a snippet from the Lost Book of the White for V-day

The two of them went straight for the bed, kissing and pulling and stumbling over each other, nearly falling over in the process. They tumbled onto the mattress in a tangle and clawed their way toward the headboard, hands in each other’s hair, on each other’s bodies, stirring each other to incandescent life.



Magnus tore himself away from Alec’s lips and yanked futilely at the knots that kept the bedsheet looped around the Shadowhunter’s body. “How did you tie this thing on?” he growled.

Alec, lips kiss-swollen and eyes dazed with desire, didn’t seem able to respond — he just went for the buttons on Magnus’ shirt with shaking fingers before eventually giving up and just tearing the garment apart down the middle, sending buttons flying across the room. Finally, more out of frustration that expediency, Magnus flicked his wrist at the bedsheet as if shooing away a fly and sent the entire thing fluttering somewhere over the Indian Ocean.

Alec raised his head to watch the sheet disappear. When he looked back at Magnus, the warlock was gazing down at him with a deep seriousness in his gold-green eyes. “You spend your entire life looking out and sacrificing for people,” Magnus said, and his gentle fingers traced their way along Alec’s bare torso, making him shiver. “It’s your turn to just lay back and relax …”

— from THE ELDEST CURSES, cowritten with Wes Chu