❝ i can feel your pulse. it jumped. ❞
he’s too close, and yet somehow restrained, she realizes. his hand rests alongside her neck, thumb tracing down the column of her throat, and clary can do no more than hold his gaze in obstinate defiance, refusing to fold under the intensity of his gaze, refusing to allow any hint of her hesitation to show on the surface with him so near to her, with her so seemingly fragile in his grasp. she has no formal training, and even if she had, there would have been nothing to prepare her for the pull that exists between the two of them, and while clary’s jaw squares and her eyes challenge his with fiery contempt ——she falters at his words. there had been something between them. before she’d known the truth, before the cold tendrils of something wrong had taken hold of her. she’d felt that draw to him like an unstoppable force, and the look in his eyes now said he read it like a book ——the truth displayed in her eyes.
her heart pounds in her chest, a steady beat thrumming against her rib cage and threatening to give away what lies beneath the collected calm she attempts to feign on the outside. of course it gives her away ——the sound of it raging in her ears as if threatening to drown out everything else around her, and clary stares up at him incredulous. there’s nothing she can say to free her from his scrutiny now. whether it’s fear or something else that repeats the mantra pounding beneath her breast, she stubbornly hopes to convince him that it’s nothing more than his insane wishful thinking.
tension pulls between them like a stretched cord ——taut and waiting for just the right amount of pressure to make it snap. clary can feel the pulse at her neck, pressing insistently against his skin and yet she maintains some semblance of placid indifference, her gaze locking with his. this takes every bit of effort she can muster, and she doesn’t know if it will even work.
❛ maybe it’s because you make me nervous. ❜
her voice is a hoarse whisper, betraying everything in the moment. this is walking a thin line. his hand too close to wrap long, deft fingers around her neck. but clary can only count on his desire for her ——his need to have her alliance, her acceptance, in order to save her in this moment. and she is nervous, because the part of her that still longs for the brother she’s never had, is at war with the part of her that sees the evil in him, and both parts are in stark contrast, even as she stares up at him with a gaze that she can only hope conveys a confidence she doesn’t quite feel. there’s a shaky breath that seems to betray all of that, and clary blinks up at her brother, a sort of vulnerability living behind green eyes even as she gathers her will to shoot one more disparaging remark in his direction, with no consideration for the consequence.
❛ or maybe it’s because you’re psychotic. ❜
MEME ｡ ° ･ ★ @lilithblooded
