The Lost Book of the White (The Eldest Curses #2) - Cassandra Clare Page 0,4

way in and closed the window behind him. Magnus gave him a look. “Okay. Truth. A demon ate my keys.”

“We go through so many keys.” Magnus got up to embrace his boyfriend.

“Wait, no. I smell.”

“There’s nothing wrong,” proclaimed Magnus, moving his head toward Alec’s neck, “with the smell of the sweat of a hard night’s work—you do smell. What is that?”

“That,” said Alec, “is the musk of the common subway tunnel smoke demon.”

“Oh, honey.” Magnus kissed Alec’s neck anyway. He breathed through his mouth.

“Hang on, it’s mostly on the gear,” said Alec. Magnus gave him a little space and he began taking it off: the bow, the quiver, his stele, some seraph blades, his leather jacket, his boots, his shirt.

“Let me help you with the rest of that,” Magnus murmured as Alec finished unbuttoning the shirt, and Alec gave him a real smile, his blue eyes warm, and Magnus felt a wave of love thrum through him. Three years in, he still felt as strongly as ever for Alec. More so every day. Still. He marveled at it.

Alec’s mouth quirked, and he shifted his gaze to the hallway past Magnus.

“He’s asleep,” Magnus said, and kissed Alec’s mouth. “Been asleep for hours.” He moved to pull Alec toward the couch. Only a quick wiggle of his fingers, and the candles on the end table lit and the lamps dimmed.

Alec laughed, low in his chest. “We have a perfectly good bed, you know.”

“Bed’s closer to the kid’s room. Quieter to stay here,” Magnus murmured. “Also, we would have to kick Chairman Meow off the bed.”

“Aw,” said Alec, dipping his head to kiss the hollow of Magnus’s throat. Magnus let his head fall back and allowed himself a little pleased moan. “He hates that.”

“Hang on,” said Magnus, stepping back. With a flourish, he divested himself of the robe, letting it fall into a pool of black silk around his feet. Underneath, he wore navy pajamas covered in small white anchors. Alec’s eyes narrowed.

“Well, I didn’t know this was happening, obviously,” Magnus said. “Or I would have worn something sexier than my fuzzy sailor pajamas.”

“They are plenty sexy,” said Alec, and then both of them froze, because a sudden scream rent the air. Alec closed his eyes and exhaled slowly, and Magnus could tell he was mentally counting to ten.

“I’ll go,” said Alec.

“I’ll go,” said Magnus. “You just got home.”

“No, no, I’ll go. I want to see him anyway.” Still only in his trousers, Alec padded toward the hall to Max’s room. He looked over his shoulder at Magnus, shaking his head and smiling. “Never fails, huh.”

“Kid’s got a sixth sense,” Magnus agreed. “Rain check?”

“Stay there.”

Magnus opened a little Portal to Max’s room to watch Alec pick up their son and rock him. Alec looked over at the Portal from his end and said, “Sure, that seems much easier than just walking down the hall.”

“I was told to stay here.”

Alec pointed at the Portal and said to Max, “Is that bapak? Do you see bapak?”

Magnus had wanted to be called something that felt true to his own childhood, but it always felt strange. His own father, the human one, had been bapak, and when he said it to Max, he felt a little twinge, as though he were walking on his father’s grave.

Max quickly calmed—these days a scream was more likely to be a nightmare than anything requiring more than soothing—and blinked sleepy eyes at Magnus, who smiled and wiggled little glittery sparks from the ends of his fingers at his child. A smile broke on Max’s face as his eyes drifted shut. He was already almost asleep again, one chubby blue arm flopping out to the side. Max’s skin was deep blue—that was his warlock mark, along with adorable stubs that Magnus suspected would grow into horns. Alec returned him to his crib. Magnus watched, marveling at the strange happiness of his life now, as a beautiful, extremely fit man with no shirt and startlingly blue eyes cared for the baby they had together. He cursed his own sentimentality and tried to think sexy thoughts.

Alec looked up at him, and in the dim light Magnus could suddenly see how weary he looked. “I,” Alec declared, “am going to go take a shower. Then I will return to you in the living room.”

“Then probably another shower,” said Magnus. “Hurry back.” He closed the Portal and returned to his book, a study of Scandinavian mythological artifacts and their owners and locations through history. He planned