A/N: Sorry, kind of a short update today. I may post another chapter later this evening if I have the time. Things are beginning to get interesting... Well, as an author, I'd hope they were already kind of interesting, actually. Alright, enjoy.
Chapter 11
JACE POV
"Clary!" he shouted urgently, turning to face her directly. She didn't wake up. It had been the shivering which had awoken him, thinking that he'd tossed the blankets off somehow. But they were both covered in blankets up their shoulders, so he'd known something was her heart rate had begun to increase, and she had broken out into a cold sweat as if she had a fever. Nightmares, he thought. It had to be nightmares. Any other possibility was inexplorably painful. So he had set about waking her up. Then the screaming began.
"Clary, please!" he shouted, shaking her shoulders gently but urgently. "Wake up. You're having a nightmare." And suddenly, she woke with a gasp, calling out his name, breathing panicked as she took in the sheer darkness of the room. It was the middle of the night, but Jace's Shadowhunter eyes had adjusted with catlike nightvision. Clary's would have soon followed, but he spared her the wait time by grabbing his witchlight off the nightstand.
"Clary?" he asked quietly as the light illuminated her face, blinding him and throwing sharp edges on all the objects in the room. Clary's hair was shining and wild in the white light, her eyes wide and unfocused. "It was just a nightmare."
"Jace." the word was a sob of relief, and she collapsed against him. Then, with an odd stillness, she froze, and sat back up. "Jace?" This time it was a question, and he looked on in subdued horror as she reached under the covers to lay a hand on her stomach. It came back red.
With a leap, Jace switched on the lights, then flew back to Clary, tossing off the covers to inspect her. Immediately, his heart sank. It was not, as he had suspected, a reopening of her old bite wound, but rather an entirely new wound, running vertically from her ribcage to her navel. A wound which she had received since they'd gone to bed that night.
"Clary," he breathed, "what the hell happened?" Clary sat up as if to explain, but blood only soaked further along the gash in the T-shirt. She winced. With gentle force, he shoved her back down onto the bed. After quickly rummaging through the bedside drawer for a stele, he sketched an iratze in between her fading bite mark scars and the newly formed gash along her abdomen. Thankfully, it took, and began fading immediately, the blood flow from the wound staunching rapidly. Jace exhaled. Clary was propped up delicately against a pillow, seemingly trying not to move and cause any further damage. Seeing her in so much pain, twice in a row, it made him ill. Clearly, however, the healing rune was going it's job, and color was returning to Clary's cheeks, though the shell shocked look remained. Now that the initial panic of the injury was gone, Jace looked equal parts relieved and completely frenzied.