for some knight to sweep her off her feet. Isabelle knew how to use her beauty. She lured you in, be you man or demon, Shadowhunter or Downworlder. She beckoned you to her and soon enough she had you in her grasp. She'd step on your throat with her high heels. She'd choke you with a pearl necklace. She'd torture you with her beauty, until you regret having looked at her at all.
The only time it was any different was with Simon. Meeting him, Isabelle thought immediately that he wasn't her type, geeky and awkward, a mundane. But when he showed obvious interest in her, she flirted and danced with him and even kissed him once, since he was available and she felt lonely. Plus, she'd always been a rebel. It was only when Simon became a vampire that she really began to take notice of him. Simon: a sweet, funny guy with dark brown eyes that really stood out without his glasses and messy dark brown hair that she kind of wanted to run her fingers through.
When Max died, she felt so vulnerable. Simon had pounded on the locked door of her room in Idris and, surprised it was someone other than her brothers, she had allowed him entrance. She was not properly dressed, her makeup was smudged and dried around her red-rimmed eyes, and her hair was in tangles. She wanted so much someone who could see her like this and not shrink away. So when Simon kissed her, again and again, and Isabelle felt his body pressed against hers, she got just what she wanted, as always, but it was different this time. Because what she wanted this time, what she needed, was someone to comfort her in the moments where she did not feel beautiful or dangerous at all.