The Goblin Bride (Beneath Sands Book 1)

red with laughter. She should have noticed long before that he knew she was lying to all of them. He had given her enough hints.
  She came back into herself with a firmness that startled her. Dreaming of the beauty of these creatures was shoved to the side as she realized that she was completely and utterly alone. The darkness was all around her and without one of those blue lights they had been carrying, she was blind.
  Walking down that cliff’s edge without a light would be suicide. She could not manage to escape from where she was.
  She was taken by surprise when she realized that she wasn’t as alone as she had thought. There was a form by the stone dais. She had assumed that it was nothing more than a shadow. Jane had yet to learn that there were rarely shadows Below.
  It detached itself from the corner of one of the crystals, seeming to unfold into a great height before slowly making its way towards her.
  Jane recognized the creature. Not just from the strange ceremony that seemed to be delegating who got to eat whom, but from before in the mines. She recognized the braids that tied his hair back from his face. She recognized the square jaw and the soulless eyes.
  If she had been a stronger woman she would have attacked him. She would have clawed and bit and scratched the creature that had killed a good man. It was the least that he deserved for actions that had likely taken a human from his family, wife, children. She didn’t know who or what waited for Simon above ground, but surely there had been someone.
  She was a smarter woman than that. He was much larger, much stronger, much faster than her. She wouldn’t have stood a chance if she had tried anything.
  He walked towards her and she recognized the purpose in those steps. He was coming for her and no one else. In the dim light, Jane took the time to truly look upon the beast that had stolen her life.
  Power radiated from him even while doing something so mundane as walking. The hair that was braided back from his face on both sides of his head was pure white. He had a strong jaw, high cheekbones, and if his skin hadn’t been that sickly pallor of green, he might have been passably handsome. But she knew that as soon as he turned his head those strange ears would be revealed. And hidden underneath those deceptively thin lips were teeth sharp enough to cut through bone.
  He was wearing the same thing she had seen in the mines, leather strappings crisscrossing up his legs and feet. However his chest was no longer entirely bare. Soft looking furs were held by strappings and buckles that caught her eye as he moved. Even his arms were bound with the strange cords that he seemed to keep across his entire body. She wondered what purpose those could have other than decoration.
  Her eyes lingered on his hands, the curved black claws making her wince. But it was his eyes that made her the most uncomfortable. So black she could see herself reflected in them, Jane was horrified by the mere sight of them. There seemed to be nothing but despair and death in that darkness.
  Her pride ensured she remained strong, and kept her eyes upon him to watch as he came towards her. Lowering her eyes to the creature that was going to kill her would have been a bruise that her tattered pride could not stand.
  But in the end, she did lower her eyes. She looked down so that she did not have to see him progress further. She told herself it was because she did not want to see the monstrous visage before her. That the very sight of him was an offense to her.
If she was going to die, then she wanted to go with the memories of her family in her mind. She certainly didn’t want to die looking on in horror as something so beastly killed her.
  He stopped in front of her and she kept her head bowed. At some point he was going to reach down and snap her neck. Perhaps he would fall upon her like some kind of rabid beast. His claws would be unavoidable and his teeth would sink into her neck. It would not be a pretty death. It would likely be more painful than she could imagine.
  She waited for many heartbeats until it was clear he was not moving. Eventually she stopped squeezing her eyes shut and realized that there was a distinct clicking sound that was coming from him. She didn’t look up immediately, fearing that there was yet another terrifying sound that these creatures could make. The last nightmare she needed was to look up and see some kind of bug crawling out of his mouth and making that terrible noise.
  Eventually she became annoyed with the sound and with anger in her eyes she looked up.
  He hadn’t moved since he had stood before her. Nor was there was a bug coming out of his mouth. In fact he looked much the same as the shadow that had pulled away from the crystals.
  She heard the clicking sound again. Blinking, she looked down to see that the clicking was actually coming from him striking his claws together loudly.
  He had been trying to get her attention.
  Brows furrowed in confusion, she squinted her eyes and looked up at him again. What exactly did he want from her? Was he ordering her around like some kind of dog?
  Once again the nails clacked against each other. The sound grated against her nerves. When she looked back down at the hand, he wiggled his fingers in a clear signal of what she was supposed to do.
  He wanted her to take his hand. It made no sense to her given the way that she had been treated so far. The humans had been forcibly taken from the tunnels.