Page 111 of Burn of Obsidian

“Stop!” she screamed, the seconds ticking away as Jax convulsed violently. “You’re hurting him!”

Jax finally collapsed, arms trembling as he tried to keep his body off the floor.

“Continue,” Gideon demanded, his voice edged with irritation. “Now.”

Jax spit blood from where he’d bitten his tongue onto the concrete.

With a sound of impatience, Gideon marched towards her. “It seems he needs a little… persuasion.”

Wrapping his hand in her hair, Gideon dragged her kicking and screaming across the space. In her panic, she knocked over a candelabra, the candles clattering to the floor. A few of them extinguished from the fall, while others rolled and revealed more of the room. Corrugated steel pressed against the furthest walls, half sunk into the concrete with wooden shelves. They were mostly broken or rotted through, displaying canned food gathering dust.

Where were they? A bunker?

Gideon forced her onto her toes, her scalp screaming as she reached up to grip the hand, trying to ease some of the tension.

“You’ll read the pages.” Gideon directed his words to Jax. “Otherwise, she will be the next to hang from my hooks.”

“You don't understand how this works,” Jax said, his voice guttural, strained.

Gideon’s hand tightened, and Thea pressed her lips together to stop the squeak of pain from escaping.

“You’ll need different catalysts, offerings to unlock each part of the text. Otherwise it’ll remain unreadable.”

A hand stroked along the side of her neck, coming around the front to caress her jaw. “What’s the first catalyst?” Gideon asked.

Jax glanced at her for a split second, and she swore something tugged between them. “Celestrial blood.”

Gideon released her without warning, her legs collapsing at the sudden weight. Jax rushed forward, arms stretched as if to catch her. But the chain stopped him, and her knees hit the hard floor painfully.

“Thea – ”

“Touch her, and she’ll be punished,” Gideon said calmly, drifting over to grab the chalice while the blond haired Daemon hauled the angel up. A blade slashed from the angel’s throat to groin, the flood more than the chalice could take as half the angel’s blood and guts hit the floor.

Thea waited, holding her breath as the entire room stilled.

Except nothing happened.

Gideon’s body remained a thing of granite, his anger palpable when he turned back to face Jax, his entire arm soaked with red.

“He was already dead,” Jax explained.

“You never specified they had to be alive.” Gideon’s nostrils flared. “We’ll have to try you.”

“I’m not a celestrial.”

“Yet your ancestry is.”

Jax glared at Gideon as he approached, the chalice held in one hand and a knife in the other. He didn’t fight, his posture defiant, strong despite being forced to kneel.

“Stop it!” Thea cried out, scrambling to her feet when a heavy weight struck her to the floor. Her front was forced against the concrete, knocking the breath from her lungs.

“Hold him,” Gideon said to the other Daemon, who appeared behind to grip Jax’s head steady.

Thea couldn’t contain her scream when Gideon sliced lightly across Jax’s throat. Blood sprayed, a gush that quickly stemmed to a trickle. The black stones that surrounded the chalice cracked, as if light was trying to break through.

Jax slumped once he was released, hair brushing forward to obscure his face.

Tears burned down her cheeks, still pressed to the cold concrete. She fought the weight on her back, but there was no moving the Skull that had her pinned, her hands caught awkwardly beneath.

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