Page 86 of Burn of Obsidian

“Activate how?” Ruhne asked, sitting cross-legged on the armrest of her chair.

“We don’t know.” Jax paid no attention to the pixie, his gaze lazily tracing the lines of her face. He started at her eyes, moving down the slope of her nose, hesitating at her lips. Thea’s tongue darted out, wetting the bottom one as those eyes of ice melted until they burned. He continued down, the heat of his gaze zeroing in on the pulse on her throat, one that was pretty much dancing against her skin.

Blood roared in her ears when he steadied his eyes back on hers, the early morning light slicing through the porthole window to highlight the reluctant desire etched against the stony set of his jaw.

Definitely the bond, she thought, clenching her thighs at the pressure building. No man could make her body react in such a way. It was as if all her feminism simply poofed into the void from a single, carnal look.

Jax leaned forward, and Thea found herself being pulled into his orbit. His eyes dipped to her lips once more, her resistance weakening until –

“Ri never mentioned you guys had a jet?” A low whistle filled the cabin, and Thea jerked back, whatever spell that was between them broken. “Fucking rich boy’s been holding out on me.”

A man threw himself down into the seat beside her, and a flash of irritation crossed Jax’s features.

“Lucifer,” he greeted with a dip of his head. “How nice of you to join us.”

“Can you believe he asked me to fly there?” The man called Lucifer clicked his tongue, looking around the cabin as if he’d never seen a plane before. “Like I appreciate the confidence – my wingspan is pretty impressive and all that – but what the fuck?”

“You can fly?” Thea asked, checking out the width of his shoulders and the clear lack of wings.

He wasn’t much different in size to Jax, his dark hair brushing his shoulders when he twisted to reveal red irises. “Of course I can, love,” he said with an impish grin. “I’m Lucy. I’m… fucking Fates, is that a pixie?”

Lucifer bent at the waist, almost crawling into her lap to get closer to Ruhne.

“Luce,” Jax warned. “Back the fuck off.”

Lucifer slumped back into his seat, heavy boots trampling the plush carpet. “But he’s literally made of glitter, J. Glitter.”

“My dust has other components, too,” Ruhne said, jumping to his feet, which swung the sword he had on his hip. It was attached to his belt and looked like a needle, but larger. She should really ask him where he got his clothes from, because she was sure she’d never seen him in all black before. “I can give you the itch, which will make you want to tear your own skin off.”

“Ruhne, what happened to your blue clothes?” she asked, curious.

He shrugged, his wings drooping behind him. “The death-eater faerie with the painted gold gave me this new set. She works behind the bar with the cat-man. What do you think? Sexy as fuck, right? It saves me having to cut my own patterns from your clothes.”

“You make your own clothes?” Thea frowned. “Wait, you steal the fabric from mine?”

Ruhne flexed his arm, showing off his bicep. “Where else did you think I was getting the new clothes from? It’s not like there’s a pixie boutique around here.”

It hadn’t even occurred to her he would need more than one set of clothes. She was the worst friend.

Jax cracked his knuckles against the cockpit door. “Let’s go.”

Thea crossed her legs, his eyes immediately drawn to the exposed skin there. “Not everyone is here yet.”

“What do you mean, not everyone is here yet?” His usual hard exterior returned. “Who else?”

Thea tried to smile, but it did nothing to change his resolve. “Look, I’m a pickpocket. We think well on our feet, but something big that requires tedious planning… not so much.”

“Thea, who else?”

Roach took that moment to step inside, a large backpack thrown over her shoulder. Like usual, she wore all black, but this time she’d added a few sharp silver spikes to her neck and boots. With a raised brow, she threw her bag onto the three-seater sofa at the back.

“This is Roach,” Thea said, her cheeks hurting with how forced her smile was. “And somehow, in the next eight hours, we’re going to plan a raid of the institute’s archives.”

JAX

Jax clenched onto the seat harder when the plane hit a little turbulence, his fingers almost piercing through the leather.

“So, I think you’re onto something with the obsidian,” Lucifer droned on, frowning at the bullet between his fingertips. It was the prototype and was yet to be tested. And by tested, Jax meant shooting Lucifer to see whether it, A: stayed in his body, and B: stopped his ability to drift for an extended period of time.