34. Jax

Chapter 34

Jax

" T hey'll be fine," Lucifer said, leaning against their freshly stolen car. "You worry too much."

Jax didn't bother with a reply; his eyes trained on the fence where his mate had climbed over. His beast paced, the pressure uncomfortable at the front of his temple.

FOLLOW, Thunder snarled.

Jax released a slow breath, trying to remain calm.

"It's only been what? Thirty minutes since they've gone? Plus, she can drift out of there if she needs to." Lucifer frowned. "Wait, your girl can drift, right?"

Jax felt a nerve in his jaw tick.

"Like, she's a faerie," Lucifer continued, clearly not reading the room. "A lot of faeries can drift."

"Luce…" Jax growled.

"Yeah?"

"Shut the fuck up."

Lucifer sniffed, looking away with a huff. "J?"

Jax was going to kill him. "What, Lucifer?" He turned, finding his soon-to-be-murdered friend looking off to the side. Jax followed his line of sight, spotting Roach running in the opposite direction.

"What's got her knickers in a twist?" Lucifer smirked, eyes widening at the same time Jax felt a ripple of awareness across his chi. "Was that a – ?"

Jax was already moving, racing after Roach. Turning her head, she looked over her shoulder, determination marking her expression when she caught him closing the distance. Her hand held something tight to her face, and it took a second for him to recognise it as Ruhne's sword.

BETRAYED US! Thunder roared. WE KILL.

Roach skidded to a halt, her smile delivered with the self-assurance of someone who believed she couldn't be caught. Jax reached for his gun, enjoying the compact weight. He was usually a sword man, but the spark of fear in her eye when he held it up was far more satisfying than it should be.

"Where is she?" he asked, his tone so cold he was surprised there wasn't any frost.

Thunder's snarl was a boom inside his head. EAT HER INSIDES.

Roach took a step back, both hands coming up to warn him back. Blood coated her palm, her right eye stabbed perfectly through the pupil.

Lucifer appeared at his side. "Disappointing," he tutted, rolling his shoulders as if he was about to call his wings. "What happened to honour amongst thieves?"

Jax took a threatening step forward, and Roach's single eye widened before a burst of black smoke billowed around her. Jax didn't think; he simply aimed and pressed the trigger. Roach fell to her knees with a scream, her hands covering her head. Except he hadn't been aiming for her. No, he'd been aiming for the Daemon behind her, the one currently flat on his back with a bullet hole between his eyes.

Lucifer let out a whistle, dark arcane climbing up his arm. "Niiiicccce. You'd put Ti to shame with that shot."

But there were two distinctive energies, and before Jax could swing his arm, another Daemon grabbed Roach, both disappearing with a static pop.

Fuck.

"Go!" Lucifer said. "I'll take care of this." He gestured to the Daemon hissing on the floor. He was already regaining strength; depending on his age, a single bullet was not enough to keep him down for long.

Jax was moving. He'd memorised Roach's plan, knowing which door they were entering in and the directions to the correct vault. If that failed he'd shift, his beast using his nose to find her.

FASTER!

Anxiety buzzed violently beneath his skin, an encroaching tightness to his lungs until every breath ached. He didn't allow himself to feel, and the emotions brought on by the mating have been fucking –

"There you are, big guy."

Jax's head jerked to the side, finding Thea leaning awkwardly against the fence.

Sweat beaded along her brow, lips pressed tight. There wasn't even a second's thought before Jax had pulled her against him, nose sinking into her hair so her scent could appease both himself and Thunder. Sunflowers, that was what her scent reminded him of. Sunflowers in the rain.

Thea groaned, and Jax pulled back. He barely suppressed his growl when he found the splash of red beneath her shirt, the fabric cut rather than torn.

"So, Roach may have screwed us over." Thea wrinkled her nose, hand pressing flat against her side. "Sorry. "

"What happened?" he demanded more than asked.

Ruhne landed on her shoulder, hand gripping her hair to keep himself upright. "Roach stabbed Thea, so I stabbed her back. In the eyeball."

This time, Jax allowed the growl to rattle out of him. "How bad?"

"Worse if Ruhne hadn't been there." Thea grinned as if she hadn't just been attacked with a knife. "Did you know he can stop bleeding with his pixie dust?"

No, Jax hadn't known that.

"Just one of my many talents," Ruhne said. "So, where's – "

Jax pulled his gun, lifting it up just as Lucifer appeared from a drift. The crazy bastard grinned when he found the gun aimed at him, lifting up his arm to display his prize.

"Why the fuck do you have the head?" Jax asked, dropping the gun. The Daemon's face was slack, and Jax wondered how Lucy managed to behead him without a blade. From the scorched skin, he deducted the use of arcane.

"For research, obviously," Lucifer chuckled, fingering the hole between the Daemon's eyes. "The bullet went through and through, so I have no idea whether enough shards separated on impact to release Kace's compound."

"You're planning on bringing that home with us?" Thea asked, looking a little green. "How are you going to get it past customs?"

"The same way Jax brought an unlicensed gun." He swaggered over to the car, head swinging. "Nothing's prohibited if you have enough money."

Jax opened the car door so Thea could climb into the back seat. "You don't have any money."

"No, but you do." With a wink, Lucy slipped into the front, throwing the head over his shoulder .

Thea shrieked, catching the head, only to fumble it onto the seat beside her. "Seriously?"

"It's just a decapitated head, stop being a baby." Lucifer clicked his tongue, fingers drumming against the steering wheel. "Also, I can't drive."

Jax shoved at him. "Move."

Lucifer grumbled, somehow managing to climb over the centre console despite his size. "Well, it seems this was a waste of our time. Unless there's another power hungry bastard running around, Gideon has two pages, which has taken our chances from probable, to fucked."

Jax pulled away from the museum to Ruhne's manic chuckling, heading straight to the small, private landing strip. His hand slammed against the dash, denting the plastic. "Gideon still needs the third, and someone to decipher them."

They had time to stop him.

"He hasn't got the second," Thea said, and Jax met her gaze in the rear-view mirror as she pulled out something from the back of her T-shirt. "Because I do."

Jax eyed the tension along her shoulders. "Drink. It'll help with the pain."

Thea grimaced, taking another sip of the extortionately priced whiskey Riley kept onboard. It hit the back of her throat and she coughed, forcing him to pull back until she'd settled.

"It's going to scar," he commented, returning to suturing the wound closed. Luckily, the blade hadn't nicked anything, and was reasonably shallow. Whatever was in Ruhne's pixie dust had helped greatly .

Thea took another drink, downing the remainder of her glass. "It's fine; I have a few of those already."

"Hmm," Jax hummed, concentrating on his hands rather than the roll of the plane. The fact her breasts were there wasn't helping, either. She'd pulled her T-shirt off so he could get better access to her side, the sports bra she'd chosen to wear covering everything important. Except it stuck to her like a second skin, so tight it easily revealed the outline of the little barbells.

"Hell must have frozen over." Her breasts shook with a laughing breath, which was almost as distracting as the turbulence. "You're scared of flying."

Jax kept his face neutral, which only made her chuckle a little harder. He wasn't scared, but that didn't mean he liked it.

"It's okay," she mock whispered, her words beginning to slur. "It'll be our little secret."

Jax quirked a brow, amused by how sensitive she was to alcohol. Her skin was flushed a healthy pink, despite only having a single drink.

As soon as they'd entered the plane, he'd sat her on the edge of the table, forcing both Lucifer and Ruhne to take the seats closest to the cockpit. Luckily, they'd crashed as soon as they'd taken off, Ruhne's snores impressive considering his size.

A giggle escaped her lips before she stifled the sound, Jax having to pause once more until the movements stopped. Another giggle rocked through her body, making it difficult to keep the stitches straight. By the time he'd gotten to the last stitch, she'd drunk two glasses of whiskey, and it was almost impossible for her to sit still. But at least she wasn't feeling the pain.

"You're staring," he said, feeling her eyes warm his skin. Snipping the thread, he settled the needle to the side, placing his palms flat on her thighs.

He didn't have to look up from his position between her legs to know she was blushing, but did so anyway. "You know how I got the scar," he said, thumb rubbing over the fabric of her leggings. "I was attacked by a hound when I was a kid."

Thea cocked her head, the pink of her hair falling across her face, and reaching up, he tucked it behind her ear.

"I think it's sexy, even with your emotional spectrum of a rock," she said with a gentle laugh.

"A rock?"

"A very unnecessarily large, sexy rock."

Definitely drunk, he thought.

"It's the only scar that survived the ritual that bonded me to my beast."

"Thunder," she said, her smile wonky in her inebriated state.

His fingers lingered on the skin of her cheek. He didn't like what she did to him, with that smile. His entire body responded, muscles seizing and lungs struggling to draw a single breath. The power she had to bring him to his knees was inconvenient. They'd travelled across the ocean to find a document that could help stop Gideon, and yet all he thought about was her.

"Everything else I can heal. It's part of the curse."

A wrinkle appeared between her brows, and he wanted to rub all her worries away.

"A caveat to the beast," he continued. "Except now the curse is broken, and I'm no longer at risk of eternity down in Hell."

"Because of our mating?"

Jax swallowed, memorising every slope and angle of her face. "Yes, because of our mating." If she chose to accept it, not that he would say that aloud. Their joining had been forced, so he'd do anything for her to choose him because she wanted to, and not because of guilt. He may not believe in the Fates, but he sure as hell believed Thea was always supposed to be his.

Her lips opened on a soft exhale, eyes sparkling as she slipped off the table to straddle his lap, her thighs parting over his hips.

"Watch your stitches," he said, Thunder rumbling to the surface.

MINE , his beast growled, the mating bond strengthening until it felt like a constant thread of tension. It seemed she was relaxing the reins, likely subconsciously due to the alcohol.

"Hi Thunder," she whispered, rocking forward to get a closer look at his irises. "Who's a pretty boy?"

Jax smirked. He'd felt them shift to silver, but it was definitely him in control. "Not Thunder. Just me."

His cock responded, hardening beneath his jeans as she moved against him. Thea must have noticed, as her smile turned sly as she rocked against him once more.

"So, you do smile," she whispered, continuing to torture him with her body.

His cock ached, confined in the fabric. "Only for you."

She stilled, eyes glistening before she reached for his zipper. He caught her before she could, one hand trapping both her wrists.

"Thea," he warned when she tried to free herself, but he only held them tighter.

"You're drunk." He clenched his teeth when her body rolled against his, the fabric of her leggings much more giving than his jeans.

Fuck .

"Not enough to not know what I want," she moaned, her back arching. "Please."

The plea fell from her lips, and his cock twitched as if he'd been personally called. Jax knew he was fucked, because he was pretty sure he'd do anything for her, especially if she begged.

"Thea…" His resistance was weakening, her breathing coming in little pants as she worked herself against his constricted cock. Colour grazed her cheekbones and the tip of her nose. Her once warm brown eyes were obscured by black.

With barely restrained control, he jerked his hips up, forcing a whimper from her throat before he caught the sound with his lips. The need to consume her cries was an almost primal urge. Her breasts crushed against him, her tongue darting in as if she held any control on how this was going to go. She kissed him like it was a victory, her taste a mixture of whisky and something unique that was just her .

Before Thea, he'd rarely kissed anyone, not seeing the pleasure. The women he'd fucked before were nothing but a release.

But with Thea, he wanted everything.

Every kiss. Every touch. Every fucking orgasm.

She was his, and he was going to remind her of that.

"That's it, my little thief; use me to come." He rocked against her core, listening to the little whimpers as she used him for her pleasure. She grinded against him, the scent of her arousal a perfume he wanted to drown in.

Heat flooded his veins, her wrists still trapped in his grip. His hands ached to touch every inch, but he knew as soon as she was free, his remaining control would snap. He'd have her flat on the back on the table, legs spread so he could feast until she came against his tongue. Except three glasses of whiskey for her was the same as five to six for someone else. And he wanted her to remember every fucking second.

"Jax!" she pleaded, trying one last time to release her hands, her movements jagged as she raced toward her orgasm. "Please!"

"I'm not going to fuck you," he growled. "Because trust me, when I finally take you, you're going to want to be sober."

Her lips opened on a silent cry, head thrown back as he ground against her covered cunt. Her breathing picked up, her pulse ferocious against her skin.

"That's it, use me."

The orgasm rocked through, her body tensing in her climax. She rode him through the aftershocks, so unapologetic in her need that he wanted to drag it out, to count how many times she could scream.

On his fingers. On his tongue. On his cock.

Except he couldn't, not yet.

"That's it," he groaned, torturing himself. "Come for me."

Thea slumped forward, and only then did he release her wrists. Her heart raced, the pulse on her throat continuing to thump when he pressed his lips there.

"Go to sleep, little thief," he said when she relaxed. "I'll watch over you."