Stupid! Stupid.
Still, this wasn't the moment to throw in the towel. They couldn't stay in this barn for long, wolves surrounded by humans. She grabbed a pair of overalls and a shirt for herself and a set for Daniel, and then found an old jacket and a blanket. Then she bundled the clothes in the blanket, tying it with a strap she found near the hay bales that would make the bundle easier to carry as a wolf.
With their new supplies in hand, Lily felt much better prepared to face the human world, but clothes and warmth wouldn't solve the other problems that Lily had highlighted. They snuck out of the barn and made their way back into the forest to plan their next move.
Maybe they could find some other wolves who would help them out. There were supposed to be fae in this area who were good at forging human documents.
There were still opportunities available to them.
But once Lily and Daniel were back in the trees, all their plans and worries faded away. They curled up together under the shade of a tree, and there, huddled under the blankets, brother and sister fell asleep together as wolves, wild as the world around them.
***
A scuffle and a yelp came from nearby, and Lily woke with a start. Sunlight blazed through the treetops to warm her fur, and sleep peeled away like a reluctant veil as she stood onto all four paws in a frantic fright from seeing five more faces than there were supposed to be in front of her.
Not human faces, either. The ugly, twisted visages of goblins. Wrinkled and warted skin of green, grey, gold, and blue, they stared at Lily with sick joy in their eyes as they pinned Daniel into the grass.
Fear shuddered through Lily, waking her fully in an instant. Her maw opened to bark or howl or snap at the nearest goblin, only for a muzzle to be snapped around her snout before her mouth could open. All that came, instead, was a pathetic whimper as she looked around, terrified and enraged.
She fought back against her captors, lunging and clawing and kicking until, at last, they had her pinned, too. After the long run from Kaldron, Lily was still exhausted and sleep-deprived. They must have only slept for a few hours before the goblins caught up with them.
But how was this possible? How did they even know that Daniel and Lily had left?
Someone must have betrayed them.
Before she could go too deep down the rabbit hole of despair, the horde of goblins parted so a wolf could walk toward her.
Lily froze.
There was only one wolf she knew who would lead goblins. His golden fur rippled as the powerful muscles beneath worked to carry him closer to Lily. He stared at her with piercing blue eyes, emotionless glaciers that made her shiver inside and out. And in that moment, Lily knew who this man was.
Those eyes had haunted her dreams since the first time she'd seen him.
Theo.
His wolf body rippled and shifted, the pale blond fur of his pelt falling back into his skin. Moments later, once his bones were finished snapping into place, Theo stood tall and regal above Lily, those cold, hard eyes of his staring down at her from an impossible height.
"You thought you could run from me, did you?" he said, his voice flat. "You're a fool who knows nothing about goblin magic. Running was always going to be futile, and it always will be. You want to know why?" He crouched, his long, claw-like fingernails digging under her furry chin to tilt her head to look up at him. "Because the moment you gave your word to me, you became mine. And in the world of goblins, property cannot run away."
Lily whimpered, trembling as she was surrounded by goblins and facing her most hated enemy. But the fear that ran through her was not only for herself. She had to protect Daniel, still pinned under the weight of the goblin horde. He had nothing to do with this and whatever Theo had planned for her.
For now, though, all she could do was wait and see what Theo had in store for her. And as she stared into his icy eyes, Lily knew that whatever it was would be a torment unlike anything she'd ever known.
Theo extended a hand to her, showing off the green tattoo on his hand and wrist that was identical to Lily's. The only difference was that parts of it were black, others an angry red. She hadn't realized that Theo had a mark, too. Shit. That must have been how he tracked her.
Lily whimpered, feeling the hot sting of tears in her eyes. She had nowhere left to run. The goblins who held her were merciless and hateful, full of lust for violence and blood.
"The instant you turned your back on me, I was warned. That's the thing about magic, you see ... it's smarter than both you and me. It knew you would run long before you did, hence the protections in place to keep you from getting far." Theo looked bored as he relayed the truth of how royally screwed Lily had been from the very beginning. "And it was smarter than me, who thought, no, hoped, I could trust a wolf." He sighed and traced the dark lines of the tattoo. "I wonder, did you always intend to betray me? Run off before the wedding day, leaving our plans in ruin? Did you even think of what the consequences of those actions might be for you and your pack? Let her shift. I want to hear her answer."
The heaviness on her back fell away, but didn't relent entirely, at first. Theo and his goblins looked at her expectantly, waiting for her to shift, but all she could think about was how if she did, all those beady little eyes would see her naked body. Lily wasn't shy about her nakedness by any means, but it was different when those eyes looked at her with the hungry expectation only possible in a monster.
Theo rolled his eyes dramatically. "Give her a blanket so she can preserve her modesty."
The goblins cackled in disappointment, but they threw one of the blankets back at Lily. She huddled under the scratchy fabric, and let her wolf shape fall away, all of her power with it. As a human, she was weak. Nothing against these goblins. But as a wolf, she wouldn't be able to fight her way out of this mess, either. Not without abandoning her brother, and she would never do that.
As her human skin returned to her, she wrapped herself tightly in the blanket, hiding her intimate places from view. She glanced at Daniel again, who was still limp beneath the weight of four goblins sitting on top of him.
Then Lily, at last, looked up at Theo. He was still naked after his shift, his perfectly sculpted body on full display. But unlike her, there was no modesty in him. His powerful muscles radiated strength and surety, all the way from his broad shoulders to his powerful thighs. While he met her gaze unflinchingly, his eyes like chips of ice, she was trying not to blush from her first look at his thick cock.