28. Andi

28

ANDI

" I t's been weeks and he'll barely talk to me." Andi took a drink of the Friskian mojito Kat had made for her and made a face. "Whew! That's strong!" The two of them were sitting in Kat's office talking and Kat had offered to make her "something special" which the mojito certainly was.

"It's the Friskian mint that does it," Kat said, taking a sip of her own drink. "It has slightly psychedelic properties—not enough to make you think your face is melting. Just enough to give you a nice, dreamy little buzz," she added when Andi gave her a wide-eyed look. "So why won't he talk to you?"

Andi nibbled her lower lip and took another sip of her drink. Thrax hadn't specifically asked her not to talk to anyone about what had happened between them on the mission to Salacious Delta…but he hadn't really asked her not to, either. And she was getting desperate—she needed some advice from someone who knew her partner. Kat has been dressing them and getting them ready for missions for the past three years—plus she had a sympathetic ear and Andi knew she could trust her to keep things to herself.

"Well, doll? I can't help if you don't tell me what's going on," Kat said, cutting into her train of thought.

"What's going on is that some things…happened between me and Thrax during our last mission," Andi said at last.

"Mmm-hmm. You two finally got together?" Kat raised her eyebrows. "I always thought you would."

"Not… exactly ." Andi sighed and took another drink of her mojito, trying to think how to phrase things. "That is…we did have sex but it wasn't exactly on our terms."

"What? What are you talking about?" Kat frowned. "Come on, don't be shy, hon—spill."

"We met Thrax's old Mistress and she forced us to have really rough sex, and now Thrax blames himself and won't talk to me," Andi said in a rush and then clapped a hand over her mouth. She hadn't meant to let all that slip—maybe she should stop drinking now.

"She forced you to have sex? How? And who was his old Mistress?" Kat asked, looking more confused than ever.

Andi sighed. It was too late to turn back now so she might as well tell, she decided.

"She was a Mistress from Yonnie Six who bought Thrax and trained him as a bodyslave when he was young—really just a teenager," she said. She didn't add anything about how the evil woman had molested her partner—that wasn't her secret to tell. But she did tell Kat that Thrax had been put through some kind of conditioning that put him under Mistress Stoneheart's control.

"She kind of…hypnotized him, I guess," she said, trying to choose her words carefully. "And she was able to control him and make him, uh, do things."

A look of understanding came over Kat's face.

"So when you say she made you and Thrax have sex, what you mean is she made him have sex with you and it wasn't necessarily consensual?"

"That's the thing though—it was consensual," Andi protested. "You see, there's this weird swamp gas that rises up through the air of Salacious Delta. They call it ‘the Fume.' It makes everybody horny and it smells like sweet and sour chicken."

"It what?" Kat gave her a blank look. "No, never mind." She waved a hand when Andi started to explain again. "The point is, you were as hot for him as he was for you but he won't believe it?"

"Something like that." Andi sighed miserably. "He just…can't seem to forgive himself. Not just for what she made him do to me, but things she made him do in the past—back when she was holding him captive as her bodyslave," she explained evasively. "I can't really talk about any of the stuff from the past but it's bad, Kat. Really bad."

"Poor guy," Kat said sympathetically. "No wonder the last time I saw him he looked like someone just ran over his pet puppy."

"He does look awful all the time now," Andi agreed. "I mean, he's always been one of those dark and brooding types, you know? But in the past, I was able to bring him out of himself. Now…" She shrugged. "Like I said, he'll hardly talk to me."

"Past trauma and hurting the one you love are both really hard to get over," Kat said thoughtfully.

"Oh, I wouldn't say Thrax loves me, exactly," Andi protested.

Kat shook her head, her auburn hair swishing over her shoulders with the motion.

"Don't kid yourself, doll. Thrax is head-over-heels for you. He has been from the minute you two started working together."

"What?" Andi stared at her in disbelief. "You're kidding—you don't actually think that, do you?"

"Would I say it if I didn't think it?" Kat asked, raising an eyebrow. "I've been able to tell it from the first. Just think about it for a minute and you'll see what I mean."

Andi opened her mouth to say Kat was wrong…and then closed it again. She thought of all the tight spots she and Thrax had been in together…all the nights they had gone out to try new cuisines because Thrax claimed he wanted to learn about Earth Culture. She thought of the times her partner had held her and let her cry whenever the situation with her ex got complicated and nasty and she was worried about her daughter. And what about the way he had gone to Lindsey's school and confronted her bullies?

"You're right," she said slowly. "I think he does love me. I mean, I knew that he, uh, fantasized about me, but…" She trailed off, blushing as Kat gave her a knowing look.

"See? He loves you. The question is, do you feel the same way for him?"

Andi considered. Did she love the big Hybrid? It had always seemed like a moot point. He couldn't Bond her to him, after all, and she knew how important the Kindred thought Soul Bonds were. So they could never have that one, all important connection between them. But did it really matter, as long as they could be together?

"Yes," she said at last. "I do love him. I think I've been falling in love with him from the start, but I couldn't let myself admit it. Besides, things were so messy with my ex for so long, it was easier just to pretend to myself he was only my best friend. But I want more than that now."

"Then you're going to have to take it," Kat said simply.

"But how? When he won't even talk to me? When he's still stuck in the past?" Andi demanded.

Kat looked thoughtful.

"You have to understand…the way a Kindred warrior loves his mate isn't the way a human man loves his wife. Human love can be broken and distorted and twisted—it can fade away or even turn to hate. But with a Kindred, it's different—they love us with the same intensity that a parent loves a child. You know how you feel for your daughter? Like you'd kill anyone who hurt her or die to protect her and no matter what, you'll always put her first?"

Andi nodded.

"Yes, of course," she said. "That's exactly how I feel for Lindsey."

"It's how I feel for my three little monsters too." Kat smiled as she nodded to a holo-portrait of her three sons sitting on her desk. "And that's how a Kindred warrior feels for the woman he loves. So when he hurts her…well, just imagine how bad you feel even if you hurt your kid by mistake."

"I accidentally slammed Lindsey's fingers in the car door once," Andi confessed. "I didn't even see her—I was distracted talking to someone and shut the door without looking."

"Ouch!" Kat winced. "Was she okay?"

"Oh yes—no broken bones or anything, thank God. But she cried and cried and I cried with her," Andi said. She winced. "I felt so bad. God, I still feel so guilty when I think about it and it was ten years ago!"

"So now you know how Thrax feels right now," Kat told her. "He probably hates himself for what he did to you. And if he's got other, unresolved issues from his past on top of that, well…that's a big mess."

"But what can I do about it?" Andi asked. "I've gone to his suite and begged him to come out with me—we used to go at least twice a month to try new restaurants," she added. "He just shakes his head and refuses to say anything. I'm getting really worried about him, Kat. What if he hurts himself?"

Kat's face grew grave and her forehead furrowed.

"You know, this reminds me of someone else—it wasn't a Kindred warrior though, it was his wife."

"His wife?" Andi shook her head. "I don't understand."

"She was a pretty little thing—Allara was her name. She came from a people called the Q'ess who have considered the Kindred their enemies for generations. Anyway, they claimed that they would declare a truce if one of their women could marry a Kindred who was on the High Council and Commander Sylvan agreed to the deal. So she married this nice Beast Kindred named Brand."

"She did? So what happened?" Andi asked.

"Well, she tried to kill her husband," Kat said matter-of-factly. "It turned out that she'd undergone some kind of conditioning when she was a child and they implanted a command to kill in her brain. So she was kind of a sleeper agent, I guess."

"Oh my God," Andi said blankly. "So did she kill him?"

"She tried," Kat said. "But luckily she didn't succeed. And her husband, Brand, was very understanding about it. He said the Goddess meant for them to be together and he still loved her. But Allana was really messed up about it, poor thing." She shook her head. "She tried to kill herself several times. Brand didn't know what to do for her."

"What did he end up doing?" Andi asked. She couldn't help thinking that Kat was right—there were some similarities between the sleeper agent girl and her partner.

"They had a Cleansing Ceremony for her in the Sacred Grove," Kat said. "It helped purge the trauma from her childhood—I wasn't there but I heard it worked beautifully. They say that the presence of the Goddess was felt."

"Do you really think something like that could help Thrax?" Andi asked doubtfully. She knew that almost all the Kindred were devout in their worship of their Goddess, who they called "The Mother of All Life," but she wasn't a believer herself.

"I think it's worth a shot," Kat said. "Unless you think you can get him to go to therapy?"

"He absolutely won't," Andi said flatly. "I already asked." She sighed. "Which makes me wonder if I should even bother asking about the Cleansing Ceremony. I mean, what if he says no? And how do I set it up if he says yes?"

"You leave all that to me," Kat said firmly. "All you have to do is convince him to come with you to the Sacred Grove tonight."

"Tonight?" Andi asked, surprised. "Are you sure it won't take some time to get things ready?"

"I'll talk to the priestess and tell her it's urgent," Kat promised. "You just get Thrax there."

"All right." Andi felt a faint swell of hope in her heart. It had wounded her, seeing how badly her partner was hurting—and how much he hated himself. She wanted to heal him any way that she could.

As she left Kat's suite, she sent up a silent prayer.

Please, Goddess…I don't know if you can hear me or if you're even there. But if you are, please let this ceremony help my partner. Let Thrax be healed.

There was no answer but she felt calmer as she headed to her partner's suite. Now she just had to convince Thrax to do the ceremony. She hoped he wouldn't turn stubborn and refuse.

If he did, Andi didn't know what she was going to do.