Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
"I can't do it," Cassia said to Alec a week later. They were home in New York City and about to walk into their home and hub, The Institute. Alec looked at her slowly, rolling his eyes in a way that she'd become quite accustomed to over the past week.
"Too bad, you have to. Now that my parents have moved to Idris and are no longer heads of this Institute, it's on us. You know that," Alec said, placing a hand on her shoulder and pushing her along.
"Everybody is going to be weird about us being married, though," she said, nervous for the first time in her recent memory. Cass didn't tend to be the kind of person who got nervous; she was absolutely a "shoot first, ask questions later" type, which also usually applied to her emotions if she could help it.
"Well that's probably true, since we're also weird about us being married," Alec said, stepping past her and taking out his stele to reveal the rune on the door to let them in. Once he'd done so, he stepped through the door and left her with no choice but to follow him.
As soon as they stepped through the door, they were both tackled in a hug by Alec's younger sister and Cassia's best friend, Isabelle.
"God, I thought you were going to wait outside forever, you weirdos," Izzy said, smiling as she took turns kissing both of them on the cheek.
"Cass was scared," Alec said, rolling his eyes again and taking off into the Institute, no doubt to make up for lost time training over the week he'd been away.
"Scared of what?" Izzy asked her, linking arms with her as they walked toward the bedroom that she and Alec would now be sharing.
"I think we both know that I'm not overly excited to be married to your brother, Iz," Cassia said, rolling her eyes in a way that it made her grumpy to realize looked just like Alec.
"He's not that bad. Besides, things in the Shadow world are already better now that this Institute will have a solid pair of leaders," Izzy said, and Cass knew she was just trying to make her feel better. In reality, Cassia had been keeping up with the news of the shadow world with a rune that was basically like a shadowhunter police scanner directly in her ears. While there was a lot of talk about her new marriage, nothing concrete had changed at all.
"Ah, how does married life feel?" a voice from behind them asked, and Cassia immediately froze. The voice belonged to none other than Jace Wayland, a fellow shadowhunter who was Alec's best friend and just so happened to be her very own ex-boyfriend with whom she'd hooked up countless times, even since their breakup.
"Hi, Jace," Cassia said, exchanging a look with Izzy but not turning to look at him. Jace had been possibly more upset than either Alec or Cassia with the news of the marriage; he'd said it was because it wasn't a smart match, but in reality everyone that knew him knew that he was just jealous because he loved both Alec and Cassia individually in different ways and he didn't want either of them to be taken away from him in any way. While Jace was an absolutely fantastic shadowhunter, he could be kind of a crappy person when he wanted to be.
Ignoring him for the time being, Cass broke away from Isabelle and headed to the bedroom to put her things away.
"Izzy moved all of your things in here. I told her we could still have two separate rooms, but she insisted it would look bad," Alec said as she entered the giant master bedroom. She looked around in awe; Isabelle hadn't just moved her things, she'd also decorated it all absolutely beautifully.
"It's... perfect," she said to him, looking up at him and realizing for the first time that he was shirtless. She couldn't help but take a moment to admire him; even though she'd never particularly gotten along with him, even she couldn't deny that he was absolutely gorgeous. He cleared his throat to break her eye contact and she looked up at him questioningly.
"What, like it's an absolute tragedy that I think my husband is attractive?" she asked him, and he shook his head.
"No, I don't care about that. I just care that you were staring at me like I'm a piece of meat," he said, and she choked out a laugh.
"That's exactly what you are. Duh," she said, laughing again. She was expecting an eye-roll and was shocked when he actually laughed with her just briefly.
"I'm going to go train with Jace. If you need anything..." he trailed off, and she gave him the eye-roll she'd been expecting a moment before.
"I can take care of myself," she said, and he nodded, leaving the bedroom and shutting the door behind himself without another word.
