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“I just…don’t know how to come back from this. From what I learned about myself…from my memories of the past…and most of all, what I did to you.”
Andi had a sudden idea.
“Heal me, then,” she said and held out her palms to him. A Pitch-Blood Kindred couldn’t inject his essence when he was biting for blood, but he could use it when he was Bonding or healing a woman he cared for. Andi knew he could heal her…if he would only try.
Thrax looked at her wounded palms, which had been scraped raw on the grated metal floor of the milking room and Andi thought she had never seen her partner so close to tears. But instead of saying anything, he took one of her hands wordlessly in his and licked it gently, stroking the raw flesh with his tongue.
Andi sighed in relief as her partner’s essence began to heal her, knitting the skin back together in record time. The raw stinging was erased by the gentle strokes of his tongue until she felt better again.
“This one too,” she said, holding out her other hand when the first one felt better.
Thrax began licking the other palm too and when he was finished, Andi pointed at her knees.
“Here too,” she said.
“All right.” Ducking his head, he lapped gently and patiently at her wounded flesh, healing her knees the same way he had healed her palms.
Andi felt her heart swell as she watched her partner tend to her wounds. How could Thrax think he was a “Broken One?” How could he imagine that he was some kind of evil villain when he was so gentle with her?
But when he finished, she could tell that his mental anguish hadn’t yet been healed. Before he could get off his knees and go back to his seat, she put her arms around his neck and drew him close, pressing his face to her chest.
At first Thrax was stiff in her arms…but then his own arms came around her waist and he hugged her tightly—as tightly as a drowning man clinging to a scrap of wood in the ocean.
“Andi,” he said, his voice coming out choked and hoarse. “Goddess damn me to all the Seven Hells, I never wanted to hurt you!”
“I know that, honey,” she murmured, running her hands over his horns and through his thick, black hair. “But I’m fine—I’m okay. You’re the one who’s hurting now and you’ll keep hurting unless you can forgive yourself.”
Thrax drew in a deep, shuttering sigh and she thought she felt a few hot tears wetting her blouse as he pressed his face to her breasts.
“Forgive yourself,” Andi said again. “And try to forget it, if you can.”
“Never,” Thrax growled. “It’s burned into my brain. I’ll fucking never forget.”
“Well can you at least promise me that we’re still a team?” Andi asked anxiously.
He pulled back from her embrace and rose to sit in the seat again.
“I should say no. I should go straight to Commander Sylvan and tell him what I did—what I am—and ask him to relieve me of duty.”
“Don’t do that!” Andi exclaimed, really alarmed now.
This job they shared was Thrax’s life. He no longer had contact with his parents and he didn’t have any other family either. She was afraid if the big Hybrid stopped being a WLA Agent, he would drift aimlessly away from her and she might never see him again. He might even hurt himself! That was unthinkable.
“Thrax, promise me you’re not going to do that,” she said again, since he hadn’t answered.
Her partner looked down at his big hands on the steering yoke.
“Fine,” he said in a low voice. “I won’t.”
“Good. Now takes us home!” Andi commanded.
In the past, whenever she was bossy with him, her partner would usually smile or make a sarcastic remark. But this time he just nodded and started the lift-off sequence.
And though he had promised not to end their partnership, Andi had a bad feeling that he wasn’t over the trauma of their latest mission and might not be for a very long time.
28
ANDI
