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

else would the tree go, Ruric? She cannot pull up her roots and simply move wherever she wishes.”

“No?”

“It’s a tree, Ruric.”

He lifted one of his shoulders once more. The blue light turned his skin green once more. Jane realized just how comforting that was to see him as he should be. No longer did the sickly yellow color worry her. No longer did he appear weaker because of his skin. Instead, he was the strong and intimidating goblin that she remembered so well.

Jane settled into the crook of two of the roots. She withdrew from him because she did not know what else to do. There were words to be said that burrowed barbs into her throat so that they could not be freed.

“There are plants that grow, Below.” He said quietly.

He stood in the center of the dome. His shoulders dwarfed the small space and his head nearly touched the ceiling. Strength and power was everything that he was.

“But there are no trees.” She responded in a whisper. “Flowers and fragile things are not the same as bark and growing roots.”

The pain in her voice had him moving. The wind shrieked above them in a crescendo of sound. Yet for the two people whose gazes could not break from the other, there was nothing else but each other. A goblin kneeling at the feet of a human woman.

“There is room for you to grow with me.” He said fiercely. “You belong with me.”

She shook her head. “I belong to no one.”

“You do.” He said forcefully.

Her hand came up and yanked on the chain around her neck. She could not break it by force, she had tried many times. But the harsh tug turned her skin white where it touched.

“I do now.”

If a goblin could turn pale, Ruric did so then. He was haunted by the image of the gold chain around her neck and what he had done to her.

“I had to.” He said quietly.

“You could have done a number of things.” Her voice was harsh. “You chose this way.”

He shook his head. “They would have taken you from me. You are safe where you are. You are with me.”

“I did not choose any of this, Ruric!”

The shout seemed muffled. There was no echo. There was no reverberation of anger, only the dull ache of silence.

His hand raised. His claws ghosted over the beloved curve of her cheekbone and higher to smooth his thumb over the wrinkle from between her eyes.

“You chose me.”

And therein lay the hardest fact of it all.

“Is that what this is?” She asked. “Are you trying to bind me to you? In any way you can?”

His silence was enough of an answer for Jane.

“Ruric. I am already bound to you in chains. I love you.” She could not remember if she had ever said it. Yet the words felt right coming from her tongue. “I love you more than life itself. Those are more binding chains than any physical ones you could find.”

He remained silent. His large eyes seemed to search hers, as though desiring to find the truth.

“I do not lie.” She said quietly.

“Humans lie.”

“I am more goblin than human now,” was her response. What else could she say? Jane was no longer the woman she had been when she had been taken Below. She could not go back to her life in the camps. There was nothing left there for her. Even the City in all its glory did not hold a speck of interest for her.

He nodded slowly. “Then you are staying?”

She had no answer for that. Jane did not know what she would find in the City, or how she would react when her family was found. The only answer she had for him was to press her palm against his heart.

His chest lifted and fell under her hand. When she looked back to his face, Jane realized that his eyes had closed. The goblins had a way of doing that whenever they were struck by emotion. Sight was a weakness that they did not need. Instead, they closed their eyes and used every other sense to feel.

Touch and scent and sound were more important to them than anything else. Ruric was absorbing everything she said and everything he could feel so that he would never forget it. When they returned, he would mark down the moments that had happened here. He would write them down exactly as they happened. Someday, he would tell their children the story of how he and their mother pieced together their lives once more.

The first time she had said I love you and meant it. The first time he had felt her soul touch his.

And the moment when he would release her.

His eyes drifted open slowly and his hand rose. One claw hooked the necklace and pulled.

The strength of his tug and the sharpness of his claw was enough to sever the flimsy metal. It slid down the length of her neck and pooled in the crevice of her lap.

Sand drifted around them. In the blue light created by the crystals, he saw the sand as bright sparks of light that fluttered around her. She was more than just the sun to him. She was now the stars that he had never thought to see. She was the universe condensed into one being.

“Are the others safe?” She asked him quietly.

Numb to anything but the beauty of her, he nodded.

“I was worried the sandstorm would kill you.”

“We heard it long before we could see it.” He said quietly. “The tents are strong enough if they are strapped to the ground. Shusar and Illyrin dug themselves holes and set up the tents in the ground.”

She hadn’t thought of that. “Smart. They should be safe then.”

He nodded. “How long until the storm has passed?”

Jane shook her head. “I do not know. They are unpredictable at best.”

“Did you get what you needed?”

She nodded and pointed towards the bundle that had fallen onto the ground with them. It was half