Son of the Dawn Read online

  To where Jace was taking off his clothes. The scone plate on the coffee table in front of him was empty, and he had a dreamy expression on his face-the dreamy expression of a human who had eaten faerie fruit. He had already shrugged off his long coat, and was getting to work on the buttons of his shirt.

  "Jace," Alec hissed. "Jace, what are you doing?"

  "It's warm in here," Jace said, in a slurred voice. Two knives hit the ground.

  Across the room, several faeries began to giggle. Jace kicked off his boots and socks.

  "Corny," Kaye said. "Do something. This is entirely your fault, you know. You gave him those scones."

  Corny was watching Jace undressing with raised eyebrows and an appreciative expression on his face. "I think I might be some kind of genius. You couldn't pay me to stop this."

  Jace had whipped his shirt off. Kaye squinted and had to admit Corny had a point. You rarely saw a body like that outside of magazine spreads. Some people had six-packs; Jace appeared to have a twelve-pack. It didn't look humanly possible. "Could be good for business," she mused and pulled herself an espresso shot. She thought she was going to need it.

  "Maybe we could get him to do it every day?" Corny said, as Jace unbuttoned his jeans. Alec attempted to stop him, but Jace moved nimbly out of his way and kicked the jeans off with a flourish.

  "Don't try to stop me, Alec," said Jace. "This body has to be free."

  Isabelle looked up from kissing Meliorn and her eyes widened. "Holy crap," she said. "Jace--"

  She started to stand up, but Jace had already made his way to the door. He paused there and bowed--to considerable applause--plucked the pair of antlers off the wall, and placed them gently on his head. Then he darted out the door, just as Roiben came in.

  Roiben, in his long black cloak, raised both his silver brows and stared after Jace, a small smile playing at the corner of his lips. He looked about to ask Meliorn a question and then seemed to think better of it. Then, abruptly, he began to laugh.

  "Oh, by the Angel," Alec said mournfully. "Another place we can never go to again. You'd think, in a city as big as New York ..."

  Kaye noticed that the boozy Magnus the Magnificent was watching Alec with a gleam in his catlike eyes. It really was too bad Alec seemed too sunk in gloom to notice.

  "We should have hung a sign on that guy," Corny said. "Imagine the advertising."

  And right then, Kaye realized two things. One was that Shadowhunters might be good at killing things, but their dating lives were a mess. And the other was that she was going to love owning a coffee shop.