The scent of him carried through the wind. Magnus' body responded to it before his mind did seesawing between pain and pleasure. Sweat broke out on the back of his neck and his palms. His body shivered in remembered pain—or remembered pleasure. He turned his body south, trying to decide whether to run or confront Darelen.
"Magnus," Darelen's soft voice came before he could run. Darelen's chuckled and Magnus felt arms wrap around him, for a minute he was frozen. But then he grabbed his wits and threw himself out of Darelen's arms.
"Stop it!" Magnus shouted furiously as he turned on Darelen who'd dark eyes were locked on him. His breath stopped for a second as a memory took fold.
"No!" he shouted wrenching himself away from the memory. Darelen looked at him in confusion and Magnus felt his heart fly. He was beautiful. Shaking his head again, he whirled away and started down the path. He hadn't slept in about twenty—four hours and hadn't eaten in twelve, he wasn't in the right of his mind for this.
"Magnus?" Darelen's voice said, following him. With a sigh Magnus turned to confront him, he knew he wasn't himself right now. Simon was missing and –his phone vibrated noisily in the dawn silence that was the animals awaking from their sleep and the predators getting ready for sleep. With an exasperated sigh as he tried to keep his fast pace from Darelen as he followed, he snapped it open.
"What?" he demanded.
"Where are you?" Alec demanded also.
"Huh?" Magnus asked, his mind befuddling him.
"Where are you?" Alec demanded louder. "We've been looking everywhere for you and you haven't answered any of our calls and not even mine!" Magnus blinked again at the anger in Alec's voice. What had he thought he was doing?
"I'm sorry, Alec," he said. "I was searching for Simon and I guess I wasn'taying attention to my phone." Alec let out a noise of anger but relief and Magnus smiled as he heard him calm down.
"It's okay, I guess," Alec murmured. "but you've got to come to the Institute so everyone wil know you're okay."
"Magnus?" Darelen's voice suddenly came. Magnus' head snapped uo—he'd forgotten about Darelen, and from the expression on his face he knew that and he wasn't happy about it.
"Who's that?" Alec asked through the phone in confusion. Before Magnus could answer the phone was suddenly wretched from his ear. He spun in confusion to see Darelen holding the phone to his ear.
"I would ask you the same question," Darelen snapped into the phone. Magnus felt his face pale.
"Who is this?" Alec demanded, anger rippling through his voice.
"Give it back, Darelen!" Magnus growled, snatching the phone back.
"Darelen who? What are you doing, Magnus?" Alec growled through the phone and he almost groaned aloud. This was going to be a bugger to fix.
"Nothing!" he answered. "I'm not doing anything, Alec. He's just a person I ran into—"
"What?" Darelen demanded
"Why did he say that?" Alec demanded.
"I don't know!" Magnus cried out in frustration. "Darelen—"
"Don't you 'Darelen' me!" the male shouted.
"Who is he?" Alec demanded.
"I'm his—" Darelen started yelling.
"Got to go, bye!" Magnus shouted, cutting Alec off and whirled around to Darelen in anger.
The other male was glaring at him with clenched fists. "Just a person you ran into?" he gritted out between gritted teeth.
"Jace?" Alec asked. Touching Jace's turned and shuttering shoulder. He looked around, Jace on his knees in the middle of Magnus' abandoned dining room.
"She's gone," Jace choked out, his voice almost inaudible in the dark room. Alec looked around, the only other in the room was Isabelle whom was looking down at Jace in horror.
"Who?" Alec asked in a whisper.
"Clary," Jace choked out. Then let a sound of anguish that was so filled with pain Alec's heart cried and shrank away from it.
"He has her," Jace groaned in pain. "He took her!"
"Who, Jace?" Alec demanded, his heart raging in anger. "Who took Clary? Tell me!"
Jace's eyes slowly looked up at him, the pain in them almost felled Isabelle and Alec both. Such pain. "Jonathan." Jace's voice broke.