Cassandra Clare shares steamy Clary and Jace short story

Shadowhunters, it’s getting hot in herre! Cassandra Clare just took to her tumblr to share a very steamy Clary and Jace original short story called Our Waking Souls with the accompanying art by aegisdea!

Please only read the following snippet if you are absolutely fine with Lord of Shadows spoilers and if you do not mind mature content and/or rather explicit art!

Our Waking Souls: Clary/Jace

That’s right, Clace! Original Coke. This was written on request as a gift for a friend who did something kind for me: it is, however, canon with the books and takes place while Clary and Jace are on their mission in Faerie in LoS. (If you squint, you can even guess when.) Clary struggles with what it means to love and keep secrets, and sexy times are had. Definitely R-rated, and with extremely sexy art by Aegisdea (a tiny bit excerpted above): so, warnings for sexual content both visual and textual.

Some spoilers for LoS; Clary and Jace are about 22, 23 here.

For Virna, Mari and Julia.

And now good morrow to our waking souls,

Which watch not one another out of fear;

For love, all love of other sights controls,

And makes one little room an every where.

— John Donne

Clary was standing over her own dead body.

There was wasteland all around, and a dull wind stirred Clary’s hair. It reminded her a little of the volcanic bare countryside around the Adamant Citadel, though the sky here looked almost burned — there were streaks of red and black char hanging in the air instead of clouds.

She could hear voices calling in the distance. She heard them every time she was here. They never got close enough to help her. She was lying on the ground, and there was blood on her face, in her hair, on her gear. Her eyes were open, green, staring sightlessly at the sky.

Clary began to kneel, to touch herself on the shoulder, when the ground beneath her gave a shudder and a jerk, and she heard someone shout her name — she whirled, and it all slid away from her as if she were tumbling from the crest of a wave. She gasped, choking, and jerked awake.

For a moment, disoriented, she had no idea where she was. She was lying on a blanket on grass, staring up at a sky full of multicolored stars. They seemed to turn above her as if she was staring into a kaleidoscope. She could hear music in the distance, soft and insistent. An unfamiliar tune, but a singular kind of melody.

Faerie. She was in Faerie. With —

“Clary?” It was Jace’s sleepy, puzzled voice. He had rolled onto his side next to her. They both slept in their training clothes here, never knowing if they’d be safe during the night. Their weapons were close at hand, too, and Clary was glad the nights were warm because she had kicked her way free of the light blanket while she was dreaming. “Are you all right?”

She swallowed. She could still feel the goosebumps on her skin. “Bad dream.”

“You’ve been having a lot of those.” He moved closer, concern in his pale gold eyes. His light hair was tousled, starting to get too long again, a little in his eyes. “Do you want to talk about it?”

She hesitated. How did you tell someone that your dreams weren’t dreams, they were visions? You knew it. And that you were seeing yourself dead, over and over, on a day that was getting closer and closer. That one day you would be looking down at your own body and knowing you were gone forever from the world you loved and the people you loved and who loved you.

No. She couldn’t tell Jace that. Sometimes she thought she was the only person in the world who thought of him as fragile (well, except for Alec, of course). To most people, he was the boy with the angel blood, the Head of the New York Institute, one of the warriors who had gone to Edom and ended the Dark War.  To her he was always the skinny boy with desperate eyes who’d survived an abusive father and a soul-crushing lack of childhood love; the boy who’d learned that to love was to destroy, and that what you loved died in your hands.

She knew Alec understood, that in many ways he had the stronger ability to bear up under tragedy, to remain calm in the face of fear for his loved ones. Isabelle, maybe? But neither of them could be told, anyway; she wouldn’t ask them to keep a secret from Jace. Simon wouldn’t be able to bear it any more than Jace could. The only person who might be able to help at all was Magnus, she thought; struggling up onto her elbows; when they got back, she’d go to Magnus. She hadn’t wanted to tell him when he was ill, but she might have no choice.

“Just a really bad nightmare,” she said. It was true, as far as that went. “Sorry I woke you up.”

He propped himself up on his bent arm. “The music would have done that, anyway.” It was loud: Clary could hear pipes and fiddles echoing from the other side of the hills. He flashed a grin, the crooked one that always made her heart jump. “Should we check out the revel?”

“Isn’t that kind of the opposite of being undercover?” she said. “You know, showing ourselves at a major Faerie event. Plus, your dancing is memorable.”

“It is pretty good,” he said, the multicolored stars reflected in his eyes. He reached out and laid a hand on her hip, where it curved into her waist. She remembered him telling her once it was his favorite spot on her body. “Works like a handle,” he’d said, picking her up with one hand while she giggled. Sometimes having a boyfriend who was a lot taller than you wasn’t so bad.

“I said it was memorable. Not good.”

His eyes gleamed. “Come here, Fray.”

She just grinned. Already the dream was receding. There were times she could even forget the visions, concentrate on her mission in Faerie, the time here with Jace. She hadn’t realized when they’d accepted the Institute job how much miserable travel and paperwork it would entail; she was desperately jealous of Alec and Magnus, sometimes, who got to run their Alliance out of their apartment and be together as much as they liked. Half the time Jace was being dragged off to Idris while she was assigned to some local demon activity with Simon and Isabelle.

Actually being sent somewhere with Jace was a rare opportunity for time together, and despite the gravity of looking for a weapon, she’d been enjoying it. And Faerie was beautiful, in its alien way — fruit hung like jewels from low-hanging branches in bright colors of jade and sapphire and amethyst. Tiny pink and purple-winged faeries fluttered among the bees and flowers. There were crystal pools full of nixies who liked to come up and chatter while Clary washed her hair; she hadn’t seen a mermaid yet, but one of the nixies had confided that they mostly spent time in the ocean and had definitely gotten above themselves regarding their tails.

Of course, there was the blight to contend with. Gray patches of dead land, bisecting the green fields like dueling scars. They’d taken samples of the gray soil for the Silent Brothers. That wasn’t especially beautiful, but —

“Clary,” Jace said. He waved a hand in front of her face; it was still a jolt to see his fingers temporarily without the Herondale ring. “You have ceased paying attention to me.”

She raised her eyebrows at him. “You’re a like a cat. If I don’t give you attention, you come and sit on me until I rub your ears or whatever.”

His smile deepened. “It wasn’t my ears I —“

She smacked him on the shoulder. “Don’t say it!”

He was laughing now. “Why not?”

“I’m a very proper lady,” she said. “I might swoon.”

Sometimes she was still surprised at how quickly he could move. He’d rolled them both over in less time than it took her to blink; lying on top of her with his weight braced on his arms, he looked down at her with the laughter beginning to fade from his eyes. “I’ll revive you,” he said, his voice low.

She reached up to touch his face. He was gazing at her so seriously, and Jace was almost never serious when he could avoid it. She remembered the way he had looked at her when he’d asked her to marry him, and her heart contracted with a pain close to agony. She had hurt him, saying what she’d said then; she hadn’t wanted to, but she’d felt as if she’d had no choice. Remembering it, though —

“Kiss me,” she said.

A flicker of surprise at the abruptness of the request, but it was quick; Shadowhunter reflexes were convenient in more than battle. Jace rocked back on his heels so he was sitting up with her straddling his lap; he cradled her face in his hands, and kissed her.

Gentle, slow, exploratory: his mouth on hers was warm and soft; he parted her lips with his, the touch of his tongue against hers sending a shock through her body. Every kiss was like that first one in the greenhouse, rewriting her body’s circuitry, teaching it: you will never want anything else again.

But still she remembered: Clary, will you marry me? And her voice, shaking: You want to get … married?

“Harder,” she whispered, pressing against him, delving into his mouth with her tongue; she ran the tip across his lips, making him arch back in surprise and desire. Her hands were on his shoulders; she nipped his lower lip, and he ran his hands up into her hair, gathering handfuls of it, gasping into her mouth.

“Clary, this is going to get — out of control — very fast,” he said, and in reply, she reached down and pulled her training shirt off over her head. He stared at her in actual astonishment (rare for Jace) before his hands flew up to cover her breasts. “We’re outside,” he protested. “There’s a revel right over there. Anyone could just walk by.”

“Jace Wayland Morgenstern Lightwood Herondale,” she said, her voice a low purr. (If he’d thought putting his hands on her breasts was going to dissuade her, it was not working.) “Are you being shy? Didn’t you once run naked down Madison with antlers on your head?”

“I don’t care about people seeing me naked,” he said. “I care about people seeing you naked.”

She leaned in and kissed the corner of his mouth, his jaw, and then lower. She knew his sensitive spots now, including the one on the left side of his throat, just below the pulse point. She licked and sucked at his skin until his head fell back; his hands were moving on her body now, stroking her from her breasts to her waist, untying the cord that held her training pants on. They fell with a whisper of material and his fingers slid between her legs.

It had been years and he knew her body now the way he knew weapons, could make her writhe in his arms they way they danced in his hands. She gasped as he touched her, and her fingers tore shaking at his shirt, ripping the buttons as she dragged it off him.

“Let me,” he said, his cheeks were flushed and his voice low and gritty. It sent an ache through her deeper than the ache of longing her body felt for his: she remembered what he’d said then: Of course, marriage, what else did you think? There never will be anyone else, not for me. I thought it was the same for you. And she knew what he was saying now: let me, let me please you, for I cannot know what troubles your dreams, I cannot know your secrets, but this I can do.

She put her hands on his shoulders, let him stroke and touch her and the pleasure spiraled up inside her like smoke. It is the same for me. It always has been. Only you and no one else. But the feeling was to intense to hold onto memory; it filled her head and made her dizzy and she cried out finally, digging her hands into his back to keep herself steady.

His eyes were glazed, dark with need. “Lie down,” he said, his voice guttural, but she shook her head, her hands fumbling at the waist of his training pants. She managed to shove them down and closed her hand around him, stroking. He sank back on his elbows, and his body arched under the multicolored stars was beautiful, his hair and the tips of his eyelashes catching their brilliant gold.

She stretched herself out over him, as if she could shield his body; she ran her hands over his chest, the scars and Marks there, as if she could protect his heart. She sank down over him as if the joining of their bodies could prevent any separation, could stop death from ripping her away from him, the thing she feared most in the world.

He cried out and his hands came up to grip her hips, steadying her, holding her to him, and she remembered that day again and the look on his face, like something inside him had been crushed, and her own rising voice. I love you. I love you and you have to trust me: I’m not saying no, I’m saying not now. I have a good reason, I swear. Please believe me, Jace.

He looked up at her now. She could see herself in his eyes, backlit by a million stars, and his face was full of wonder and pleasure. Please, she prayed, let this not be the last time, let this not be my last night with him, my last day with him, let me see his face like this again: that look that only I ever get to see, that has only ever been for me. And let him have this again, too, don’t take this away from him, he’s been through enough, done enough and given everything and —

“Please,” she said, speaking aloud without realizing it, and he groaned as he moved inside her, slow and hard and then faster. He raised his shoulders off the ground, finding her mouth with his, kissing her as if he could fuse the two of them together. Her body was blanking her mind: there was just this, a drumbeat building fiercely in her chest, drawing heat through her veins; the unstoppable tide was coming, drawing him as it drew her: it would drown them both.

“I love you,” she said, pulling her mouth away from his, seeing his eyes widen, “and I always — I always —“

She broke apart around him and it was like dying; a second later, he let go and shuddered into her, throwing his left arm across his eyes in a strangely vulnerable gesture, as if to protect himself from a blinding light.

When Clary could orient herself again, he had pulled her down and rolled them both sideways, one arm around her, the other reaching to pull up the blanket and cover them both. In case a passing faun saw her naked, she thought with some amusement, and kissed his nose.

His gold hair was dark at the roots with sweat, his chest still rising and falling fast. “Jesus, Clary,” he said. “That was — “

Intense. She knew what he was thinking: after five years, when they made love it was often with laughter and teasing, always with passion, but that had been something else. Some part of her had found once more the desperate girl she had been in the ruins of the Wayland Manor, holding Jace far too tightly because she knew she would never have him again, that it was impossible.

She swallowed, curling her body close to his, tracing the line of the Herondale scar along his shoulder with her fingertip. “Missions are dangerous,” she said, in a low voice. “Tomorrow we infiltrate the Unseelie Court. I — I was thinking it could be the last time we were ever together.”

It wasn’t a lie.

He looked appalled. “Clary. I know we live a dangerous life. But we’ve survived everything it’s thrown at us.” He pulled her closer, winding his fingers through her hair. “I get it,” he said, gently. “The worst thing I can imagine is something happening to you.”

Her heart sank. She burrowed against him, her body’s exhaustion taking over, drowsiness spreading through her as he stroked her back. “It’s just that I love you so much,” she said.

“Of course you do.” His hand had stilled, fingers barely moving; his voice was thick with sleep. “I’m amazing.”

She wanted to tell him that he was actually amazing, that it wasn’t just a joke, that though she knew she’d hurt him asking him to delay proposing to her again, he’d let her have the time she’d requested and never demanded to know why. She’d said he needed to trust her, and he had.

It had made her love him more, if that was possible, and she wasn’t unaware of the irony of it. But sleep was washing over her in a tide she couldn’t hold back: the rainbow stars spun over them and Clary laid her head against Jace’s shoulder. Just before she fell entirely into unconsciousness a thought flickered at the edge of her mind — something about the gray earth of the place in her visions, and the blighted land in Faerie. But it was gone like a leaf in a whirlpool, drawn down along with both of them into sleep.

BY THE ANGEL! I have to admit that my mouth fell open for a second when I saw Drei’s art – wow!

And I also love the snippet because I really have missed Clary and Jace as a couple. I hope everything is going to be well for them *fingers crossed* Raziel, please, let Clary be okay!

Cassie also shared another steamy Lord of Shadows scene a while ago which we are going to share in the next couple of days.
Starting from July 1 we are going to include Lord of Shadows spoilers in our posts but we will give spoiler warnings first!

What do you think of this snippet? Tell us in the comments below and please give spoiler warnings if you discuss Lord of Shadows!