The pain that Clary felt was felt by everyone in the clearing. It vibrated through the pack bond, as though her position in their pack was suddenly cemented by the fact that she had moved to protect Max, and then Jace in turn had killed to protect her. But Clary buried her pain quickly as she reached Max and rolled him over, onto his back and leaning over him, calling out his name. Valentine was watching her, not paying any attention to the fighting and the fire. He wasn't far from her either, and he had a good position where he was able to see through the trees and directly make her out. His eyes looked pitch black, and Jace could see the fire reflecting back in them. Then Valentine's eyes lifted, looking over to where Jace was, and there was a wicked curl of his mouth.

He didn't even look as though he had processed that the blood that was dripping from Jace's fangs and matting the fur of his snout and face was from his son.

He was staring at Jace with a look that Jace realized with a sickening thud was pride.

The flames were getting higher and they were spreading, crackling and lashing out, and the heat was intensifying. Jace twisted his neck to look back at his pack and he noted that Isabelle had thrown the werefox into the flames. Two of the three humans had gone running, leaving only Sebastian, so obviously whatever power they were getting from Valentine wasn't enough for them to risk their lives by fire. Jace let out a loud bark and Isabelle's attention. Her eyes were furious but he could still catch the uncertainty when she looked over Jace's new form. Jace yipped again, jerking his head toward where Clary and Max were. He wished he could talk to his pack, but after jerking his head one more time toward the Spark and Isabelle's younger brother, she seemed to get what he was trying to say to her. She stumbled over to her brother before tripping over next to Max and Jace watched the two of them together.

"Max! Max!" Isabelle was yelling, shaking her brothers shoulders. Jace wanted to watch, wanted to make sure that Max was okay, but he didn't have the time.

There was still a werewolf left, Alaric, there were the two vampires, Camille and Raphael, the human, Sebastian, and of course, Valentine.

With how quickly the fire was spreading, he needed to make sure his pack got out of there safely. But on the other hand, they needed to get rid of these people, and now might be the best opportunity that they had.

Maia, Magnus and Alec looked as though they were getting the upper hand with the vampires and Jem was attacking Sebastian while Helen and Aline were fighting Alaric from both sides. Jace swung his head back to Valentine and he saw Clary standing up and slowing turning to face her father. He saw the smirk on Valentine's face as Clary flexed her fingers at her side, curling them into her palm and then straightening them out again. Jace saw the flare of purple swirling around her hands and wrists, and he felt her gathering power from around around her. That, together with the flames, Jace decided that they needed to get out of there, no matter what opportunity they had to end the Circle right now.

He yipped, loud enough to be heard through the crackling of the flames, the snarls from the werewolves and the loud, whooshing wind that sounded like a strong wind that was coming from Magnus' magic. Alec looked over at him, and Jace looked over his shoulder, back at the other Lightwood siblings. Alec shook his head, his gold eyes shimmering and his shoulders lifting and falling as he pulled in a few deep breaths and then looked back toward the two vampires.

Jace growled under his breath, wishing he could talk, snap and shout at Alec that Maia and Magnus were both strong enough to handle the vampires. Max needed to get away from the fire and the fighting, and Isabelle could carry him, but she seemed to be stuck emotionally. He could hear her crying and whispering her little brothers name over and over again. Jace growled louder, and he reached out through their pack bond, demanding that Alec turn his attention back to his Alpha. It worked, and Alec turned back around, and when Jace pointed his head toward Isabelle and Max again, Alec let out an annoyed grunt and then ran toward his siblings. Jace let out a sigh of relief, and then he lunged toward Sebastian.

Jem was stubborn, but he was young, and whatever power Sebastian was sharing made him strong, and he was a skilled fighter. Jace went for Sebastian's thigh, and his strong teeth sunk in. It seemed as though he was wearing some kind of padding—prepared for the fight—but when Jace threw his body to the side, it sent Sebastian stumbling toward the ground with a shout. Jace weighed a lot more now, as a huge, black wolf, than when he did as a human, and obviously that had been enough to throw Sebastian off balance.

Jace didn't want to kill the man—he had already killed two people tonight, the first time he had ever killed anyone, and he really didn't want to kill a human. Not that him being a human made him more important than Alaric or Jon, who he had killed because he knew they needed to be stopped, but it felt different. He knew that if it was a normal human, he could incapacitate them to the point where they weren't a threat.

Sebastian was different.

Jem was turning around to look at Jace, taking in the appearance of his Alpha properly—and he didn't doubt that he didn't look intimidating, a huge, pitch black wolf with the blood red eyes of a human—but Jem shouldn't be taking his eye off the ball.

Sebastian got back to his feet and there was a weapon in his hand that smelt of wolfsbane. Jace was about to leap forward to protect his beta, but Jem was quick. Jace couldn't help but feel pride when Jem threw up one hand to meet the arm that Sebastian was holding the weapon in, blocking it from getting too close to him, and then his other hand came up to whip forward and hit the other arm. Then he jutted his head forward, hitting Sebastian square in the head and sending him stumbling backwards. The human was completely disorientated, eyes blinking rapidly, and then he fell to the ground, smacking his head against a rock on the ground and falling unconscious.

There was a high pitched scream come from Aline, pointed and directed straight at Alaric, and the werewolf when flying backwards at the force of the scream from the banshee. She had only recently mastered the art of directing her scream, with a lot of help from Clary and Magnus. It was something that Jace had only seen her be able to do accurately twice, but it seemed from the way Helen was sprawled out on the ground with a nasty gash on her head, that she had managed to pull from deep inside her and use that again.

Jace twisted around to see Alec getting both of his siblings up, Isabelle on her feet and Max with an arm over his shoulders so that he could carry him. Then he looked back at Aline, who was reaching down to help Helen to her feet. Lastly, he looked toward Magnus and Maia, and he realized that Camille was down and out, permanently, from the angle that her head was twisted at. Her head was going to have to be severed from his body to make sure she stayed dead, but from the vicious look on Maia's face—paired together with the blood dripping from her hands and what was coming from long tears and gashes across her chest—he was guessing she was about to finish the job.

If Alec wasn't in his pack, Maia would definitely be his second in command.

Raphael was being pushed back, further and further into the fire. Magnus was sweating—Jace guessed from both the heat of the flames and also from concentration—but the green force field that he seemed to have created was pushing Raphael backwards was strong. Raphael didn't have much choice. Either side of him was engulfed in flames and there was no way he could go forward, through Magnus. So he made the only decision he really had, and turned and ran, deeper into the woods, possibly with the chance of making it through the fire.

The fire was getting higher, but Jace's attention shifted back to Clary.

Over the roar of the flames and the crashing that the branches were making as they fell to the forest floor, he couldn't hear what was happening between Clary and Valentine, even with his supernatural hearing. He knew they were talking, he could see Valentine's mouth moving and he could see Clary's shoulders moving, tensing, forcing themselves back down, and he knew that she was replying.

Jace couldn't help a whine.

He had to get his pack out of there.

The heat was becoming unbearable.

Werewolves could withstand a lot, but no one could get through being burnt alive, and their exits were quickly being cut off.

But he couldn't leave Clary.

Part of him wished that he could turn back into his human self, to tell them that he wanted them to get out of there. But even if he could verbally say it, he didn't think that they would listen. At least Isabelle, Alec and Max were starting to make their way to the safer path, although Jace could feel Alec's anxiety about leaving his Alpha behind. He looked over to the rest of his pack—including Magnus, who was fighting alongside his pack, and that made pack, just like Clary—and he saw them all gathering themselves up.

They weren't leaving.

Maia and Helen were hurt, although they were healing, he could feel the pain leaving them reasonably quickly. Jem was at Maia's side, Aline was at Helen's and Magnus was standing slightly in front of the five, in the middle, his hands ready at his side, his eyes shifted into his warlock mark, coloured differently, like cat eyes.

Jace felt his pride pulse and then he padded through the mess around him, getting closer to Clary. She was standing between two burning trees, and he had no idea how she wasn't melting, because it felt as though the flames were going to singe the fur that was covering his new body.

He knew that it probably wouldn't be smart to get too close to Clary, because he could feel her anger.

It was like a physical force, pulsing around him—pulsing around all of them. It was gathering and it was sweeping through the flames and the air and circling around her. She was practically vibrating with power and Jace wasn't sure what was going to happen.

"...Look at you two!" Came a scream over the fire and Jace's attention shifted to Valentine, who still looked as though he was trying to talk despite the danger around them. Jace brushed up against Clary's side and he knew that she knew he was there, he could feel her response, but her attention was on her father. "Together again, finally! And look at how you are when you're together!" Valentine didn't seem to register that he was alone now, that he had no one left on his side and there were flames completely surrounding him, except for where Clary and Jace were standing, and he wasn't going to get past them. "You're so strong apart—but look at how strong you are together! You have that because of me!"

Jace wasn't sure if he was deranged or if he actually thought he was making sense.

"You're everything you are because of me!" Valentine screamed again and Jace heard the sharp intake of Clary's breath. His wolf whined and he tried to press into her with his snout. She looked down at him and there was a small, slightly sad, smile on her face. His head whipped up when he saw that the flames above them eating away at the heavy branches that looked as though they were going to come down at any minute.

In fact, it was beginning to look as though most of the branches and trees were going to come down.

Jace's eyes flickered around them, back to his pack, who was very aware of the danger around them.

"Move back," Clary uttered and Jace stared up at her. The power around her was swelling, he could feel it reaching it's breaking point and Clary didn't have to tell him again. He spun around and began running, and so did his pack.

Except for Aline.

It suddenly felt as though all of the air was being sucked out of the air, the pressure pressed against Jace's chest and made his eyes sting, and then two things happened, almost at exactly the same moment. Aline opened her mouth in a loud, piercing scream and there was an explosion, the air all of sudden thundering back over them, with such intense force that it sent the pack flying, soaring through the air and then coming down hard on the ground, the fire around them disappearing and an eerie silence filling the air.

Jace hadn't even realized that he had changed back into his human form as he pushed off the ground and grimaced as he turned back to look over his shoulder.

"Clary!"

Okay, so my top songs this week are as follows;

1) Walls - Louis Tomlinson. 2) Alanis' Interlude - Halsey and Alanis Morissette. 3) Venice Bitch - Lana Del Rey. 4) Fake Love - BTS. 5) Too Young - Louis Tomlinson. 6) Always You - Louis Tomlinson. 7) Mikrokosmos - BTS. 8) Caught Up In Your Storm - Mickey Guyton. 9) 8TEEN - Khalid. 10) Heebiejeebies - Aminé and Kehlani.

The song that my husband hasn't stopped playing is Dionysus by BTS. We've been on a total BTS buzz lately, totally jumping on that train, even if we're a little late. My hubby's faves are Suga, Jungkook and Namjoon—he completely swoons everytime Suga comes on stage or starts rapping. Haha. Mine would be Namjoon, who I, admittedly, swoon over everytime he comes on screen, and then Jungkook, even if he's too pretty to even exist.

In one of my reviews, KnivesOut recomended Anne With An E which I have actually watched before although I haven't finished yet, and I definitely want to recommend to you guys! I remember reading the books when I was younger and loving them, and there's just something about this series that has brought it all back. I've also started watching Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood when me and my husband are high, and I'm super into it. Haha.

I think my weekly updates are going to slow down a bit for a few weeks, although I think I had a good run! So I'll be doing previews of the next chapter if you leave a review and let me know if you want one or not.

Also, feel free to hit me up on my socials;
Tumblr: SereneCalamity
Twitter: CalamitySerene

xx