Yay I finally have a second chapter of this! Still Jocelyn's POV but now I know it'll be a multichapter story-maybe 5 or 6 chapters altogether?-I think I'll do some in Luke's as well later, cos I just love Luke! Anyway…

Chapter 2:

This is going to be one of my last active hunting missions for a very long time. It's early days yet but I've asked a warlock friend of mine called Ragnor Fell to look me over, and he's confirmed what Val and I suspected. I'm pregnant. One month so far. And I've never been so happy in my life-there's a new person growing inside me, a real human being with a future and a soul and soon a beating heart and so much to live for-and it's because of me, me and Val made this magic, we created a whole tiny person and in eight or so months then I'll meet him or her for the first time…

I can't wait!

Anyway, I can't risk the baby. So after this hunt and maybe one or two more I'll put my shadowhunting duties on hold and take care of myself. My mother always used to say I never knew when to stop pushing myself, that I should accept I was only human-but she meant in terms of not spending my nights painting till the dawn because in daylight hours I had no time to do anything but train as a Shadowhunter. Suddenly now the idea of stopping, of standing still, is just right, because I'm not just safeguarding myself. There's someone else inside me who I have a higher duty to protect.

I come downstairs in my close-fitting black gear, a seraph blade and a sword in my belt and as many ampoules of holy water as I can cram into my pockets. Val meets me in the entrance hall with a kiss and the proud, brilliant grin he keeps on giving me, has done ever since I told him he was going to be a father.

"Are you sure you're up for this?" he asks me. It's got to be the only time he's ever suggested not taking on a mission, and I'm amazingly touched that this concession so far from his nature is for me and our baby. I smile.

"Yes. I'll take good care of it."

He laughs then, running his hand through my long red hair and making me sigh with pleasure. "Not just the baby. Take care of yourself too. I'm certainly not letting you out of my sight."

"I am an adult, Val," I point out. "And a Shadowhunter, and not a bad one. I can handle myself, sweet gallant hero though you are."

He nuzzles close to me, pressing his face into the soft side of my throat. "I'm not risking anything now," he whispers. Once I would have thought he just had to control everything, including me-now I know he really does care for me, so I let his overprotective ways go this time. I twist my face away, knowing that if we get too affectionate now I'll never want to leave the house. "Come on, we should get moving."

"You're going to leave me hungry?" he calls after me, mock-mournfully. I laugh, glancing back flirtatiously.

"Starving."

Val and I meet Robert, Maryse, Lucian and Stephen outside the house-the best of the Circle, is what my husband chose for this mission. Hodge Starkweather, who located the vampires for us as well as researching what he could about their identities and habits, waves us off a little sadly: I don't know anyone with more knowledge crammed into their heads than he has, but he is definitely no field agent. It's a day-and-a-half's ride to Arkadale Cave, where the vampires have made their lair, and we mount up and go trotting off into the dawn together, fearless and ready. Lucian is quiet and preoccupied: I haven't spoken to him since we fell out over his doubting Val a few days ago and I think he's still hurt. I ride over and try to start up a conversation, feeling guilty. He is my oldest friend, after all.

"Feeling confident?" I ask. He shrugs and I find myself rolling my eyes. His shy, wary, sullen manner is just so typical. He's twenty, like me, but sometimes I think he's still ten.

"Oh come on, Lucian. You can't still be-"

"What?" he interrupts quietly. "Trying to do the right thing?"

"Lucian-can't you trust him like you always did? What's wrong with you?"

He straightens his head then, making a visible effort to master himself. "Oh, nothing. Just feeling a little down, I guess. Sorry. So-I heard the amazing news?"

I feel my face brighten automatically, as if the joy that consumes me at any mention of my pregnancy and my child has already filtered into my every physical reaction. "You did? Yes-I'm going to be a mother!"

And he's smiling, a little sadly I think at first, but I must be imagining it. What is there for him to be sad about, after all? "Well, you'll make a fantastic mother, Jocelyn," he tells me firmly. "Your child's lucky. So lucky."

Arkadale Cave looms up before us through the darkness, a mouth into hell. Night is falling-we were delayed a few hours by Robert's horse injuring her foot-and as we watch through the branches of the nearby bushes we can see a couple of graceful figures stepping out of the shadows of the cave, stretching, catlike. I have Val on one side of me and Lucian on the other, and I feel tense and shivery with expectation. Val glances at me, asking me silently if I'm ready-I nod, barely perceptibly. He gestures towards the cave, then towards our circle, and I raise my eyebrows in surprise. Does he not even want to wait and watch, just to ensure that we have got this right? I cock my head to one side, trying to get this across. He shakes his head and jerks his neck back, telling us all to retreat so we can talk and Mark ourselves before going in.

We gather a kilometre or so away from the cave-it should be far enough out of range of the vampires' supernaturally-enhanced senses. Val and I Mark ourselves with healing iratzes, as well as the runes for stealth, speed and sight in the darkness, and I can see the others doing the same, Robert paired with Maryse, Lucian with Stephen.

"Right," Val says, when we're all ready, our skin covered in swirling black tattoos ready for battle. "According to Hodge we're dealing with six vampires here. Lucian and myself go in to try and draw them out. The rest of you wait right outside the cave and take them down as they run."

"Shouldn't we wait and spy them out?" I put in. "We need to make sure we're right about them."

"It's not necessary," Val says without even turning to look at me. "We're right. Trust me." And I just do, instinctively, because his voice tells me to. It's what we do-we trust Valentine Morgenstern, especially me.

I hate the first part. If only I could have gone in with Val and Lucian…but I know the plan and they are parabatai. Thing is, I could be parabatai with either one of them-I'm as good a Shadowhunter, and I'd die for them both. But I was too late…I'm crouching in the bushes beside Stephen Herondale, everyone's golden boy; all the Shadowhunter girls who aren't in love with my husband are in love with Stephen. It's the luck of the draw, I guess.

"Jocelyn," he whispers now. "I never congratulated you. About the baby?"

Again that brilliant grin lightens my face. "Thanks, Stephen. It feels amazing, I can tell you that…"

"I'll let Amatis know," he laughs. "She's worried about morning sickness if she gets pregnant."

I grin. "Well, I won't say I don't get it…but tell her it's worth it. She's not felt anything yet?"

He shakes his head. "Not yet. But we're young still."

"Shh!" Maryse hisses from beside us, and we go quiet, waiting.

It's only a few minutes later that I hear running footsteps, and I tense, creeping forward towards the edge of the cliff above the cave mouth. At that moment Val and Lucian come racing out, taking me by surprise: Lucian is bleeding from the arm, I see, but it doesn't look serious. Stephen, Maryse, Robert and myself leap down from the edge we're hidden on just in time to block the five or so vampires chasing Val and Lucian-in a second Maryse has pulled her knife through the closest one's throat, making him fall to his knees and bleed out in a matter of minutes. I'm flinging holy water and seeing them steam and burn before my eyes-we're winning, we're doing fine. The battle doesn't last long: we've surprised them and they were not ready. I turn to see Val finishing off the last vampire, and what I see makes my breath clog my throat, and I want to throw up.

He's pinned the vampire, a young man with long black hair, to the ground with two seraph blades through his hands, as if he were crucified. He's kneeling across the writhing, spitting body, and he's carefully pouring holy water into the vampire's mouth, in such quantities that the youth is choking on it, steam pouring from the inside of his windpipe, body convulsing violently as he desperately fights the agony he must be in. "Val," I try to say, but my voice is a mere croak-suddenly I can't believe that this is my husband sitting there torturing this vampire to death. "Val, stop-"

"Valentine," Lucian echoes me, stepping forwards. He looks white and tired and stricken, and the blood pumping out of his arm is coming more heavily than I thought. "Valentine, finish him."

Val looks up and smiles faintly, calmly. It's the kind of smile that would not be out of place at a civilised Victorian dinner party, except that he's kneeling on the ground over the tormented body of a bleeding, burning vampire. He holds out his blade to Lucian. "Would you like to do the honours?" he asks. Lucian strides across, swipes the blade from his hand and stabs the vampire through the heart, swiftly and without hesitation, killing him instantly. Val stands up, brushing the blood from his gear. "We'll burn the bodies," he says. "Lucian, Jocelyn, why don't you check the cave, just in case?"

We glance at each other, reading the same shock and sickness in each other's faces. The others seem unmoved-is it just because I don't know them as well as I do Lucian, or do they really not see all that was wrong in what Val just did? It was the heat of battle, I tell myself feverishly. People get carried away…

I keep on repeating the words to myself as I follow Lucian into Arkadale Cave, desperately, but I keep seeing the youth's white, bloodless face, twisted in a scream of agony, spattered with his own froth and blood. Every time I lose my eyes it's there.

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