4

After the day I've had, I just want to sleep. But it's hard when people are breaking down my door every five minutes. It took Clary all of five minutes to have the parabatai brothers on my doorstep. I can't help but sigh when I open the door.

"Come in." My eyes hit the ground before they could be drawn into Alec's, the memory of my dream still rumbling through my mind, and the moisture between my legs distracting. I close my eyes for a moment and lock the door behind them.

"What happened?" Jace asks.

I tell them everything—minus the dream about Alec because, really, that's not what's important here. "I thought that she had to get past the Shadowhunter on watch."

"He's dead," Alec says.

I feel like I'm going to be sick. "Anna," I trail off, unsure of what to say. It sounds more of an accusation than anything.

"Shouldn't you be convincing us," Jace says, "that she would never do something like this? Innocent and all that?"

"I'm not Clary." I cross my arms. "I barely know this girl. I'll protect my own and that's it. I'm not into charity work." Even I flinch at my words. They're harsh, but it's the truth. I don't have the time to worry about someone else.

Alec walks away from the conversation to my kitchen, fixated on the refrigerator.

"If you're hungry," I say, unable to keep amusement from my voice, "you can have whatever you like."

But he doesn't acknowledge that he hears me, just keeps staring at it.

"What's wrong, Alec?" Jace asks, takes a step toward him. A protective barrier between Alec and me.

Alec turns then, looks right at me. "I'll take watch outside." He looks at Jace. "You can stay here." Without another word, no explanation, nothing, he flies out of the front door.

When the door clicks shut, Jace goes over and locks it.

I look at the refrigerator, wondering what he saw that made him act so strangely. I remember before I see it. It's one of the few family pictures I have in the apartment. Most are at my tea shop. But this one is private. This one, no one's allowed to see.

The three of us are laughing, smiling at some corny joke Vincent made. The mop atop his head is white, his eyes crystal blue. He had an albino gene, solely found in the DNA of a mundane, but he also had runes running along his skin. He was half, like me. There are more halves than I used to think.

His mother was a Shadowhunter and his father a mundane. The relationship wasn't completely illegal, but it was frowned upon. Still is. At worst, his father lost his memory and his mother stripped of her runes—which had to be painful if I were to guess.

There wasn't a thing I didn't love about him. And love always prevails. Which gave us the most precious gift in the world—Killian. His hair was every bit as white as his fathers, his eyes every bit as green as mine. His favorite toy was the stuffed rabbit he held in the photograph. It was given to me by my father, and then I gave it to him.

I don't realize I'm crying until the picture is in my hands, and a tear slides across Vincent's face.

"I'm sorry," I hear Jace through the fuzz in my ears.

"We all lost something in the war, Jace," I tell him and clip the photograph back on the refrigerator. "I'm nothing special." I walk past him to the bedroom. The day has been too long.

He doesn't say anything, but I stop. "Make yourself at home. What's mine is yours."

I'm asleep as soon as my head hits the pillow.

My slippers drag along the floor of my apartment. I tuck a robe around my shoulders to escape the chill. My cheeks are still warm from my dreams. Since seeing Alec, it seems all I can do is dream about sex. With him. It was the same with Vincent, but this time it's different. Alec isn't interested in women.

Speaking of the devil; he must have replaced Jace sometime in the night, because there he is, staring out of the balcony window. "Good morning," I say, running fingers through my tangled hair.

He hums a greeting.

That's probably the best he has. "Want some coffee?" I ask through a yawn. The coffee is already made, thank God. This is the best coffee maker I've ever invested in. If I fix everything the night before, and set the alarm, it'll make the coffee when it goes off. It's heavenly.

Instead of answering, he shuts the curtains and follows me to the kitchen. I suppose that's answer enough.

I pull out two mugs—all white, of course—and hand one to him. His fingers brush mine and my throat hitches. My face starts to warm, so I look down and pull out the coffee pot. "Black, right?" I ask, even though I already know the answer.

"Yeah," he answers.

I pour his coffee. Mine is a little more complicated, 'fancy', my father used to call it. Nuke half-n-half for half a minute, then put a little sugar and froth it before pouring in the coffee.

I feel his eyes on me the whole time. It's unnerving. The heat of his gaze nestles beneath my skin. Then, of course, I can't find the frother. Being watched always puts me on edge, causes me to lose my focus, to feel scatterbrained.

Cabinets wide open, I go to the other side of my kitchen and stand on my tiptoes to see into the top shelves.

Alec watches me from behind his mug. I can't tell if he's amused or thinks I'm an idiot.

I see the frother on the top shelf of the mug cabinet—not really sure how it got there—so I close the other cabinets and stretch my body. It's a pain being five feet tall. Even.

Alec snickers.

I look at him. "You did this, didn't you?" I ask, knowing he didn't, but wanting to hear his voice a touch.

He shrugs, hides a smile behind a sip of coffee, watches me suffer a little more before coming to the rescue. "You should really invest in a stepstool." He hands me the frother, his chest inches from my face.

It's hard to swallow over the lump in my throat. He's close enough to kiss. My dream comes flooding back into me and I take a step back. The urge to press against him is overwhelming.

I turn away quickly and shove the frother in the heated cream. Alec's eyes burn through me as I pour coffee in my cup.

"So," he begins, the hesitation in his voice evident. "You were married?"

I don't look at him. The coffee pot hisses when it settles back into its crevice, and I curl my fingers around my mug, wishing the heat would warm away the sunken hole in my chest. The froth touches my lips first, then the coffee. Sweet and then bitter.

My eyes flicker to Alec's, the electric blue the same as Vincent's. Maybe that's why my body reacts this way around him. His eyes remind me of a love I once bathed in. A person I hold inside of my heart.

"Sorry," he apologizes without further explanation and turns away from me, resting his lower back against the countertop and raising the mug to his lips.

I feel a snap tear me back to reality and I can actually see him. "Don't be," I say, and walk around him to pull the picture off of the refrigerator. I stood next to him and leaned my lower back against the counter as well. I hold the picture inbetween us.

"We weren't married," I confess. "But we had something that no marriage certificate needed to confirm. We were soulmates."

I feel his gaze linger on the picture. I inch it forward and he takes it. "It's not something I like to share, which is why this is the only picture I have."

"You don't have to." He starts to hand me the picture, but instead I sip my coffee and allow him a few more moments with my most prized possession.

"I understand," I acknowledge. "I seldom do what I don't want to."

He keeps the picture, gazing at it, taking it all in. A few more moments of silence, then he shakes his head. "I don't believe in soulmates." He turns and pins the picture back on the refrigerator. The mug raises to his lips.

"I didn't either," I say. "It's quite a mundane thing to believe unless you've been under its thrall. When Vincent and Killian died, so did I." I don't know why I'm telling him this, but the words flutter past my lips before I can shove them down. "The shadowhunter part of me, anyway. I starved because I couldn't get myself out of bed. The Seelie blood kept me alive."

Unfortunately, is the word I don't say. I don't tell him that I wanted to die. That I wished to die. I wanted so badly to see my loves again.

"What changed?" his voice is soft, skimming the silence.

"Clary," I admit, and he hides a knowing smile behind the mug. "She's been such a staple in my life since high school. Before she was even a part of this." I gesture with my hands unspecifically. The motion causes me to look up and notice the time.

I curse. The shop opens in less than an hour and I'm still in my pajamas. "I have to get dressed. Are you accompanying me to the shop?"

Alec shrugs. "You're our highest priority as of this moment."

I bite my tongue. Anna really should take that place, but the frantic nature of her actions last night makes me grateful to have a security entourage. I may not be a shadowhunter, but that doesn't mean I didn't piss her off.

Alec is strong enough. And when all else fails, I'm not so vulnerable.