Page 109 of Gabriel: Duke of Bencalor

He knew some­thing about fac­ing pow­er­ful men who thought they knew what was best for you. “If there is noth­ing more to dis­cuss right now, I think Señor Pier­son might wish to have some din­ner,” Gabriel said. “Mikel, would you join us?”

Amuse­ment lit the se­cu­rity chief’s eyes. “Gra­cias, but I think not.” He pulled a busi­ness card from his pocket and handed it to Bren­dan. “If I may be of as­sis­tance in your de­par­ture from Cal­eva, please do not hes­i­tate to call on me.”

“I in­vited him to spend the night here,” Quinn said, her tone ask­ing her boss’s per­mis­sion.

“Not to worry. I’ll be on a plane in the morn­ing.” Bren­dan flicked the card­board rec­tan­gle with his fin­gers. “With­out need of an es­cort.”

Mikel stood. His pos­ture tight­ened, mak­ing him look preda­tory. “But your es­cort will be there none­the­less.” He nod­ded to Gabriel and to Quinn. “Don Gabriel. Quinn, I’ll see you at the of­fice to­mor­row.”

Be­fore any­one else could move, Mikel had dis­ap­peared out the back door.

For a mo­ment, there was si­lence. Then Bren­dan slapped his hands on his thighs and smiled at Gabriel. “Did you mean that about din­ner, lad?”

Gabriel had brought din­ner from the palace kitchen, as he of­ten did when he’d been there prac­tic­ing the gui­tar while Quinn was at work. “I just need to warm it up,” he said, stand­ing. His gaze shifted to Quinn.

She sat slumped over, her hands fisted in her lap. His heart twisted at her air of de­feat.

Gabriel picked up her un­touched wine­glass and knelt in front of her. “Quinn, have some of this. It will help.”

She lifted her head and wrapped her fin­gers around the glass. “I think I might need some­thing stronger.” Then she gulped down the en­tire glass, hold­ing it out in a mute re­quest for a re­fill.

Gabriel took it be­fore he leaned in to press a soft kiss on her lips, tast­ing the wine on them. “We will keep you safe.”

She gave a vague nod, and Gabriel rose. He pressed her shoul­der gen­tly, and her small bones felt as del­i­cate as a bird’s be­neath his fin­gers. He had never be­fore thought of her as frag­ile, but right now, she seemed as though she might shat­ter at a care­less word.

In the kitchen area, he poured a gen­er­ous serv­ing of wine into her glass and took it back to her. Quinn ac­cepted it with a grate­ful smile. “What are we sup­posed to talk about now?” she asked her fa­ther. There was no sar­casm. She sounded at a loss, some­thing she never did.

“Well, I’d love to hear about your life here in Cal­eva,” Bren­dan said, his Irish lilt in full ev­i­dence. “Such a beau­ti­ful coun­try. I don’t know why I’ve never vis­ited be­fore this.”

“Too hard to make a quick exit from,” Quinn said.

As he re­turned to the kitchen, Gabriel was al­most grate­ful to hear the edge back in her voice. He turned on the con­vec­tion oven and waited a beat to see if Bren­dan would speak, but Quinn seemed to have si­lenced the man. Gabriel plunged into the breach. “I’m sure you’ve heard of our lilies and their mirac­u­lous prop­er­ties, but did you know that ev­ery home in Cal­eva—in­clud­ing this one—is heated en­tirely by geo­ther­mal power? Even our gar­dens are warmed by it in the cold sea­son, which is why the flow­ers are spec­tac­u­lar year-round.”

“I guess those vol­ca­noes you’re on top of come in handy,” Bren­dan said.

“Ex­cept for the oc­ca­sional earth­quake,” Quinn con­trib­uted.

“Ah, we’d get those any­way as the tec­tonic plates shift,” Gabriel pointed out as he slot­ted the pans of pollo al ajillo and patatas bravas into the oven.

“And what about your fa­mous Cal­e­van drag­ons?” Bren­dan asked. “Like the one on your royal coat of arms. Not man-eaters, I trust?”

Gabriel rec­og­nized Bren­dan’s at­tempt to lighten the con­ver­sa­tion. “Their pre­ferred cui­sine is ro­dents. But the ro­dents feel safe these days be­cause our drag­ons have be­come rare.”

“Have you ever seen one?” Bren­dan made it a gen­eral ques­tion, ob­vi­ously hop­ing Quinn would an­swer.

“Only in the zoo.” Quinn twisted in her chair to look at Gabriel. “Have you seen them in the wild?”

“About half a dozen times,” Gabriel said. “We have a say­ing here that see­ing one gives you the luck of the dragon for the rest of the day.”

“Since they nearly went ex­tinct, would that be good luck or bad luck?” Quinn asked with a snort.

More sar­casm. That was good.

“Raul asked me the same ques­tion the other day,” Gabriel said. “He had en­coun­tered a three-footer sun­ning on a rock. I missed it.”

“A lizard that big must be quite a sight,” Bren­dan said, lean­ing back with his whiskey cra­dled in one hand.

“I once saw two to­gether,” Gabriel said. “One was nearly four feet long, while the other was closer to three. They were in full spring color for mat­ing, that deep teal that you see on the coat of arms. They flared their frills at me be­fore they slith­ered away. It was quite a dis­play.”

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