The Goblin Bride (Beneath Sands Book 1)

She could still feel the dry crust of blood on her face and head from where he had struck her against the wall. The other men showed similar abuse. The goblins had hardly shown kindness thus far. The other humans had been shoved and pinched away from the cave. So why was she getting treated differently?
  She didn’t trust it. She didn’t trust him. She didn’t trust any of these creatures that made no sense to her.
  But she had no choice. This goblin in front of her was the only way she could live, and as selfish as it seemed, Jane did not want to die today.
  So she slid her palm into his.
  Jane was not ashamed to admit that she had thought his hand would be cold. Given the pallor of his skin and the general ashen quality she had assumed that he would be much like the place he lived in. Cold, wet, perhaps even slightly moldy would have satisfied her expectations. But this creature was warm. His skin pleasantly dry with the slight roughness of callouses along his palms.
  If she closed her eyes it would have felt like the hand of a human. If only she couldn’t feel the deadly points of his nails against the soft skin underside of her wrist.
  He pulled her upright, gently enough that she was shocked into looking up at him. There had been no gentility thus far. There had been no treatment such as this. Why now?
  She wouldn’t get her answers from him it seemed. Once she was standing, he pulled her towards the entrance of the cave with no regard to speed. If she did not want to be dragged, she would have to follow him.
  Once again she found herself traveling down the terrifying ledge that hardly had enough room for the two of them. She was placed on the outside with his large hand curling around her bicep. She tripped many times, her foot sliding over the edge and rocks skittering down into oblivion. How anyone could live in such a place, or walk down these walls with such confidence, was difficult for her to understand.
It didn’t take long for them to reach their destination. He stopped at what looked like any other crevice in the stone walls around them. Before she knew what was happening, he was pulling her through the opening and into a cavern she had not noticed.
He let go of her then, moving through the open space and disappearing around a corner.
Jane wrapped her arms around herself, suddenly cold enough to send gooseflesh dancing across her body. There was a small stream of water here running along the far side of the cavern before disappearing into another hole in the cliff. A few of the goblin’s blue globes decorate the corners of the cave. However, she couldn’t see much else without more light. There were a few shadowed corners that might have suggested stones that were hidden in the shadows.
She was exhausted. Everything that had happened was putting pressure on both her body and mind. There was still a part of herself that was certain she was going to wake up from this rather odd dream. Surely there was no such thing as goblins. There couldn’t be anything on this planet other than humans or the rest of them would know… Wouldn’t they?
But the object of her thoughts rounded the corner again, one of the glowing blue lights held within a massive clawed hand. Either she was still knocked out cold and hallucinating, or there was definitely a goblin directly in front of her.
He held out the globe towards her. His claws were dark points against the bright light.
Taking the globe felt very much like playing a game of slap hand with her sister. Be quick about it or the back of your hand will suddenly sting bright red from the force. He didn’t flinch at all when she snatched at the light. He only stepped back a few feet to give her more space.
She used the time to inspect what was now in her hands. It was a crystal as she had expected, but Jane realized now that it was hollow. The light was coming from liquid held inside of it by what looked suspiciously like a cork. As she rotated it in her hands, it appeared to glow a bit brighter.
A rumbling sound came from the creature standing before her. The rippling growl made her head snap up, certain that he was going to be eating her now.
But he did not seem aggressive. In fact, she would say he looked decidedly calm by the slump of his shoulders and the relaxed expression on his face. Perhaps the rumble was merely the way that they spoke. A deeper way of talking that she had yet to hear.
He held a hand out for her once more and lead her to a back section of the cave. He pointed towards something in the darkness that she could not see. With the light lifted above her head, she noticed something similar to a hammock. Long vines she did not recognized were woven together and lashed to the wall, suspending the bed above the ground. As she watched, he mimed sleeping by putting his hands underneath his tilted head.
“You want me to go to sleep.” She said quietly, feeling the weight of exhaustion pressing down against her shoulders. Sleeping sounded wonderful right about now.
Discouraged and weak, she settled herself on the edge of the hammock and clung to it when it swung dangerous at her movements. This was going to make her sick if it didn’t stop its swaying. But the promise of a dream world far away from this one was too tempting to deny. It would be an escape from everything that had happened in the past few days.
She tried to forget the creature, though she had not heard it walk away from her. For that reason alone she held up the light and looked to her right.