Alec darted to the kitchen doorway and picked up the crossbow that rested against the wall before following Magnus through the double doors that led to the throne room. It went against his better judgement to let Magnus go first but he used the time to load the crossbow with a bolt that Magnus handed him. Pulling the tight bowstring easily and setting it in place, he held it ready, his eyes narrowing when he saw who their "guest" was.
"Is this supposed to be a compromise, Magnus?" Lilith asked when Magnus entered the room behind her. "As flattered as I am that you would put another throne in here, I am afraid I don't like to share. I won't be sharing my realm or the title of..." she cut off when Magnus wasn't the only one to enter the room.
"Lilith. I suggest you move, you're in my seat," Alec said when he circled the thrones, glaring at the sight of Lilith, sitting in his throne as though she owned the place. Arching an eyebrow at her, he slid into the seat when she vacated it and trained his crossbow on the two men that Lilith had brought with her. He had a feeling he knew who one of them was.
"What are you doing here, Lilith?" Magnus asked in her direction as he sat down in his own throne. He wasn't looking at her, he was staring at the two men that she had brought with her. Or more specifically, at one of the two men that she had brought with her. There was something wrong about him, something that would have had his hackles up if he'd had any.
Alec was also staring at the second man, his nostrils flaring. The second man looked a lot like the first -who he took to be Cain- but with longer, straggly hair, sallow looking skin and a vacant expression in his dead eyes. The guy was thin to the point of gauntness and he smelled like death. The guy's scent had his fangs snapping out, a low growl building in the back of his throat.
"It's Alex, isn't it?" Lilith asked, staring at the guy who had sat down next to Magnus. The shock of seeing him there was quickly fading to be replaced by a mixture of anger and caution. She was positive the last time she had seen him -briefly, in Magnus' apartment- he had been a Shadowhunter. It looked like things had changed.
"Actually, it is King Alexander Lightwood-Bane of Edom," Magnus said, sliding his hand into Alec's where it rested on the armrest of his throne, staring her down. "You should bow before your King. Either that or get out. I don't particularly care which," he said, raising an eyebrow at her when Lilith practically choked on thin air.
"King? I don't think so. You seem to forget that this is my realm, Magnus," Lilith growled, staring incredulously at Magnus, her eyes flicking to Alec when he gave her a pointed look.
"Magnus? I don't recall him giving you leave to use such formalities. That's King Magnus Lightwood-Bane of Edom to you," Alec said. The title, "King Alexander",sounded ridiculous to him. But there was no way that he wasn't showing Lilith a united front with his husband.
"I would let Edom freeze over before I call him King," Lilith spluttered, unbelieving of their sheer audacity. "This is my realm! I bow to no man…"
"Correction, this was your realm. You lost your title as Queen the day my father took it from you, with my magic," Magnus interjected, letting flames of red magic coalesce in his free hand, the magic licking up his arm. "I took his place as ruler of Edom when I banished him to Limbo. Now get out, before my father finds himself with some company," he said.
"Don't even think about it," Alec said, his voice low and harsh when Lilith started moving in Magnus' direction. The furious expression on her face had him raising his crossbow and baring his fangs at her with a hiss.
"Cain, do something about the Vampire," Lilith shrieked as she skittered back, smarting that she still wasn't at full power. All it would have taken was a flick of her wrist to see Alec off - if she had enough power.
Lilith turned when Cain didn't rush to defend her, seething with fury when she saw the willful expression on his face. "I said, do something about the Vampire," she said.
"I cannot harm him when he has done nothing to me," Cain said, his eyes flicking to the two men on the thrones, unable to keep the misery out of his voice. "Please, don't," he begged when Lilith raised her hand, already knowing what she was going to do.
"If you aren't willing to defend me then maybe your brother will," Lilith said, ignoring Cain's plea and raising her hand. "Abel, do something about the Vampire," She said, directing the magical hold that she had over Abel like a puppeteer, controlling a marionette.
"Abel, no!" Cain yelled, grabbing his brother when he started forward with jerky movements. He pulled, hard, but the vile grip that Lilith had on his brother was too strong.
"Lilith, what have you done?" Magnus asked, appalled when he saw the Man's jerky movements. Waving his hand, he froze the man on the spot, squeezing Alec's hand when Alec looked at him. "Necromancy, she has raised him from the dead to do her bidding," he said. A sheen of sweat broke out over his skin when Lilith tried to take hold of Abel once more.
Magnus snapped his fingers, the bolt that was set in Alec's crossbow lighting up with green flames. "If he breaks free, shoot him in the heart," he said, his eyes flicking to Cain momentarily when Cain let out an anguished cry.
The battle of wills that Magnus was fighting against Lilith grew harder, forcing him to draw energy quickly from the magic that suffused the realm.
"You can't keep him around like this Cain, it isn't right. You have to let him go," Magnus said, tightening his hold on Alec's hand when Lilith ramped her magical hold up once more. He couldn't draw energy from the atmosphere fast enough so he started drawing energy from Alec, a vast store of it now that Alec was a Vampire. "That is a pale imitation of life at best. Look at what she has done to him. Is this what he would want?" he asked Cain from between gritted teeth.
"He is my brother! I can't let him go," Cain cried, trying to pull Abel back. If he had been human, he would have felt sick to his stomach with the jerky movements his brother was making. Lilith's hold over Abel was absolute.
"You have to let him gobecausehe is your brother. Do it for him, set him free," Magnus said, the strain of fighting Lilith's hold on Abel showing in his voice. Even with the extra strength that Edom gave him, and the energy that he borrowed from Alec, it was taking some serious effort to hold Abel back.
"I'm sorry, Cain, I have no choice," Alec said to the struggling Vampire when Magnus' hold on Abel snapped. The energy that Magnus had borrowed from him made him feel strangely weak, leaving him unsure of whether he would be able to even fight Abel off. He felt awful when he saw the pain in Cain's eyes but pulled the trigger anyway when Abel shot forward. Abel was fast, for a dead man.
Magnus gathered his strength and aimed a large red fireball at Lilith when Alec's bolt pierced Abel's heart, blasting her off her feet, backwards through the arched doorway, Lilith's hold over the dead man failing from the bolt and the magic attached to it.
Cain watched as his brother was taken from him again, Abel erupting in a conflagration of green flames. He lost the strength in his legs, sinking to the ground as Magnus' magic swept Lilith's cursed hold away, leaving a pile of ash where Abel had been stood. He knew that it had to happen but that didn't make it any less painful. Just for a short time, he'd had Abel back.
Lilith dragged herself up from the floor of the new entrance hall, growling at the pain that coursed through her. Her lack of strength only fueled the growl, fury raging through her. It felt as though Magnus' blow had just put her recovery back even further. Stumbling through the throne room doorway, her gaze narrowed on Alec and Magnus when they stood simultaneously.
"You cannot just take my realm! It doesn't work like that," Lilith growled, twitching when an aftershock of Magnus' magic ran through her. She did her best not to visibly flinch when Magnus snapped his fingers again and lit the dratted Vampire's crossbow up once more.
"You are no longer the ruler of this realm, Lilith. You lost all of your rights to it. Now get out of our house," Magnus said, forcing his voice not to show how weak he felt. He drew more strength from Alec where they still held hands and from the atmosphere itself in case she didn't take the hint that she wasn't welcome there.
Alec raised his glowing crossbow -Magnus' red magic lighting it up- when Lilith stumbled forwards with movements that were just as jerky as Abel's had been. Keeping it trained on her, he took a step forward when she grabbed hold of Cain's collar and dragged him up from the floor.
Cain followed when Lilith pulled him up off of the floor, unable to look at anything but the pile of ash that used to be his brother. The will to fight her had been sapped with Abel's second passing so he followed when she dragged him from the room, shaking his head at the other Vampire. This was what he deserved for trying to defy the laws of nature.
"Magnus, we have to… he can't… what was that?" Alec asked, angling himself towards Magnus when he flopped into his throne. The energy that he had felt flowing through him, ever since he had crawled out of the ground, was vastly depleted. It felt like it had been sucked from him. It was odd, his body still felt strong but he also felt lethargic at the same time.
"I'm sorry that I had to do that, Alexander. I had no choice," Magnus said, sitting back down when he felt his strength flag. "My demon blood connects me to this realm and allows me to draw power from the very atmosphere itself but I couldn't draw it fast enough, I needed a boost from you," he said, tightening his grip on Alec's hand, sending a little bit of strength back into him.
"Hey, you don't have to apologise, what's mine is yours. I promise to share my strength with you whenever you need it," Alec said, letting his thumb sweep over the back of Magnus' hand when he saw the guilty expression there. He had a feeling they would continue making their vows to each other over the years, something that he was more than happy to do. "What happened though, I thought you were like, all-powerful here?" he asked.
"Alexander, nobody is all powerful," Magnus chuckled, his heart swelling for the faith that Alec had in him. Snapping the fingers of his free hand, he handed Alec a large glass of blood, knowing that Alec would need it as much as he needed the large martini that he conjured for himself.
"While I am a lot more powerful in Edom than anywhere else, that was not natural magic. I had to take extra strength from you because it was not something that I could fight alone," Magnus said, gulping his drink down when Alec started drinking his.
"What was it?" Alec asked between glugs, thinking of the way the man, Abel, had moved and the way he seemed to be under Lilith's control. The man had looked like a walking corpse, no cognizant thought or emotion on the guy's face. It was creepy.
"Necromancy. It is un-natural magic. It isn't governed by the laws of natural magic, I was, therefore, unable to control it," Magnus said with a shudder. "Only someone who has given themselves over to dark magic can. All I could do was keep it at bay and even that was a struggle. It is a powerful magic that most Warlocks don't mess with," he said, shaking his head at Lilith's total lack of moral compass.
"It was like the guy wasn't alive - like he was a puppet with no control over himself," Alec said, sipping the second glass that Magnus conjured him a little more slowly than the first. He wondered if he would ever rid himself of the image of Cain and the pain that he had seen in the guy's eyes.
"A body that has been raised from the dead is not alive. Abel was merely a shell for Lilith's whims. There was no thought or reason, just a reanimated sack of flesh and bone," Magnus said, shaking his head. "I feel awful for Cain, he must have been desperate to keep Abel around like that."
"When Jace and Izzy reported to me about their summoning of Lilith, they told me about Lilith taking Cain. Simon heard her promise to bring his brother back if he came here with her," Alec said, releasing Magnus' hand to scrub his hand over his face. It was a shit show. "I have to get him away from her, Magnus. It was their fault that he is here in the first place. If they'd just left him in the sewers, he wouldn't have to go through this."
"First of all,wehave to get him away from her. We are a team, remember," Magnus said, raising his hand to cup Alec's cheek. Even in Edom, his Vampire was cleaning up his siblings' messes. Then again, Alec wouldn't be the man he fell in love with if he didn't try and take everything onto himself.
"You're right," Alec agreed, leaning into Magnus' touch. He didn't particularly like the thought of Magnus confronting Lilith but he wasn't a caveman, he wasn't going to club Magnus around the head and go off on his own. The words his father had spoken to him rang in his ears. They were stronger together, they would need each other if they were to defeat Lilith and rescue Cain.
"We do have a problem though," Magnus said, letting out a deep sigh when Alec raised an inquisitive eyebrow at him. "The strength that Lilith would have needed for this kind of spell is different than what she would need to take me on. It is different magic altogether. While she can't fight against my magic with her own, this would have been nothing for her. It would also be simple enough for her to create an entire army of walking dead."
Alec's head whipped around then, the drink in his hand, forgotten, with Magnus words, and Clary's ringing in his ears.
"Clary and Jace told me that Lilith was gathering an army against you. They had it from a demon source. This must be what he meant," Alec said, his face draining of blood. "Magnus, if she has an army of those things…" he didn't need to finish the sentence to convey just how much shit they were in.
"We will just have to take her down before she can gather too much strength," Magnus said, thinking about how long he had been there and how much strength she could have gained in that amount of time. "We have one thing on our side. She would need time to build up an army, it isn't something that she could just create overnight," he said.
"What are we waiting for then?" Alec asked, ready to go and kick her ass. The quicker they got rid of her, the better in his opinion.
"Our strength to return for a start," Magnus said, tugging Alec back into his chair when his husband stood up. A Vampire, Alec might be, but that Nephilim impatience was still in there. As was the Lightwood stubbornness, he surmised when Alec let out an irritated growl, which wasn't sexy. At all. "We are not going up against her until we are at full strength. I won't risk you like that, not when I've just gotten you back."
"Fair point," Alec agreed. It still rankled to know that she was gathering strength against them but he wouldn't risk Magnus either, so they would have to wait. "What?" he asked when he saw Magnus looking at him, an appraising gleam in his husband's eyes.
"I'm wondering if I will get my ass blown off if I direct my magic at you," Magnus said, the corners of his mouth tugging up. The adorable, confused expression on Alec's face had him leaning forward to press a chaste kiss against Alec's plump lips before elaborating. "We need to train, work on how to fight together and share our abilities."
"You want us to train together?" Alec asked, his voice low and gravelly, thinking about the last time that they had "trained" together. The thought of blowing Magnus' ass off, however, stopped his dick from hardening in his pants. "No, absolutely not. I won't risk it," he said, shaking his head vehemently.
"Alec, we need to work together. I lit your crossbow bolt before, which makes me think that we can work something out," Magnus said, rolling his eyes at Alec. He hadn't even thought it through earlier, simply following through with the action without a second thought but it could have easily gone pear shaped if Alec's mark had reacted to it. "We will come up with something. In the meantime, I would like to finish this place off," he said, gesturing around.
"Fine, but if I blow your ass off, I'll find a way to bring you back so I can throttle you," Alec huffed, his still heart giving a little wobble at the thought of his mark harming Magnus in any way. It had him reaching out, tugging at Magnus until his husband was situated safely in his lap.
"Don't make promises you don't intend to keep," Magnus grinned, happily winding his arms around Alec's neck with an eyebrow wiggle. "And you can blow my ass off anytime," he chuckled, nosing Alec's face up for a kiss.
"It's not funny," Alec mumbled against Magnus' lips before claiming them.A hot and heavy makeout session would be more than welcome,he thought as he licked at Magnus' lower lip to gain entrance.
Magnus slid his tongue into Alec's mouth before Alec could deepen the kiss, smirking through it when Alec pulled in a few deep breaths. It made his stomach coil, knowing that something as simple as a kiss could still affect Alec like that. Not that he was any less affected.
Alec pouted against thin air when Magnus pulled back and took hold of his hand, where it had been sliding over Magnus' thigh. Unable to stop the corners of his mouth from tugging up when he saw how hard Magnus was breathing, he let his fingers dance up the inside of Magnus' thigh, going for the sensitive spot that never failed to leave Magnus panting for more.
"Behave, we need to finish this place," Magnus scolded Alec, not nearly as sternly as he was trying to. He had to climb off Alec's lap before they got carried away, as they were wont to do.
"Will you be able to? Don't you need to conserve your magic?" Alec asked, lounging on his throne to watch Magnus shrug his wedding jacket off. The black satin vest underneath, edged with the same blue pattern as Magnus' jacket, looked hot. And also like it needed to be sitting on their bedroom floor, along with the rest of Magnus' clothes.
"I have enough to spare for this," Magnus said, laying his jacket over the back of his throne to roll his sleeves up. He didn't miss the way Alec's eyes lit up when he exposed his forearms. "Come on," he said, jerking his head with a roll of his eyes.
Alec followed, eyeing Magnus' exposed forearms as he went. The sway of Magnus' ass as he walked out into the entrance hall was entirely unfair. The man was a walking sin, it was no wonder they got carried away. Pulling his mind out of the gutter, he followed Magnus dutifully through the new massive, arched oak front door that Magnus conjured.
"My father never was a fan of doors. I, however, like my privacy," Magnus muttered, finishing the door with a large brass knocker. Starting with the door, he raised his hands and started casting patterns into the wood, building up layers of wards to protect their new home.
Alec followed Magnus around the building, watching Magnus build protections into the stone and wood that made the place up. It startled him when he realised that he recognised each ward that Magnus put in place; protection, an alarm to warn against invasion, a ward against foreign magic, one to alert them as to who any unwanted visitors might be.
Alec had watched Magnus put the wards on the Institute enough times to recognise each one. The final ward that Magnus placed had him raising his eyebrows though, one that he only half recognised. He opened his mouth to ask but Magnus beat him to it.
"The final one was a ward of recognition for our new names," Magnus said when he saw the confusion on Alec's face. "Whenever I placed the wards on the institute, the wards of recognition were specific to each Shadowhunter that resided there, yes?" he asked.
"That's why you always asked for a list of whoever lived at the Institute and had readjusted the wards whenever somebody new came to stay?" Alec asked. He knew that the ward was for recognition but had never seen that specific pattern before.
"Yes. Whenever I created your recognition ward, I only ever had to create it for the name Lightwood. This new ward is the combination of our names, Lightwood-Bane. It will recognise either of us whenever we enter the building and let us through without alarm," Magnus said, smiling when Alec's face lit up.
Alec liked the sound of their home recognising them as one and memorised their ward pattern, his stomach giving a little jolt of happiness. They might be in Edom but they had a home that was theirs, something that he had wanted for a long time.
"Two more things and our home is complete," Magnus said, leaning into it when Alec pressed a kiss to his cheek. Raising his hands, he drew a thick thread of power from the magic that flowed through Edom and linked it to the breakers in the loft, putting the flow of power into a loop and linking it back to the realms power source, his hands tingling through the complicated pattern that they weaved.
"What are you doing?" Alec asked quietly, not wanting to break Magnus' concentration. The movements of Magnus' hands, whenever his husband performed more complex magic, always fascinated him. The way Magnus sometimes put his whole body into it was hot and Magnus' facial expressions were always irresistibly cute. Was it his fault if he was always so hot for Magnus whenever his Warlock used magic?
"Drawing power from the realm," Magnus said, tapping into the power once more. "It's kind of like the lay lines back in our realm. There is magic that crisscrosses the realm like a grid. Threads of power can be drawn from it and manipulated. I can draw strength from the power source, thinner or thicker strands of it to aid me, because of my father's and my connection to this realm.
"We now have power. There is no natural electricity in this realm but we can use the realm's natural magic to power our home in the same manner. Like one big magical generator," Magnus said, leaning into Alec when tiredness flooded him momentarily. "I've linked it back in a loop, this way, I won't have to keep snapping my fingers every time we want to use the lights or run the washing machine," he said.
Alec just stared at Magnus, marvelling at the power his husband threw around like it was nothing. As much as he hadn't understood Magnus' need for magic when Magnus had had none, he gained a flash of insight now. Magnus had magic thrumming in his veins, used it for all of the small things that he admittedly took for granted, as well as the large. It was also a massive turn on to see Magnus revel in that raw power.
"Which reminds me, the last thing we need to think about is water," Magnus said, thinking desperately of a warm bubble bath, maybe sharing one with Alec. The magical washes that he had been giving himself, and Alec since he had arrived, were nowhere near the luxury of sinking into a hot bath. Being able to just jump in the shower was something that he had sorely missed. "I'm not sure about constantly conjuring water though," he mused.
"There is water in the ground," Alec said, shrugging when Magnus looked up at him, his husband straightening up with an intrigued expression on his pretty face. "I can smell it. It's deep and doesn't smell all that fresh but it's there," he said, taking in a deep breath. He could scent it far below the surface.
Magnus gave Alec's face a little pat before diving deep for his magic again. It was depleting far faster than he liked to admit but the thought of a hot bath spurred him on. Sending it down into the ground, he had to go deep for the flow of water that Alec had mentioned but he found it eventually.
Creating pipes with a thought, Magnus directed the flow of it to the house, silently thanking Alec's sense of smell. It would certainly make bathroom visits a lot easier. Alec didn't need to know about the archaic 'hole in the ground' system that seemed to be the rage in Edom.
Magnus leaned on Alec when the new indoor plumbing system was completed, water filters and all. The insane use of magic had taken its toll and he was tired, mentally more than physically. Like he was running on empty. "Dinner and a hot bath please," he mumbled when Alec's arms came around him.
Alec tightened his hold on Magnus with a grin, inwardly melting at how cute Magnus sounded when he was tired. Reaching down with his free arm he swept Magnus' legs from under him and carried him bridal style around the house.
"A man could get used to this kind of treatment," Magnus muttered, breathing hard when Alec once more demonstrated his new strength. "But I can walk, love," he said, even as he wound his arms around Alec's neck. It wasn't like he was swooning or anything.
"What's the point of having superior strength if I don't use it to carry my husband over the threshold of our new home?" Alec asked, chuckling when Magnus' face lit up. Thinking about all of the times when he'd thought he would never be able to say those words, all the times as a child when he was faced with the grim prospect of one day carrying his wife over the threshold, he ducked through the front door and walked through the hall and throne room.
"You made me so happy today," Alec said, pressing a kiss to Magnus' lips when Magnus tilted his head back. "Promise me you'll let me make you as happy, every single day of our lives, as you make me?" he asked when he pulled back.
"Done! You already made me happier than I've ever been, the moment you became my husband," Magnus said, grinning against Alec's lips as Alec carried him through the double doors of the loft and into the kitchen. The thought of them continuing to make vows to each other made his heart beat double time. This one was as easy as breathing for him.