Modern Wicked Fairy Tales: Complete Collection Read Free Page A

confronting his
brother was tempting, but as he looked back down at the woman on
the snow, he reminded himself of the reason he’d stayed hidden all
this time. Isabelle first. Then he would deal with Carlos.
    Long enough, he judged, peeling the cloth
away from the woman’s head to check, blood blooming on the material
like a red flower. It was still seeping, but it had slowed. He
worked quickly, using his hunting knife to cut the zip ties on her
wrists and ankles, carefully, gently peeling the duct tape from her
skin. When he had her free, he stopped to gaze down at her, struck
by how like Isabelle she looked, all that dark hair, those red
lips. She even had the same body type, tall and full-bodied. The
poor thing didn’t even have a coat— just jeans and a turtleneck—and
his jaw tightened when he noted the dark stain between her thighs.
Must have been terrified, he thought, trying not to compare this
woman to his wife, trying not to think about her fate, wondering if
Isabelle, too, had wet herself before they had killed her.
    He checked the woman’s wound again. It would
need stitches, but he couldn’t do that here. At least it had
stopped bleeding. He used the remains of the duct tape to fashion a
make-shift bandage, securing the material over the cut. The woman
was cold, already far too cold. He looked around again, listening.
Still quiet. Glancing up, he watched the snow falling around them
growing heavier. There was no car coming after this one any time
soon, he judged, and if they got as much snow as the radio had been
predicting, there wouldn’t be one for days.
    The whole thing was a big mess. He could
bring the snowmobile back for the elk, but he couldn’t leave the
woman here to freeze in the meantime. He unzipped his parka and
wrapped her in it, zipping her arms in, making her an
easy-to-handle bundle. She was dead weight but he lifted her
easily, getting his head under her torso, using a fireman’s carry
as he squatted with her over his shoulders.
    For the first time, she made a noise, and he
wondered when she was going to come to. What was he going to tell
her? At least she couldn’t see his face from this angle, he
thought, using the big muscles in his thighs to help him rise to
standing. The girl over his shoulders sighed again and he
stiffened, waiting, but she stilled. He wondered what the poor girl
had done to arouse Carlos’s wrath. Refused him perhaps? That’s all
Isabelle had ever done—she’d chosen one brother over the other. Of
course, Carlos hadn’t killed her over that, although Silas was sure
it had been, at least in part, some of his brother’s motivation.
Carlos had killed her because Isabelle was Silas’s only heir. She
would have inherited all the land their father had left to Silas
that Carlos had been determined to get his hands on.
    He shifted the girl’s weight, balancing her
on his shoulders. There was nothing to do but take her back to the
cabin and he couldn’t get there by car. It was a mile on foot and
the sun would be setting by the time he arrived home. He grabbed
his bow and took another look around at the accident site, marking
the location in his memory. It would be dark when he came back, and
the falling snow would cover his tracks.
    It was going to be a long night.
    * * * *
    She drifted in.
    Her head throbbed. It felt too big on her
neck, wobbling around up there, hard to hold up. The man in the
camouflage hunting mask held her head, made her drink water. His
face floated in front of her like a demon, and the first time she
saw him, she screamed and tried to scramble away. It came out only
as a whimper and a shuffling of her feet under the covers, but in
her head she was running for the door. She choked on the water and
it dribbled down her chin. The man wiped at her with a cloth and
they tried again. He didn’t speak and it scared her, but she didn’t
say anything either. Did she have a voice? She tried to vocalize
and just croaked, an unintelligible noise.