Her heart raced heavily. As if every beat was hardest work. She felt as if she had forgotten something important but couldn't grasp it. The feeling grew stronger and stronger and her heart beat faster and faster und then – she woke up. First, she didn't know where she was, which didn't contribute to her slight panic attack. It was almost too dark to see a thing. It must be in the middle of the night. Then she saw the glow of the dying fire and everything came back to her. The wild boar, her foot, the old cottage…she looked to her left. There was Jace right beside her. He was still sleeping calmly – or at least he pretended very well. Gradually her heart rate slowed down, but she was quite sure she couldn't go back to sleep. She was thirsty. Carefully she put most of her weight on her good foot and tried to stand up. Nausea hit her, but she managed to keep herself up. She waited until it was over and then she moved slowly to the kitchen. Everything nice and slow. The cold water she poured into her face and down her throat, was so good. She felt better. Hmm… what to do with all the time she had left until Jace would wake up? She looked out of the window, which was right over the kitchen counter. The color of the sky told her she had a least 2 hours before sunrise. She let her gaze wander back to the living room area. There was a huge bookshelf right next to the door leading to the bedroom. She felt stupid for not noticing this earlier. She was a fucking book seller. But her mind was set. This bookshelf needed a thoroughly inspection. Her foot still hurt while she limped back to the living room. But finally, she managed to get to the shelf. She got her hands on the first book of many she wanted to have a look at. She placed herself in front of the dying fire on a nice blanket. After packing another log into the glow left from when Jace had ignited the fire, it slowly lit up again, providing her with some light.

The book in her hands felt heavy. She couldn't tell why she had selected this book of all things. It hasn't been the first one in the shelf. It just felt right to look at it. To open it. That's what she did after reading the title. The Chronicles of Tyre. Huh. Sounded interesting. The first page was a printed wood engraving. It showed a handsome man with black wings and his bare stomach showed a single rune. Sue carefully caressed the page with her fingers. A weird tingling went through her body. Strange. All other runes she ever encountered made her feel dizzy or unpleasant.

"You probably found the only book in this bookshelf, which is not referring to any history of the shadowhunters.", a raspy voice suddenly said, and she winced on her blanket. It was Jace, who just had woken up. With an elegant movement, he stood and came over to her. For a brief moment her gaze roamed over his body and stopped at his eyes. He smiled at her. But it wasn't a devilish grin. He could pretend to not notice her staring all he wanted. She scolded herself to not do this again.

"It's mostly a children's book. It's the story of a king, which was very bad and banned into hell for being mean to everyone in his kingdom."

"And who is this man?", Sue asked and pointed at the picture in the book.

"I don't know. There is no angel in the text. To be honest, I had a – friend look at this rune on the man's stomach and she knows every rune there is and she doesn't recognize this one. I think it's just imaginary. A tale to tell the children to behave."

Sue didn't say anything and just kept looking at the picture in the book.

"Did you try it?", she asked after a while.

"Try what?"

"To apply this rune."

Jace ejected his breath hard.

"No. This is dangerous. You don't know what an imaginary rune could do to you. It could do nothing – or kill you immediately."

She looked at him again and he leaned over to close the book in her hands. His gaze met hers.

"Don't be risky. I promised Magnus to take good care of you."

With this, his hand softly caressed her cheek and she looked away - embarrassed.

"I will go get some more wood and try to reach Magnus with my phone. The reception is shit in here. I'll try it outside. We will be in New York again soon and he can help you heal your foot."

She nodded and gave him a reassuring smile, which he gave back. As soon as the big wooden door closed behind him, she couldn't help herself and flipped open the book again. The dark-winged angel looked back at her with gentle black eyes. He seemed to smile a bit. The rune seemed to glow inside the book, talking to her. Telling her that it was good. That it would help her. She looked around in the room. To her surprise Jace's stele laid on the table in front of her. Did he leave his stele unattended? That seemed to be very unlikely. However, there it was.

Without another thought she carefully took the stele in her hand. It was cold and pleasantly heavy. But at the same time, she was a little afraid to have the weapon in her hand, that has given her so much pain.

She took a deep breath and placed the stele on the back of her left hand, while holding it with her right one. Slowly and very carefully she started to redraw the rune on the back of her hand according to the one on the book. Right from the start it felt different than before, when the clave tried to give her a rune. It felt cold, it stinged a little, but it was bearable. Sue felt reassured, that this was the right thing to do. In no time she had finished the rune. In the firelight she could barely see it, as it was whitish on her skin. Just like white dust.

"WHAT THE HELL, SUE!"

Suddenly Jace was standing in front of her and grabbed his stele from her hand. He was furious. She could see it in his glimmering eyes. But why was he? She didn't break his stele. And to put a rune on her skin was HER choice! It wasn't that he would have to endure pain of it. It was her risk she was willing to take. With a rush she got up and looked equally furious at him.

"What? I am sorry, I took your stele, but it just laid there –"

"The stele? I don't care about the fucking stele! Did you just draw a completely unfamiliar rune on your hand, without knowing the consequences?"

"Yes, I did! It was a calculated risk. I know what it feels like, if this doesn't work out. Don't you dare say anything about it!"

She gleamed at him and took a step forward. He couldn't intimidate her. Even as he was standing so tall above her, that she needed to lift her head to look into his blue eyes. In this moment his features softened and then changed to astonishment.

"What?", she could just ask and took a few steps back. This man was really strange. He didn't say a word and just came to her. Anxious she backed up, but he quickly took her hand into his warm one and made her turn in a circle. At the same time, he started grinning from ear to ear. Now she really was confused about this guy. Was he mental?

"How do you feel?", he simply asked, and it was in that moment, she realized. Her eyes grew big and she looked down to her feet. She was standing. She took a few steps. It didn't hurt. A cry of joy came out from somewhere deep inside her and without thinking she jumped into his arms, overwhelmed with relief. Because this didn't just mean that she was healed again. It meant so much more. It meant she belonged somewhere. She didn't know where, but that didn't matter right now. Taken by surprise he stumbled a few steps backwards, but then she felt his arms tightening around her. A rush of blood shot into her cheeks.

"I am sorry… I just-", she stammered and wanted to take a step back but he held her close. Their eyes met and suddenly she was so very still. She just looked up at him and he smiled at her.

"I am happy for you. And I'll do my best to help you get your head around all of this."

She really should get some distance between them. Ahh…fuck it, she thought and then she leaned forward and kissed him. Jace's lips were still cold from the outside, hers seemed to burn. His lips on hers felt so good. This is what she wanted right now. For a moment he appeared to be frozen by surprise, but the next thing she felt, was him kissing her back strongly, pushing her backwards towards the couch. Arrived, they parted for a brief moment to settle down. As soon as he rested, she sat on top of his lap and started kissing him again. A soft moan escaped his mouth as she slowed down and made the kisses deeper and softer. She started to pull at his shirt and he quickly lost it. She did the same with her shirt and grinned at his big eyes.

"Do you like what you see?", she asked calmly.

He hesitated, but only for a second. She began to feel confused.

"You look beautiful, but Sue - look – the red runes on your skin are gone…"

His hands trailed over the skin of her soft tummy and she looked down. They were gone. And so was the lingering pain she had felt for years. She hadn't even noticed. Tears welled up inside her. She wanted to get away, but again he held her tight to his chest. Skin on skin. For a moment he just held her and whispered soothing words in her ear, but she never started to cry. She couldn't let him see this side of her, couldn't let him get too close. The tears would be for another moment. Alone. After a while she leaned back and looked at him.

"Where were we? Ah, yes… your upper body and these gorgeous lips of yours…"

"Sue -", he started, but she cut him off.

"Listen - I want to savour that I feel and look good, okay? I'll handle all this processing shit later."

With this, she started kissing him again and she seemed to be somewhat good in this, because he didn't interrupt her again after that. She caressed his shirtless muscles with the black runes on it. She had always thought that these runes looked so good on a man's body, but on his it looked extraordinarily well. He took her head in his hands and made her look into his eyes again. He kissed her deeply after that. A soft flutter began in her stomach. She was surprised. She wouldn't have thought she would ever feel this flutter again. But she knew this would end badly, it always did with that flutter, but tonight, she tried not to think about this. This wasn't difficult at all, as his hands slowly made his way between her legs.