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“It’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?
