In Memories We Fear by Barb Hendee Read Free Book Online

could not. He did the same thing every morning shortly after the sun rose.
    Opening the door to Eleisha’s room (she never locked it), he walked over to the bed and gazed down to watch her sleeping with Philip—both of them completely dormant, unaware. However, the instant he saw them, he knew something was wrong. She usually slept either curled up against Philip or with her head on his stomach.
    This morning, their positions were different. Philip was leaning back against the headboard, gripping Eleisha in both his arms in a tight gesture that looked possessive and protective at the same time.
    Wade frowned. What had led to that?
    He wished Eleisha would talk to him as she used to. His mind often drifted back to the short period when it had been just the two of them alone, before Philip, before Rose. Philip’s entrance had not been unwelcome. Wade was well aware that they needed him, but still . . .
    He stood there for a long time, watching them.
    Then he walked back out and closed the door.
     
    The next night, Eleisha was in the garden, cutting off some of the last of the fading rosebuds. She had a number of rosebushes that had bloomed into midautumn, but now they were getting ready to go dormant for the winter.
    She was so hungry, she could barely hold on to the shears.
    Gripping harder, she tried to concentrate. Seamus had not returned, and she was worried he might materialize at any moment, spurring Wade to purchase plane tickets and forcing them all into action. She was not up to a flight to London, followed by an exhaustive search, and she didn’t know what to do.
    Should she just slip away into the night and go feed by herself?
    If her absence were discovered, it would cause a commotion—and not just with Philip. Wade and Rose would be troubled as well, as they had sworn to the same agreement. One of them breaking it might render their pact void, and who knew where that might lead?
    Her only other choice was to tell Philip the truth, but this would disappoint him and let him know that she’d suggested the game entirely for his sake, not her own, and then he’d always insist on their previous method of hunting . . . which he found dull and tasteless.
    No, she couldn’t tell him.
    She clipped a lavender rosebud, its dying petals curling outward.
    “Eleisha,” Wade’s voice called from somewhere.
    She looked around, feeling weak and wondering what was wrong with her hearing. Then she saw him walking toward her. He’d changed a good deal since last spring, for better and for worse. Although he would never be bulky, his obsession with the weight room had thickened his arms, especially his forearms, and his white-blond hair hung down the back of his neck. His clothes fit him much better now. But his eyes had become harder than those of the Wade she’d first met; they were more guarded, more quietly angry.
    “I thought I’d find you out here,” he said, coming over and crouching down beside her. “I wanted to see you alone and get a few things straight before Seamus comes back.”
    She blinked. “Like what?”
    “Like no matter what he reports, I’m not staying behind this time.”
    Eleisha looked at the ground. They hadn’t spoken of this very much, and the topic was painful to them both. At the inception of their last mission, she’d decided the situation was too dangerous for Wade to get involved, and she’d gone alone with Philip. The result had been disastrous, and later, Eleisha wondered how things might have turned out had Wade been there to help assess the vampire they’d located.
    “I know,” she whispered. “I’m sorry about the last time.”
    “Yes? Well, being sorry doesn’t . . .” He trailed off, dipping his head to try to see her face. “Look at me. What’s wrong with you?”
    She didn’t look up.
    “Eleisha?” He reached out to touch her shoulder, and suddenly the old Wade seemed to come back, the gentle, concerned Wade she remembered. “Talk to me,” he said. “Your