The Goblin Bride (Beneath Sands Book 1) by Emma Hamm (good short books TXT) 📕

Micah’s feet she crumbled. Her knees hit the stones hard, head suspended over the water that was still glowing from her movements.

Jane was a strong woman. In fact, most would say that she was so stubborn and pig headed that she wasn’t likely to ever cry. She dealt with stress and fear physically. The more work she could do, the better she would feel. But down here she had been coddled so much that her emotions had stayed pent up inside of her.

She had done her best to keep them in check. Her spine had remained straight. She had not shamed herself by falling into hysterics. Eventually everything would boil over.

In this moment she forgot how to breathe. Gasping breaths forced air into her lungs but she could not feel it. The darkness around her pressed in, forcing her closer and closer to the ground until she was certain she would be crushed under the weight of it.

This was the end for her. As Micah had said, there was no choice. She could not leave here. Even if she somehow managed to escape from her captor where would she go? There were too many tunnels, too much darkness for her to disappear into. Without a goblin guide, she would surely die. There was nothing for her to do but bow to their will. It went against every grain in her soul.

Her hands clutched at her ribs. If she didn’t hold onto them hard enough then everything was going to spill out. She would start screaming, raging, breaking whatever she could because life wasn’t fair. This was not how she was supposed to spend the rest of her life. Rotting away as a goblin bride was a punishment for a crime she did not commit.

She barely flinched when warm hands curved on top of hers. Gentle as they always were with her, they lifted her from the ground. Her towel was once again wrapped around her, tucked end to end before she was lifted.

He deposited her away from the water and set her feet onto the ground gently before he started to dress her.

Ruric wasn’t quite certain what had happened. He had walked back into the cave after passing Micah, the man’s ducked head and closed expression saying more than he wanted to understand. Still, Jane had been strong through this entire ordeal. He admired her strength in that way.

Returning to her was going to be another fight and he had steeled himself against it. Losing his control once was enough. He did not think she understood just how much trouble she could have been in. Goblins were so much stronger than humans. He could have killed her if he had wanted to and it would not have been a struggle.

But he hadn’t.

Instead, even as anger and aggression had coursed through his veins, he had focused on the twin points of her fists pressed against his skin. It was the first time she had willingly touched him and it had been in protection of herself. He would always find shame and guilt in that thought.

He found her on her knees beside the pool. Ruric wished that he did not understand what her posture meant. It would have made it easier on him to know that she remained strong and unaffected by everything that was happening to her life. But she was not made of stone after all. There was a part of him that was pleased to know this.

She was light in his arms, easy to move and place where he needed her to be. It was even easier to dress her when she was like this. The weaving patterns of cloth were easier to wind around her when she was not squirming or speaking.

She was so different from him. Ruric doubted he would ever look at her without being a little startled. As pale as him in some places, and yet dark in others, she was pieced together parts of strength and softness. The hard angled planes of her stomach and ribs blended into soft breasts and thighs. Her arms and legs were heavily muscled, powerful in a way that most female were not.

If he had learned anything about her, it was that she was a creature who was made to work. Like the others they took, she would have done well in the mines. Humans seemed to be bred to work. Goblins might be powerful but their hands and feet did not make it easy to do many things. These humans with their long delicate fingers could do so much that he could not.

Once she was finally dressed, he rose to his full height before her. His large palms framed her face, clawed thumbs brushing away the water that had dampened her cheeks.

“Tears.” He knew this word. It was not often that they saw them deep in these tunnels, but he knew this word better than most.

“I have to go home.”

The words were broken, choked in the back of her throat. They nearly made him wince. The sound was ugly. Perhaps this was the way that goblins thought of the human language. Choked, constrained, and so painfully emotional.

Her eyes looked up at him, those strangely tiny things that could barely see in the caves without his help. Yet he could always see all of her. Bathed in the blue glow of their globes, she looked less like a human and more like some fairy creature that had stepped out of a child’s tale. How she could not see that the entirety of the goblins in this cave system were enthralled with her?

“What did Micah say?” He was getting better at speaking, the more he practiced with her the easier it was for him. Ruric was lucky to have this chance. The more he could learn the better their raids would go.

“He explained the ceremony and the reasoning behind it.”

There was a flicker of the usual anger he had come to expect in her eyes. But her voice did