That strength was like catnip to her—although she’d never, ever admit that out loud. “What were you doing?” she demanded, struggling the rest of the way to a sitting position.
“A surveillance ritual.” His face tensed as if afraid to reveal too much. “There’ve been rumors of demon activity in the Forest Sauvage.”
The forest lay at the junction of several supernatural realms. “Demons show up there anyway, don’t they?”
“One or two of the strongest hellspawn can leave the Abyss, but only for brief periods. It’s not a regular occurrence. Yet Arthur’s spies report a demon has been meeting with the fae generals on multiple occasions.”
“You want to know what they’re up to,” she murmured, a horrible awareness of what she’d interrupted settling in. Gawd, how stupid was she? It was a wonder Merlin hadn’t kicked her out of his workshop after her first lesson. He would have to now.
“I was summoning information through a scrying portal. The conversation was growing interesting when you arrived.” His tone was precise and growing colder with every syllable. Now that the crisis was over, he was getting angry.
Clary pressed a hand to her pounding head. “They heard me come in?”
“Yes.”
She cringed inwardly, but lifted her head, refusing to let her mortification show. “Then Babe-a-licious with the tail showed up.”
“Yes.” There was no mistaking the frost in his tone now. “Vivian. Do you have any idea how dangerous she is?”
“She tried to kill me.” Clary’s insides hollowed as the words sank home. Dear goddess, she did kill me! And Merlin had brought her back before a second had passed—but it had happened. Her witch’s senses had felt it happen. The realization left her light-headed.
“She doesn’t get to have you,” he said in a low voice.
Their gazes locked, and something twisted in Clary’s chest. She’d been hurt on Merlin’s watch, and he was furious. No, what she saw in his eyes was more than icy anger. It was a heated, primal possessiveness that came from a far different Merlin than she knew. Clary’s breath stopped. Surely she was misreading the situation. Death and zapping had scrambled her thoughts. “What happened when you smashed the stone?”
“The demon returned to where she came from.”
“Will she come back?”
“If she does, it will be for me. She won’t bother you. You were incidental.”
Clary might have been insulted, but she was barely listening now. The events of the past few minutes fell over her like a shadow, pushing everything else, even Merlin, aside. She’d felt death coming like a cold, black vortex. She began to shake, her mind scrambling to get away from a memory of gathering darkness. She drew her knees into her chest, hugging them. “I shouldn’t have walked in on you.”
“No, you shouldn’t have,” he said in a voice filled with the same mix of ice and fire. “You’d be a better student of magic if you paid attention to the world around you. That would include door wards.”
Tears stung behind her eyelids. Trust Merlin to use death as a teachable moment. “You could be sympathetic. At least a little.”
He made a noise that wasn’t quite a snort. “You asked me to teach you proper magic and not the baby food the covens use. If you want warm and fuzzy, get a rabbit. Real magic is deadly.”
Clary took a shuddering breath. “No kidding.”
He was relentless. “Today your carelessness cost me a valuable tool.”
She sighed her resentment. “I’ll get you a new stone.”
“You can’t. There was only one like it, and now I’m blind to what the demons are doing.”
Abruptly, he stood and crossed the room to kick a shard of agate against the wall. It bounced with a savage clatter. Clary got to her feet, her knees wobbling. Merlin was right about her needing Tamsin’s medical help. She braced her hand against the wall so she’d stop weaving. “I’m sorry.”
He spun and stormed back to her in one motion, moving so fast she barely knew what was happening. He took her by the shoulders, the grip rough. “Don’t ever do that again!”
And then his mouth crushed hers in a hard, angry kiss. Clary gasped in surprise, but there was no air, only him, and only his need. She rose slowly onto her toes, the gesture both surrender and a desire to hold her own. She’d been kissed many times before, but never consumed this way. His lips were greedy and hot with that same confusing array of emotions she’d seen a moment ago. Anger. Fear. Possession. Protectiveness.
Volatile. That was the word she’d so often used in her own head when thinking about him. Volatile, though he kept himself on a very short chain. Right now that chain had slipped.
And she liked it. Head spinning, she leaned back against the wall, trapped between the plaster and the hard muscle of his chest. Now that the first shock was past, she moved her mouth under his, returning the kiss. Hot breath fanned against her cheek, sending tingles down her spine. She’d never understood the stories about danger sparking desire until this moment, but now she was soaring, lust a hot wire lighting up her whole frame. Being alive was very, very good.
Merlin had braced his hands on either side of her head, but now he stroked them down her body in a long, slow caress. It was a languid movement as if he was measuring and memorizing her every curve. Clary let her arms drift up to link behind his neck.
“I think I’ll skip the fuzzy bunny and keep you instead,” she murmured.
The effect of her words was electric. He stepped out of her embrace as unexpectedly as he’d entered it, pushing a hand through his hair. “We can’t do this.” He turned away as if he needed to regain control.
After being killed, revived, scolded and ravished, Clary was getting whiplash. “Why not?” she asked through clenched teeth.
“Vivian.”
“She was angry,” Clary conceded. “Did you and she have a, um, thing?”
He made a noise like a strangling bear. “She is everything unholy.”
Yup, Viv was an ex. For some reason, that sparked her temper in a way nothing else had. Clary wiped her mouth on her sleeve.
“I said you were incidental to her.” His voice had gone cold again. “Let’s keep it that way. Touching you was a mistake.”
“A mistake?”
Merlin faced her, frowning at her sarcastic tone. “Yes.”
“So Vivian is a jealous mean girl,” Clary snapped. “That’s not my problem, and I’m not a mistake. I don’t deserve that kind of disrespect.”
And yet she did. She was a screwup, a talentless hack of a witch and not much better with her personal life. She’d just proven it all over again by bursting in where she wasn’t wanted. The knowledge scalded her, but it also raised her defenses. It was one thing to reject her as a magician, but he’d just rejected her as a woman.
“Don’t be difficult,” he replied.
“Don’t be an idiot. I’m