The Goblin Bride (Beneath Sands Book 1)

but it gave him a good chance to study. Jane was so proud of him. He worked hard so that he could have the chance to enroll in the University. In just a few weeks he would be taking the test that would decide the rest of their lives.
  “He gives everyone trouble.” She dusted her knees off, cursing the sand floor. Those in the City didn’t live like this. Rumor had it that their floors were made out of stone and wood. If she ever saw the likeness of that in her life, Jane would consider herself lucky.
  Her siblings were everything to her. As the oldest at twenty-six, she was the one that was supposed to take care of them now. Jane was still figuring out how she was going to do that. Their mother had died a few years back. Dust storms were hard upon the lungs and hers had finally given out. Now with the loss of their father, Jane was more than a little lost.
  “He screwed you good.”
  The childish voice made her start, looking over at her sister with wide eyes. “What did you say young lady?” Like a snake, her hand whipped out to snatch her sister’s ear and twisted.
  “Ouch! Uncle! Uncle!”
  But of course, as soon as she let go, her sister was scampering away and swearing again. “He screwed you good, Janey! That’s half of what Da got paid and not nearly enough to keep us alive for a week!”
  She watched as Willow crossed her arms over her thin chest and raised an eyebrow. The girl was right of course. She was just a child, but she was right. For a moment Jane regretted teaching her little sister how to count that high.
Willow didn’t need to know how to count anyways. As a woman, she was good for nothing other than breeding. That’s how it was in Silnarra. The men worked, the women cooked and made more children to work in the mine when they grew.
  It was a short life for the lot of them, but it was the life that they were given.
  The coins on the table glinted. So few of them. It made Jane’s chest clench knowing that there was little she could do to keep her family alive. They would have to do something. There was always the option of selling herself to a few of the men around here, but she had seen how little those women got paid. Men would pay for sex. They enjoyed the pleasures of a woman’s body. But in a town like this, no one could spare much of anything.
  Hands clawing through her hair, she tore at a few knots while looking at her siblings. She was supposed to be the big sister. She was supposed to know what to do in these situations. It was her role to pick up the pieces that their parents had left and make something out of them.
  She lowered herself onto the bench at the table and stared down at the coins. “I don’t know what to do.”
There, now it was said. Now the entire family would know that there was something wrong. Her siblings would now know what situation they were in so that Jane didn’t have to keep lying to them. They weren’t okay. And if they didn’t figure something out together, they might never be okay again.
  “Janey.” Luther’s voice came from her side, his hand stroking down the length of her blonde hair that they all shared. “We’ll figure something out.”
  “You could always sell yerself, I reckon.”
  Her little sister was going to be the end of her. Slowly Jane’s head turned to glare at the youngest in their family. “You aren’t supposed to know what that even means. Besides, I wouldn’t get enough money to keep us eating for a day.”
  She wasn’t exactly the type of woman that men forked out money for. Jane took after their father. A large and burly man, he had made everyone laugh with his hearty chuckle and red cheeks. Jane was far too tall for a woman, possessed dirty blonde hair that was always tangled in a long braid that swung to the bottom of her ribs. With a square jaw and heavy slashes of brows on her face, she was masculine if one was being kind. Broad shouldered and lean of hip, she was capable of working along side the best of the men.
  In contrast, both Willow and Luther took after their mother. She had been a thin woman, curved in all the right places. Lithe and graceful, there had never been a man who could say no to her. Somehow their father had managed to capture her attentions and they had set about making as many children as they could. It was too bad that such beauty had been ruined by the hard life of the mines.
  “I’ll go to work. They’ll be wanting to replace those they lost in the cave in.” Luther declared firmly.
  “Over my dead body!” Janey stood, looking him in the eye as so few could. “I’ll figure something out. You keep your head in those books of yours. You’re going to that University, Luther. You’re getting yourself and Willow out of here.”
  It was suddenly too much for her. The pressure ached in her chest, making it hard to breathe in the already stifling tent. Fists clenched, she muttered, “Watch over our sister.” And with so few words, she left.
  There was nowhere private in Silnarra. The land was peppered with tents of those that were trying to survive. The only way to get a chance to think alone was to walk. People didn’t stop those that were walking because surely they had a purpose. No one was going to be walking in this god forsaken heat without a good reason to be.
  No one but Jane.
  Arms crossed firmly, she clenched her fists until little half moons were embedded in her palms. There had to be something that she could do. Money was needed, at least for just