The Goblin Bride (Beneath Sands Book 1)

showed far too much of the whites for his liking. She was unnerving in the alien quality of her skin, her eyes, her hands. Even her ears made him realize how vastly different the two of them were.
He watched her carefully, wondering just how fragile she really was. There were no claws or teeth that could be used to protect herself. Surely down here there were so many things that could kill her. So many things that even he couldn’t stop from harming her if he wasn’t by her side every moment.
“Ruric?”
His eyes flicked towards her, realizing that she had been speaking and he had been gawking.
Those strange eyes rolled in their sockets. “I asked why you brought me here.”
“Safe. Clean.”
The one word answers were bound to be getting as frustrating for her as they were for him.
“I understand why I’m in the bath, I’m wondering why I was brought down here. I have responsibilities back home. I have to go Above again.”
“You stay here.”
“I can’t stay here. My family is waiting for me.”
“Family here now.” Ruric understood the need for family, but goblins considered their entire species family. It was difficult for him to imagine a world where there were so many females that people didn’t consider their neighbor family. Whatever life she had before was no longer important. She was here now and that was what mattered.
She glared at him, though he didn’t think she knew he could see her.
After that little outburst she completely ignored him. Ruric had brought the crystal to carve so that he could give her some semblance of privacy, but he couldn’t take his eyes off of her. The more she moved, the more she disturbed the glowing algae at the bottom of the pool. It swirled around her in little eddies that to his eyes were as bright as her sun.
Her body was a strong as her personality it seemed. She rippled with movement even when just her arm was lifted. The water obscured much of her from his view, but when she started unravelling the tangled braid he had to catch his breath.
He had seen long hair before, theirs was white and the men usually wore it long. But never before had he seen hair the color of gold. Her hands gently washed the dirt out of it leaving behind silken strands. Ruric hardly noticed he had leaned forward until the water hit his knee.
It wouldn’t do any good for either of them to tempt fate. He would wait until the binding ceremony, continue to treat her gently, even though it went against every part of him that desperately wanted to follow the training he had been provided. He was not a soft man. He was the kind to order and obey. Yet these were soft emotions that he recognized within himself.
He couldn’t afford to have those.
The water felt good against her skin. She had been shocked to find the water warm. Not once in her life had she ever taken a bath where the water was warm. Come to think of it, she wasn’t certain she had ever been submerged in water. There wasn’t much Above for people to bathe in, though a few of the other mining towns had rivers nearby.
Heat sunk into her sore muscles. And as angry as she wanted to be at him, at her situation, she couldn’t help but lean back a little bit in the water and drift. It would be so easy for her to keep doing this. To let her mind wander until she wasn’t in a cave anymore. Until she wasn’t with a myriad of goblins around her and her future in uncertain hands.
The blue lights swirled around her. She wished she could understand where they came from. It appeared that everything was dark and still here in the darkness until it was touched. Only then did things seem to come alive.
This world was alien to her, uncomfortable to a point of pain. She wanted to find beauty in these things. She wanted to enjoy the newness and the oddities.
But how could she enjoy these things when she should be worried about Luther and Willow? Jane had no frame of reference here. She didn’t know when was night or day, she didn’t know how long it had been since they had taken her. It could have been a week or more since she was taken, or as little as one day.
However long it had been, she needed to get back to them. They needed her as much as she needed them.
Eventually she had to get out of the water. No matter how much she wanted to hide and never come out again, her fingers had turned to prunes and she feared the rest of her body had as well.
Arms firmly over her chest, she turned back to where she had seen him last. The darkness was all around the pool, but since she had stirred up all the glowing strands she could see where his feet were. She shivered to think that it was likely he had claws on his toes as well. What kind of animal was created with brute strength in mind?
“Ruric?”
She hadn’t realized that the cave had not been completely silent. There had been soft echoing movements. The water had rippled from her bathing. A soft scraping from his corner, as well as the sound of his breathing. As soon as she started speaking, Jane heard silence in the cave for the first time.
“What noise were you making?”
“Carving.” Came the quiet reply.
She was curious, wondering what exactly this creature was carving. There couldn’t be wood down here for him to notch away. She wasn’t going to swim any closer though. Getting into the water had been easy. For the moments when she had been removing her clothes, she hadn’t thought of him as anything but a beast.
Then she felt the pricks of eyes watching her every move and Jane had reminded herself that he was not