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

A dead tree that still stood strong in the sands. A remnant of what life had been long ago.

The branches rattled as the wind hit it and Jane would swear that the rattling sounded like a death chant. She was going to die here. The sandstorm would hit her without any protection and she would suffocate.

She didn’t want it to end like this.

Looking down at her hands, she tried to control her shuddering breathing. It was then that she noticed the glittering at the base of the tree.

Her shaking hands reached out to touch the crystal shards that seemed to be growing directly out of the roots of the trees. They were bright blue in the waning light. Jane knew that if she shook them, it was likely that they would start to glow. She snapped one off the tree and cupped it gently in her palms.

“Please glow.” She said whispered as she curled in on herself. “Please don’t let me die in the dark.”

“Not if I can help it.” The growled words were barely heard before a weight slammed into her.

Ruric’s large form curled over her. He tossed his cloak and hers over them as the storm surrounded them.

“Ruric?” She yelled over the scream of the storm.

His large claws were digging into the sand around them. Frantically, he shoved sand from underneath the cloaks while shouting, “Dig!”

Sharp shards struck against her face. She couldn’t breath without inhaling the sand that had started to swirl around her. “Ruric! I can’t!”

He didn’t pause. “The crystals, Jane, the crystals!”

The words meant little to her, but his tone made her burst into action. She launched herself at the sand, uncaring of the claws that flashed around her or the sand that made her lungs burn.

All of a sudden the ground around them sank. They fell from the sand and down into a cavern made by the trees roots. Crystals dug into her ribs and cut into the soft flesh of her thighs. But they were safe enough for now.

The sand howled above them and the wind whistled as it passed the opening they had made.

Ruric crawled over to her, a cut above his eye bleeding. His hands turned her and shoved both of them deeper into the crevice the tree had made itself.

“We have to get away from the sand.” He coughed.

Weary, she nodded and made the slow crawl deeper into the roots of the tree until she could no longer move. They both collapsed next to each other and tried to catch their breath in the darkness.

Ruric was the first to speak into the darkness. “Are you alright?”

“I’m alive.” She said quietly.

“That doesn’t mean you’re alright.”

She didn’t know what to say to that. She was safe because of him. She was still breathing because of him. Yet there was so much between them that was left unsaid. So much that was still broken. To be alone with him felt as though the air was heavy with words and arguments that would only make things worse.

She heard him shifting beside her, but couldn’t see him. The only light that had spilled in front of the hole they had created at the roots of the tree was now gone. The sandstorm had swallowed every bit of light that remained.

His hand touched hers. The claws trailed over the delicate bones and up her forearm. “I thought I wouldn’t reach you in time.”

She let out a huff of breath. “You always seem to be saving me.”

“And yet you have saved me as well.” His voice was a mere rumble in the strange cave. She shivered as she realized that his voice sounded like the shifting of stones against each other.

“What?” Her mind had wandered to a different place and a different time. A cave like this one where they had been entirely alone. A place where no one had known where to find them and hours had been wasted together and with no one else.

“You’ve saved my life many times over.” He said quietly, and then he was gone. The warm touch that was so reassuring disappeared from her arm.

Silence, once more, filled the space between them.

A burst of blue light from behind her filled the cave. Her eyes squinted against the sudden shock, but she sat up to look for its source.

Ruric held a few crystals in his hands. They were not the circular ones that she had become so familiar with. They were dim, but the tall columns were enough so that she could see. No doubt Ruric had been able to make out most shapes in the cave without the light. But he had always been thoughtful enough to consider her.

She glanced around them. The gnarled roots of the tree created an arching dome as it cut through the sand and disappeared into jagged edges of crystal. The air felt moist against her tongue as she licked her lips.

“Where are we?” She asked.

Ruric shrugged. “Everything living needs water.” His hands trailed along one of the roots of the tree and pointed to where it disappeared. “It reaches for comfort.”

The root was not brown and ashen where it touched the ground near him. Instead, it appeared to be damp and healthy.

“It’s alive?” She said in shock. “The tree is alive?”

Ruric nodded. “She fights.”

Jane’s eyebrow arched. “She?”

“Of course.” Ruric chuckled and handed her one of the crystals. “Only a female would be foolish enough to stay in the desert for one that she loves.”

“So the tree is here because she’s in love?” Jane could not stop herself from rolling her eyes. “That seems like a fanciful tale that people tell their children, Ruric. I am not a child. Nor am I frightened and in need of you to distract me.”

One of his shoulders lifted. “Perhaps not. But the tree stays for love of the sun.”

There was a vulnerability that she could hear in that statement. For a moment, she wondered if he was asking her a question. She rolled the crystal in her hand.

“And where