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

lengths. Even the floors were covered with bits and pieces of them, woven together in thick strands that created rugs.

It felt more like a home. Gone was the cold dark cave and instead it was replaced with a place of softness and beauty. It was a little bit of a relief to know that there was something here that wasn’t as hard as Ruric. The male had convinced her that life Below would be much harder than she anticipated.

A shrill whistling sound made her wince. She turned quietly towards the sound.

Running around a corner came a whole gaggle of goblin children. Seven total, they were precisely what she would have expected. All skinny limbs and oddly green skin, they shoved at each other to get to Ruric. The big man was quickly overpowered by the clambering children who seemed to be using their claws to dig into his skin and pull themselves up.

She was both amused and horrified. Children always seemed to wiggle their way into her heart. Even if these children were gnawing on Ruric as though he was a piece of meat.

Every time their attention was diverted towards her, Ruric would fling out a meaty arm and drag them back into the rolling tussle that had the entire group of goblins moving to the other end of the room.

She had a feeling it was best for her to stay out of it.

Another trill from behind her made her turn slowly. It was deeper than the others, and she was not disappointed to find that her ears were true. Behind her was another male goblin, though this one’s head was shaved. She hadn’t seen that often down here.

He nodded to her, bowing his head slowly and waving a hand towards the goblins wrestling on the rug. It appeared that he was trying to tell her not to worry.

She couldn’t bring herself to anyways. Ruric was a warrior through and through. If he could be mortally wounded by small children, then she should seriously reconsider her opinion of him. The more that she learned about the goblins, the more she was certain that they were just as gentle as Micah had claimed.

Eventually the children calmed down enough for Ruric to plop them all down onto a rug, his deep voice thrumming in his throat. It appeared they were getting a stern talking to.

The grin on his face startled her. Those sharp teeth would always make her uncomfortable, especially when coupled with those strange and unusual eyes.

“Children calm now.” He appeared to stumble over the words, just those few moments of talking in his own language made it difficult for him to switch to hers.

“Micah said you couldn’t have children anymore.” Perhaps it was a lie. Perhaps all of it was a lie to keep her calm.

The hum of agreement made her thoughts still though. “There not many. Some. But not many.”

He held his hand out for her to take, the long black claws curled upwards like some of the desert plants she had seen before. It was unnatural for her to put her hand into that trap when she knew that at any moment his claws could close around her wrist and shred her skin.

Her pale hand sliding into his would be forever etched into her memory. Not because it was the first time she had done it, but because it was the first time she had thought perhaps he wasn’t trying to trick her.

“Hello.” She said as quietly as she could to the gaggle of small children in front of her. They looked at her with those uncomfortably wide eyes, hands curled in their laps. She suddenly had the impression that she was some kind of trick pony that they were expecting to do something. She didn’t know what she could do to entertain them.

Perhaps she could do what her siblings used to like. Humans weren’t that different from goblins, they just didn’t have any of the scary bits left.

One of them made a warbling sound deep in their throat, and she realized that frequently the goblins did not open their mouths when they made the sounds. The child had made more of a thrumming sound. A drumbeat that pounded inside of him without air.

“He asks. What is name?” Ruric said quietly.

“He?” She blinked at him before turning to look back at the goblin child that had spoken. She really couldn’t tell which one was a boy and which was a girl. They all had long hair, all had the spindly bodies that were wrapped in identical outfits of silk.

“They are all male.” He said, seating himself opposite the children. “No females this year. Not in our tribe.” He was pleased he was now able to string together four words at a time. It made conversing with her much easier.

“Ah.” She said quietly, looking back at them. Pressing her hand against her chest, she said, “Jane.”

They all politely attempted to mimic the sound back before seeming to sound off their own names. Helplessly she looked at Ruric for translation who shrugged.

“Too hard.”

“I can imagine.” She chuckled.

All the goblins in the room stared at her, seeming to hold their breaths at the sound.

“What?” She asked, suddenly nervous as she looked from each of them.

The boys started to trill, all of them trying to speak to Ruric at the same time who eventually held up his hands for silence.

“They ask. What was sound?” He asked.

“The laugh?”

“Laugh?”

“Um,” she tried to think of how to explain that. “When you find something amusing or funny?”

“Ah.” He nodded, turning to the boys to continue in that strange singing language until they started nodding and making their awkward thrum of a laugh in return. She noticed that they seemed to bob their heads when they laughed, perhaps that was why the drum beat of a laugh sounded so strange to her ears.

“Micah does not sound.” He paused, scratching the back of his neck as he sought for the words. “Not same sound.”

“Well Micah is a man