Modern Wicked Fairy Tales: Complete Collection Read Free

down this way in
a few weeks. He recognized the two men as Carlos’s, in spite of
their disfiguring wounds.
    Probably the same men who had taken
Isabelle, he thought, a slow heat burning in his chest as he
assessed the damage. The memory of his wife was always close to the
surface, and although his life out here was full and far from idle,
it was also quiet and lonely and left him a great deal of time to
think about her. He couldn’t help imagining them carrying her out
of his house while they left him, drugged and duct taped to a
chair, in their burning cabin. What had they done with her? Where
was she now?
    There was no movement from either body, and
they were probably dead—or would be soon if they weren’t
already—and he was glad. He might have killed them himself if he’d
found them barreling down this road, off to carry through with
Carlos’s orders. God only knows what he had them doing.
    He ran a hand over his own marred cheek,
self-conscious—an emotion he didn’t feel much out here—reminding
himself that at least he’d lived through his ordeal, although there
had been plenty of times he’d wished he hadn’t. Slowly, he had
discovered purpose in his life again—to protect his father’s land
and to find his wife’s body. He was sure they’d killed her. He
prayed they hadn’t raped her. The thought of these two men anywhere
near his wife made his chest burn with rage.
    Silas slung his bow over his shoulder,
circling the vehicle. He would have to extract the buck and get it
back to his cabin. But what to do with the car and the two bodies?
His train of thought was completely derailed as he came around the
trunk, seeing it popped open. The woman had been thrown clear of
the vehicle, but she was lifeless on her side, a pool of blood
melting the snow around her head.
    He went down to one knee beside her body,
checking her throat for a pulse and finding one, strong and steady.
Then he checked her for wounds, finding only one, a gash on her
head that was bleeding profusely, but it wasn’t deep or fatal. He
couldn’t tell if she had any broken bones, but the head wound
needed to be addressed first.
    Unzipping his parka, he peeled up his layers
of clothing until he got to the long underwear closest to his skin.
Using his hunting knife, he cut a solid piece away out of the
front, folding it up and pressing it against the woman’s head. She
didn’t stir or cry out at all. He opened one of her eyes with thumb
and finger. Her pupil retracted in the fading light of the sun and
he sighed in relief as the other did the same when he checked
it.
    She looked young, a good ten years younger
than he was—maybe early twenties. It was hard to tell with all the
duct tape wrapped around her mouth, but there were very few lines
in the skin around her eyes and none across her forehead, and her
hair was dark and long and lustrous, no hint of gray. She was
exotic-looking—maybe Native American, he guessed, cradling her head
in his hand and using his other to press against her forehead,
applying enough pressure to get the bleeding to stop, and
waiting.
    It was quiet. The wildlife had scattered,
frightened away by the accident. He could sense them quivering,
watching—rabbits, foxes, coyotes, joined for the moment in silence
as they waited for the outcome of this strange event. The trees
above him creaked under the weight of the snow on their bare limbs.
It had been hovering near the freezing point for days, making the
precipitation heavy and wet.
    Silas looked over at the car, noticing the
vanity plate. It was his brother’s BMW all right. Only someone as
arrogant as Carlos would send men in a car with his own vanity
plate on it to commit a murder. The car had stalled on impact but
the engine was still ticking as it cooled. His brother would
certainly wonder what had become of his BMW and his trusty
sidekicks. Carlos would send someone to look for them. Perhaps he
would even come himself. The thought of seeing and