TASTE OF DANGER

Chapter One

Opening my eyes should be effortless, but it isn't. Raising a thrashing vampire over my head would be easier than raising my eyelids. Come to think of it . . . did a vampire lift me over its head and throw me? My brain feels like a chunk of lead, and every muscle aches like I've been clenching for hours.

I grit my teeth against the strain to part my lids; they obey and I immediately wish they hadn't. My retinas are assaulted by light, but it's not a soft angelic light. It's like hellfire — a blazing flash that skewers my eyeballs like a neon rod. I try to raise my hands but my limbs won't comply. Fuck. I'm tied-up by both wrists and ankles. I'm sitting upright in a chair and my hands are bound so tightly behind my back that my fingertips are tingling.

I blink like I'm staring at the sun, commanding my vision to 'man up'.

Where the hell am I?

The last thing I remember is being in bed with Clary at the institute. We were celebrating. The dresscode-naked-private-party-for-two kind of celebration. We were reveling because she's finally regained the memories of her life as a Shadowhunter — and more importantly— of her feelings for me. After a year of 'angel-induced amnesia' Clary had finally seen me at her art show. That was one month ago; and every day thereafter the angels have graced her with a flood of memories. But now it appears that the angels have plucked a few of my own. I can't remember anything beyond collapsing into my sheets with Clary. Despite how eager I was for the intimacy, I don't recall if we even had sex. A shame as I've been celibate for a year as I pined for her. I'd hoped sex would make me feel closer to her again . . . like how I use to feel. But if I can't even remember it, then . . . that was a fail.

Being without Clary for an entire year has been like functioning without a critical limb. But her return did not grant me an instant, painless re-attachment. Without realizing it I'd learned to adapt without this limb. I learned to live without Clary. Was it easy? No. Did I enjoy it? No. Every day was a struggle to readjust. We all had to re-adjust. Our friends and family continued onward with their lives. Izzy, Simon, Luke — heck, even Magnus and Alec literally moved on. They packed up and relocated their lives to Alicante.

It was when Alec left that losing my 'Clary limb' dulled to an inconvenience, for my parabatai took a critical organ with him. Alec abandoned me with a gaping hole in my torso; a wound that I could not rehab or recover from. He left me alone to labor — to sort out why I feel so incomplete. Which of my 'emotional innards' had Alec carved from my flesh? I don't know. It's been seven months since his departure — since I've even seen his face— and my understanding remains as helpless as my body is now.

Get it together, Jace! The 'confused look' isn't your best look. I berate myself into concentrating. My chunk-of-lead-brain needs a smith to craft out some sensibilities. Really, Jace? Did you just wish a blacksmith would forge your brain? Wow, sad and scary . . . how long have I been strapped to this chair? I don't feel thirsty. I don't feel hungry. I don't even have the urge to piss. I only feel . . . weak.

Weakness is a familiar sensation for me. Familiar like being stabbed or burned or bitten by demons. I'd gladly welcome being stabbed, burned and bitten over feeling weak. I endured the incessant battery of weakness while dominated by the owl. I killed people— my own grandmother for one— and almost killed everyone else who I love, including Clary and Alec.

The memories induce a surge of nausea and I beg my chuck-of-lead for mercy. For a moment I'm actually glad that my hands are bound behind my back. My hands deserve to be restrained — they deserve to be stabbed, bitten and burned by demons.

These hands nearly murdered my parabatai.

The sickening-snap of Alec's wrist-bone . . . his agonized wail . . . my boot striking full-force against his ribs . . . I can still feel his ribcage cracking on impact . . . I can still see him sprawled out, utterly defenseless upon his back. The owl never even considered mercy, and I just leaned over Alec and drove his own arrow into his chest. He was as helpless as a wingless, wounded bird and he knew it. Alec accepted that his mortality was ending, he never begged for his life. And the owl was so eager to end him that it wouldn't have matter if he had. In that moment Alec should have used whatever-scant-energy he had left to fight me! Instead he fucking apologized to me! He tried to comfort me — he could barely breathe! His lung was being punctured — I heard the organ collapsing. I remember seizing him by the back of the neck and jerking him upward. I pulled him close — forcing him to feel death's embrace —then I pushed that arrow in. The owl wanted me to have a front row view to my parabatai's end. The owl wanted me to see the unwavering loyalty abandon Alec's eyes. The owl wanted me to feel Alec's life-force slip away between my fingers. And yet, despite all of my heinous actions, Alec's final breaths were pleas for me to forgive him.