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

grab whatever it was next to him. Though his mind had not recognized the memories that still lay dormant, he knew that he wanted to hurt something. He wanted to hurt whatever these creatures were as much as they had hurt him.

The movement should have been easy and yet it wasn’t. He felt the bite of strappings holding him down onto the table he was lying on.

Sensations returned slowly. First, was the cold table underneath him that had yet to warm from the heat of his body. Second, was the pain of his stomach that turned from fire to hellish pain. Third, was the ache of his right hand.

The person near him tsked and he could hear the sound of someone tapping a hand against water.

“They’re skimping on you.” The voice was decidedly male and human.

Ruric’s lips moved them. They bared sharp teeth much larger than the small goblin boy they had trapped before. Though he was immobile, Ruric wanted them all to know how dangerous he truly was.

“Easy there big guy, I’m trying to help you.”

He growled in response.

“Yeah yeah.” The man moved again and Ruric felt something slide out of his arm.

“That would be why.” The man was talking to himself. He obviously didn’t think that Ruric could understand him. “How do these people expect to get results if they can’t even stick it with a needle right.”

Ruric was successful at licking his lips this time. Though he wanted to yell or intimidate, the first words out of his mouth were, “Water.”

He could see that the shadow froze and slowly turned back towards him.

But the man shook himself and started moving away again. “You’re losing your mind there, Frank.”

Once more, Ruric managed to say, “Water.”

The man spun around and Ruric heard a few metal objects hit the floor.

“Did you- did you?”

This time Ruric growled low and loud until the man started moving again.

He felt cool metal press against his lips and swallowed until he started to choke. His mouth was finally relieved of sand and the cool drops slid down his neck in welcome reminder that he was alive.

The cup shook against his lips was it was drawn away.

“Did you speak or am I going insane?”

“You’re not going insane.”

The cup then dropped to the ground and the man backed away from Ruric so quickly that he tripped over a cord and fell heavily onto his hip.

“You- You-”

“I speak.”

“Yes.”

“How?”

“Same as you.” Ruric’s arm bulged once more, though this time he felt a protest in his stomach. His entire body strained against the restraints until he felt something split. Only then did he relax entirely while his lungs struggled to draw in enough air to dispel the pain.

He hardly registered the sound of movement as the man stood up once more.

“You split your stitches.”

“Surprised you gave me any.” Ruric wasn’t precisely confident what stitches were, medical vocabulary hadn’t gone into much of Jane’s teaching. But he could safely assume that whatever had snapped was the stitches the man was talking about.

“We had to. Otherwise you wouldn’t be alive.”

Ruric tracked his movements through sound alone as the burning in his eyes grew too great to peer through his lashes.

“Your fault.”

“Not mine, no. I don’t do any of the surgeries.”

“Wrong.”

“No, really. I don’t do the surgeries.”

He could feel the man’s hands probing his flesh and Ruric bit back a groan. He fiercely wished that Jane was here to decipher his words. The pain made it hard for him to think of all the sounds that were necessary to explain to the man what he wanted to say. Jane had always been able to understand him clearly.

“Wrong to do this.”

The man’s hands stilled for a moment before they were removed.

“We do what we have to. Surviving here isn’t as easy as you might think.”

“It is.”

“You think we all want to be doing this job? Not all of us are twisted freaks that get off on hurting people. But this is the best job with the best benefits. You work for the Doctor and life suddenly gets a lot easier.”

Ruric grunted. He wouldn’t believe that humans could choose to do the right thing. Though the man insisted that he did this job because he had to, Ruric saw things in another light. Whatever they were doing here was fundamentally wrong.

His people killed. Sometimes in the heat of battle there would be a slow death. But Ruric had never seen people who would so easily hurt another without giving them the release of death.

“Kill me.”

“Oh I can’t do that.”

“Then release me.”

He could hear the man swallow. “Also can’t do that.”

Another growl rumbled through Ruric’s chest. “Then you do nothing and are worthless!”

“I am a nurse, I’m not worthless!”

Once more Ruric began to struggle against his bindings. The backs of his knees banged against the table as he attempted to rock himself over. His plan was to tip the entire table over in hopes that something other than himself would break.

“Stop doing that!”

Ruric ignored the weak man.

“Listen to me, if you keep doing that I’m going to have to make you go back to sleep and you don’t want that do you?”

Those words made him pause. His arms remained tense against the strappings but he was clearly listening to what the man had to say.

“What reason do you have to keep me awake?”

“I didn’t know you could talk.”

“Reasons, human.”

Frank pulled himself up to his greatest height. It was not very high in the grand scheme of things, but he was taller than the table and the creature on it.

“I might be the first person you speak to. It is important I make a good impression between species.”

“Good impression?” A great warble raised in Ruric’s chest as his throat bobbed up and down in a laugh. “Human, I can feel the blood dripping off my flesh.”

Frank cleared his throat. “Right.”

The man busied himself in cleaning the wounds that were now open on Ruric’s torso. Even though that task, he couldn’t seem to keep his mouth closed.

“The first