Hands of Flame by C E Murphy

Author:C E Murphy [Murphy, C E]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Romance, Science Fiction, Fantasy, Adult, Vampires
ISBN: 9780373803125
Google: d0f1NVPuY68C
Amazon: 0373803125
Barnesnoble: 0373803125
Goodreads: 7110910
Publisher: LUNA
Published: 2007-11-01T04:00:00+00:00

Even with static rushing in her head, it was easier to ride memory now, as though new channels had been opened up in her mind. She knew that it was Alban’s memory she recalled, but she felt very little dichotomy, no confusion of one body or another. Wings spread beneath the moonlight felt natural and strong, and wearing his broad body, meant for flying, felt natural, with no confusion as to what had happened to her own smaller form.

Forty miles outside of London, in the midseventeenth century, might have been four thousand in the modern world. It was an easy night’s flight, even there and back again, as long as the winds were with him. Janx and Daisani had taken the broken pieces of their hearts and left the city that had disappointed them years since, and Alban had waited until he thought even Sarah’s memory had faded before he winged north to the farmstead she’d owned.

He knew it had been abandoned before he landed. The land was unfurrowed and weeds choked those vegetables left to grow on their own. No smoke rose from the chimney, and no scent of it lingered on the air to say a fire would be banked high in the morning. There was a stillness to the house that said it was unlived in, and when he first opened the door, it was to a room stagnant with disuse.

A cradle, long since too small for the girls’ use, was tucked against the wall beside the fireplace; opposite lay a straw bed molding with age. The twins would have altered their hours in the cradle and bed, one suckling while the other slept, but neither had done so for a long time.

Everything else was gone from the cottage: no pot hung over the fire, no blankets lay to rot with the bed. Even the kindling was gone, perhaps to be made use of on the road. Alban crossed to the cradle and set it to rocking, a little surprised it hadn’t been broken apart to be burned, as well.

A patterned piece of fabric lay at its bottom, little more than an off-colored shadow in the moonlight from the open door. Alban lifted it, finding the pattern to be stitches, and, frowning with curiosity, he brought it into the light.

A crude shape was picked out on the fabric, a rough oval with a handful of divots breaking into its form. Near the bottom was a tiny stitched house; at the top, another. The piece’s edges were ragged and frayed, as though it had once been a child’s chew-thing. Bemused, Alban tucked it into his fist and carried it back to London.

Hajnal gave the scrap a bare glance and, with a look of fond exasperation at him, said, “It’s the island, Alban. England and Scotland and Wales. She’s gone to live in the north.” Then amusement had sparked in her eyes and she’d added, “It’s very like our way of making sure we won’t lose each other, isn’t it.

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