Hey guys! Welcome back to another chapter! Hope you guys are like this one. Let me know in the reviews what you're liking, what you're not liking, and if there's anything you would like me to do! x

CHAPTER THREE

"What do we do?" Clary said, glancing around her friends, her gaze lingering on Jace for a moment longer. "We could just let it go. I mean, they're not inside the institute."

Jace glanced down at her, raising an eyebrow. "We have to kill them." Clary nodded. She knew he was right.

"Right then," she said. "Who's going to do the honour of opening the door and letting it begin?"

With a grin, Jace reached around her, kissed her on the cheek, and opened the door. He could practically taste the battle on his tongue already, hear the screams as his enemies died before him, at the end of his sword.

Without the door as a barricade, the sound of the demons chattering to each other, telling each other how hungry they were for Nephilim blood, was even louder than before. They were ugly, mouths opened in a cat's like hiss, teeth bared, ready to pierce down on human flesh if they allowed it. They were just raum demons, but there was dozens of them, more demons than shadowhunters. Jace being Jace was the first one to lunge into the killing crowd, his glowing seraph blade held in front of him and already slicing through demon legs. Alec followed after his parabatai, already backing him up, spinning when Jace spun, stabbing when his friend stabbed.

Isabelle released her whip from around her wrist, instantly flicking it so it fell down on some poor unsuspecting creature. It screamed as her weapon bit into its flesh, black ichor spilling out of its wound before it disappeared in a puff of dust to return to its home dimension. Clary was hesitant to follow, distracted by the rest of them, and their beauty when they fought. She had trained beside the rest for a couple of years now, but she still didn't feel like she could fight as well as them. While Jace had his grace, she felt clunky. While Izzy had her confidence, Clary was unsure. She watched Jace. His face was scrunched up in determination, black ichor already streaked across his cheeks. He was almost like a dancer, dancing around the demons, pirouetting and leaping between them. He slashed at them, and stabbed at them, never failing to miss a target. As if feeling Clary's gaze on him, Jace lifted his gaze to hers momentarily. He smiled when he saw her watching, and then raised an eyebrow at her, probably wondering why she was just standing there watching him.

In his moment of distraction, a Raum demon raised its head, biting down on Jace's leg. His face scrunched up in pain, but he didn't cry out, too much of a warrior to show his pain. Clary cried Jace's name out and leaped to his aid. She dived into the crowd, fighting the demons off, creating a path to her lion. He had managed to fight the one demon off, but he had slowed down with the demon blood now pumping in his veins. Clary dived to stand in front of him, rage filling her body until she was seeing red. Nobody hurt her boyfriend. Jace was hers, and nobody else's.

She slashed wildly, not seeing whether the creatures died or were just injured. It felt like hours had passed when somebody touched her shoulder, and a voice spoke her name gently. She realised that her arm was aching from hacking through demon flesh. She realised that ichor covered her clothes and her skin. She only then began to feel the sting of the poison. It was only then that she saw Jace's face looking at her with concern, his head bent so that his eyes were level with hers.

"Clary," he said again, and his face came into clear view. She could now see his golden irises, his pupils blown out wide with the effort of the fight. She could see every strand of his eyebrows, the crack in his lip which shed a single drop of blood. "It's over now. They're all gone."

She flung her arms around his neck, hugging him tightly until no air could pass between them. She buried her face into the crook of his neck, smelling blood and demon ichor, but still smelling like the Jace she knew and loved. He grunted in what sounded like pain, but he wrapped his arms around her waist anyway. The memories of the battle flooded her mind and she quickly withdrew, glancing down at his leg. She grimaced, looking down at the broken and bloody flesh.

"Oh my god…" she murmured. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine. A little demon spit won't kill me." But when she glanced up into his eyes, she could see pain lingering in the background. She felt like only she could see that much emotion from Jace and she prided herself in being the one Jace showed so much of himself to.

She reached into the back pocket of her jeans and withdrew her stele. "Hold still," she said. Clary took Jace's hand in hers, turning it up so his palm faced the sky. She pressed her stele to his skin, the iratze forming easily beneath her fingers. She watched as the rune disappeared beneath his skin, working its magic until it was just a faint line. She traced where the rune had been with her finger. It was all her fault he had been hurt. If she had have just fought without a second's doubt, none of this would have happened.

Clary felt the pressure of Jace's fingers beneath her chin. They were warm to the touch, and lifting her gaze to his. "Hey, what's wrong? I'm okay. I'm still here." She flickered her gaze away from his. She didn't deserve to look at him. Now she realised how Jace must have felt after the incident with Lilith – guilty more than anything else over her being the reason he had been hurt.

Clary went to pull away, thinking she didn't even deserve to be anywhere near him. How could he want to be anywhere near her anyway? Jace grabbed at her hand, pulling her back. "Jace… don't…"

"You have nothing to worry about. I'm okay."

Clary just nodded and said, "But you might not have been, and it would have been because of me."

He threaded his fingers through her red curls, probably getting demon blood through it, but she didn't care. He shook his head, his gaze softening on her. He circled his arms around her, pulling her into him. He rested his head on the top of her head, feeling the strands of her hair tickle the side of his face. Clary buried her face into his chest, gripping the front of his T-shirt until her knuckles grew white. So many times she had come close to losing him. Once she even did, but she had managed to bring him back. She thanked the angels for that. But so many other times, she had almost lost the man she loved. She couldn't bear to think of what a world without him might look like.

Never moving his arms, Jace guided them both inside the institute. The others had already moved away, having decided to give them some privacy. Jace sat her down at the island in the middle of the kitchen, taking the seraph blade from her which she had picked up before coming back inside. He went over to the counter, flicked a switch, the sound of the coffee machine whirring and groaning as the espresso dripped out and into a cup below it.

Jace placed the steaming mug of coffee before his girlfriend. He watched as she took the cup into her hands, wrapping her fingers around it, her eyes fluttering closed as if the heat was all she was hanging onto. He reached across to place his hand on the side of her face, his thumb brushing her cheekbone. She leaned into the touch of his hand, letting it hold her head as if it were a pillow. She sighed into it before opening her eyes to look at him. Every time she looked at him, he was always mesmerised by the startling green colour of her eyes.

He came around to stand beside her, took her in his arms, and held her like that as tears fell from her eyes, and onto his shirt. They stood like that until the tears came to an end, and reluctantly, Jace was forced to let her go, to watch her stumble home to be to her parents.