The Goblin Warrior (Beneath Sands Book 2) by Emma Hamm (100 books to read txt) 📕

Jane continued to wander through the tents. Each tent became more and more familiar until she realized her feet were taking her home.

There it was. Their old tent in the exact same place as it had always been. The dull color was slightly redder than the others. Jane would never forget that sight.

She ducked into the tent as the flap fluttered in the wind and her breath caught. Nothing had seemed to change. If she was lucky, there were a few things left from her old life that she could manage to gather. Memories were few and far between here. She would take what she could get.

“Jane?”

The shocked gasp had her spinning on her heel.

Standing in the middle of her tent was a familiar face that she did not want to see.

“Reedy?”

They had grown up together in this area. The boy turned man was looking at her as though he was seeing a ghost. In a way, Jane figured that she actually was. They had all likely assumed her dead. Luther would have told the family friends that she had been breaking the rules. There was no need to keep the secret once she was gone.

The law couldn’t prosecute a dead woman, after all.

“Oh god. The sand is finally goin’ to me head.” He whispered.

Jane held a finger up to her mouth. “Reed, please be quiet.”

“I’m not bloody bein’ quiet about a ghost in me tent!”

“I’m not a ghost!” She said in a harsh whisper. “Reed, please shut your mouth before you get me in trouble.”

And wasn’t that how it always used to be? Reed got her in trouble. Jane took the fall for him. That had been their relationship. It appeared that wasn’t going to change even when she was back from the grave.

“But then… Yer not?”

Jane sighed. “No Reed, I’m not dead. But I’m not staying here for very long, so please just keep quiet!”

He sat down hard at the table. Her father’s table. A flash of anger turned her face red. “Reed, what are you doing in here?”

She knew what he was going to say before he opened his mouth. The sheepish expression on his face said it all. “Well, you was dead and yer family left. I knew ye’d want me to ‘ave it and not someone else.”

She growled in response. “You mean your tent didn’t look nearly as big as this one and you took it before someone else could get it?”

He grinned at her. Jane noticed he was missing one of his front teeth. “Well, when an opportunity arises.”

Before she could stop herself, Jane had a fistful of his shirt in her hand and she was bearing him down onto the table. “So help me Gods Reed, I’m not even dead yet and you’re already looting my body? I should wipe the floor with you!”

A gasp made both of them freeze, and Jane looked over her shoulder to see the white-faced expression of what could only be Reed’s new wife.

Tension made her neck pop when she let go of Reed’s weight. This time, she reached out her arm and yanked Reed’s wife into the tent with her. Jane didn’t hold back as she propelled the woman towards her husband. The two of them slipped off of the table and fell onto the ground.

“You two are going to keep quiet while I figure out how to keep both your mouths shut.” She muttered.

“What is ‘appening?” The other woman stuttered. “Reed? What is going on here? She’s dead!”

“I’m what?” Jane repeated, staring at the other woman as though she had gone insane. Surely she hadn’t heard right. She didn’t remember the woman from her time here, and Jane remembered most people that had lived in the mines.

The woman pointed at her with a shaking finger. “You died. Everyone knows it. The woman who went into the mines to save her family.”

Reed slowly stood back up with a grim expression. He had been a good boy if a little gangly when they were children. He had always wanted to tag along with her whenever she was doing her work.

Jane could remember that he used to try and distract her so that she could never seem to finish a project. She hated that, but at the same time had enjoyed the attention. There weren’t many people who liked to talk to her. She was too tall, too strong, and men found her to be competition rather than “cute”.

Then her father had explained to her that Reed would never be a good fit. He wasn’t going to be the man that could work in the mines. Like his father, he was going to grow into a thin man with little strength. The mines could not afford to hire people who were so physically weak.

She could hear the soft echo of her father’s voice in her head as she stared at the man before her.

He had turned exactly into the kind of person her father had thought he would. Tall, thin, gangly arms hanging at his sides, Reed had a softer look than most of the men here. He would have died immediately upon going into the mines.

“Jane.” He said quietly. “You’re supposed to be dead.”

As he took one step forward, her hand drifted to the knife at her waist. “I’m not.”

He nodded in response. “Aye, I can see that.”

There was something in his expression that made her pause. He was inching towards her as one would a wild animal. The movement brought back old memories she had buried. People in this camp had always been nervous around her. She was unpredictable, too strong for a woman, too tall for men to feel comfortable around.

“Why are you in my tent, Reed?”

His wife made a soft noise as she reached for her husband. The soft touch made Reed jump. He seemed to have forgotten about the pale woman behind him.

“Your brother suggested it.”

“He wouldn’t do that.”

“He did.” He said quietly, and took