By Grace Possessed Read Online Free PDF Page A

Dunbar shrugged. “Though a raid on his herd is more satisfying than on any other.”
    The last was meant to distract her from the enmity between him and Trilborn, she thought. It seemed just as well to allow it. “So you do steal other cattle?”
    “On both sides of the border,” he said with a low laugh.
    “Both sides…you don’t mean your father steals the cows of his neighbors?”
    “Oh, aye. ’Tis a game of sorts, do you see, a wee bit of competition.”
    “It sounds dangerous.”
    “’Tis that which makes it worthwhile. Though the poor beasts have been chased back and forth on so many moonlit nights, have mingled and bred so often, it’s near impossible to say who owns any cow.”
    Cate tilted her head as she watched snowflakes settle on his bonnet and the dark waves of his hair, turning all gray-white. “At least your presence here prevents your father from raiding across the border now. I believe that’s the purpose of it?”
    “In part,” he said, inclining his head so snowflakes shifted onto his knees. “Fair ruined his fun, it has. No more rapine and pillage of his sworn foes.”
    She lifted a brow. “Rapine and pillage?”
    “Ah, well, there may be less of it than he remembers, but he does like the old tales.”
    The tales weren’t that old, she was almost certain. The border Scots, descended from Vikings who had once raided those northern shores, were known for their bellicose natures. Some named them Steel Bonnets for the helmets they wore on their lightning forays into English territory. It seemed reasonable that Ross Dunbar was of that warlike tribe, given the dark Nordic blue of his eyes.
    There was a lulling quality to his voice, with its soft vowels that turned the word cows into “coos.” There was also a barely concealed smile in it, as if he had enjoyed his forays into cattle theft, or at least taken pleasure in the skill and daring of the moonlit chase. Yes, and in tweaking the noses of his hereditary enemies.
    Cate’s mouth curved a little as she watched him. Leaning forward, she rested her elbow on her knee while holding her chin in the palm of her hand. “And what do you do with these ‘coos’ when you bring them in from a raid on such a snowy night?” she asked, as much to hear him talk as from the need to know.
    “Put them in with our others in the cow byre, and guard them against being taken back.”
    She sighed, shivering a little as the icy wind lifted the hood of her cloak. It was a moment before she went on. “I wish I knew Rosie was safe in a cow byre this night, if she didn’t return to her stable.”
    “Your palfrey, you mean?”
    “I can’t help thinking she might have come across the boar again.” It was a legitimate fear, as a boar’s tusks could open the soft underbelly of a horse in an instant.
    “She didn’t. She couldn’t have, as I gutted the beast, and will send after him tomorrow.”
    Cate straightened. “You…you killed him.”
    “It seemed necessary at the moment, though I’d have done better to ride on when it turned on me as I came upon it.”
    “But…I was sure I heard him right behind me.”
    “For some small distance only. Is that why you didn’t turn back? I thought your Rosie had run away with you, being you got so far ahead of me.”
    “Not…entirely.” She had been so certain the boar was behind her, though the noise of her passage through the forest made it difficult to be sure.
    “Too bad. All this could have been prevented, otherwise.” He gestured at the brush pile that had become their wood yard, the fire, the woodland beyond, where the outlaws had disappeared.
    “What, depriving me of the opportunity to sleep out in the weather?” she said with an attempt at lightness. “Heaven forbid.”
    He snorted but made no answer. With a glance at the snow that was falling thicker out of the night sky, he caught the drape of his plaid and unwrapped it from his shoulders, exposing the simple leather jerkin he wore under a