Darkness Bred by Stella Cameron

with her back to him and her arms crossed. “Are you okay?”
    She shook her head, no.
    “What is it?” He had been a fool to hope she hadn’t really noticed what Saul said about Aldo.
    “You’re keeping things from me. I expect you to have your secrets—you must for your own safety. But Saul talked about this Aldo as if he expected me to know about him.”
    Sean went around the bike and took Elin by the arms. He sat on the seat of the bike and held her in front of him. “I should have told you by now. I’ve tried to put the whole thing behind me. Maybe I thought it would go away if I did that.”
    “But it didn’t,” she said. Her mouth was stiff. “Tell me, please.”
    He didn’t want to. Stroking her upper arms, he looked away.
    “We’ve talked about trusting each other, Sean. But you don’t trust me with whatever this is. Okay.” She shrugged. “Let it go.”
    “I can’t,” he said, facing her again. This feeling that he was joined to her was so good, but he was afraid of hurting her somehow. “Not anymore. I’m going to lay it out. If you know me at all, you’ll believe in me—that’s not fair. We all need time to take things in.”
    Elin never took her eyes from his.
    “For five years the San Francisco police have believed I murdered a woman in a club there. There’s no reason for me to think they’ve stopped looking for me.”
    Her features had frozen. He heard her shallow breathing.
    “Aldo was the werehound who first turned me and he never stopped wanting to own me. He got me to that club and used me to kill a helpless woman.”
    Her lips parted. Sean waited for her to pull away, to run away from him, but she didn’t move. “Used you to kill?” she said, very low. “How could that be?”
    He didn’t want to think about it, or remember the details. Explaining aloud would be hell.
    Elin had started to tremble.
    “Oh, my God,” he muttered. “You’ve never been in a place like that and you’ll never go. Drunkenness, drugs used in plain sight, debauchery—I can’t describe it all. Madness all around me. That freak grabbed me and slammed my head into the woman’s face.” He felt sick. “Twice. It killed her and in all the chaos no one questioned that I was her murderer. Now Saul is saying Aldo has shown up—not here on Whidbey, but Saul has seen him.”
    He had the sensation that Elin could easily collapse but he was afraid to pull her closer in case she fought him.
    “When Saul asked me to see him outside Gabriel’s Place, that’s what he wanted to tell me. I may not be crazy about that vamp but he was worried about you. He wanted to warn me not to do anything to hurt you.”
    “You didn’t trust me enough to tell me,” Elin said. She was very pale and she looked away repeatedly. “How do you have a lasting relationship with someone you don’t trust?”
    He shook his head, miserable, furious with his own stupidity. “I’ve always trusted you. But I was afraid you could be frightened of me. Who would find it easy to talk about something like that?”
    “Look at me,” Elin said. “Really look at me. Am I so scary? Didn’t anyone ever tell you things just get worse when you lie about them?”
    “I didn’t lie.”
    He heard her swallow and her lashes got very shiny. She blinked rapidly. “In a way you did. When you kept it from me, you were lying. How many other things have you kept from me because you think I can’t handle them?”
    How could he blame her? “There may be things I haven’t mentioned because they were no big deal,” he said. “Elin, I’ve never felt close to anyone the way I do to you. You’re my everything. If you won’t stay with me…No, I’m not laying any threats on you.”
    “Finish what you started, Sean.”
    He let out breath on a whistle. “Hell, this is hard. I wouldn’t ever have hurt you deliberately. If you won’t stay with me, I don’t know what I’ll do, but the rest of my life will be about regretting what a fool