Page 7 of Gabriel: Duke of Bencalor

Gabriel stood on the edge of Acan­ti­lado Alto, the fa­mous high cliff, where the wind whipped loos­ened strands of his hair across his face so hard it stung. The crash of the waves against the ocean-slicked boul­ders far be­low added to the mael­strom of noise around him. He wel­comed it, as well as the buf­fet of cold, salt-scented air through the thin fab­ric of his clothes. The phys­i­cal sen­sa­tions helped him en­dure the as­sault of mem­o­ries.

A year ago, he and his cousin, Raul, had been cel­e­brat­ing the end of their manda­tory ser­vice in the Royal Cal­e­van Mili­tia, a stint ev­ery mem­ber of the royal fam­ily served. Raul had per­suaded his fa­ther to let them off the leash for a few days in Barcelona.

The two of them stum­bled off a party boat at two a.m., their arms draped over each other’s shoul­ders. They stag­gered along a few blocks, laugh­ing and talk­ing, be­fore half a dozen men in ski masks sur­rounded them and herded them onto a nar­row, dimly lit side street.

Once their al­co­hol-be­fud­dled brains re­al­ized some­thing bad was hap­pen­ing, Gabriel and Raul turned so they were back-to-back in an at­tempt to de­fend them­selves. How­ever, their at­tack­ers pulled out guns that made any re­sis­tance the two young men con­tem­plated use­less. At least the ap­pear­ance of firearms ripped away the liquor haze from Gabriel’s brain.

For a long mo­ment, no one moved. Gabriel said, “We’ll give you all our money. And our watches.” He slowly ro­tated his left wrist so his Rolex caught a lit­tle gleam of light. “We won’t fight you. You don’t have to use the guns.”

One of the men walked up to Gabriel and jerked up his shirt to ex­pose the tat­too that he’d got­ten the week be­fore. Then he strode around to Raul and did the same thing. “Mierda!”

In a show of broth­er­hood, they’d got­ten the same tat­too of a Cal­e­van dragon, the is­land’s fa­mous frilled lizard, with a blood-red lily held in one claw. On the same day, they’d both dyed their hair blond. They had been young and tem­po­rar­ily un­su­per­vised.

“Which of you is Raul, el Príncipe de los Lirios?” the man snarled.

“I am,” Gabriel snapped out, kick­ing Raul in the an­kle to si­lence him as the im­pli­ca­tions of the ques­tion hit him like a mule kick to the gut. Gabriel had in­jected ev­ery ounce of haugh­ti­ness he could muster into his an­swer.

It worked. They bun­dled Gabriel into a van and knocked out Raul with a pis­tol butt, leav­ing him un­con­scious in the al­ley.

“Gabriel!” A man’s voice found its way through the clutch of fear. “Bencalor!”

Gabriel piv­oted to see Mikel sprint­ing to­ward him across the pale green cliff grass, his suit jacket flap­ping like wings in the wind.

When Mikel got close, Gabriel started to call out a greet­ing, but the other man kept charg­ing at him. He seized Gabriel’s up­per arm and jack­knifed his leg be­tween Gabriel’s, us­ing that lever­age to slam him onto his back on the turf. The air whooshed out of Gabriel’s lungs. He lay gasp­ing as Mikel knelt to pin Gabriel’s shoul­ders to the ground with his hands.

“What the fuck are you do­ing?” Mikel’s face was rigid with an emo­tion Gabriel couldn’t iden­tify.

Gabriel gulped in a cou­ple of deep breaths be­fore he could speak. “I could ask you the same thing.”

“Don’t fuck with me.” Mikel gripped Gabriel’s shoul­ders and gave them a shake. “What were you go­ing to do?”

Fear. That was the emo­tion writ­ten across Mikel’s fea­tures, and Gabriel un­der­stood. “You thought I was go­ing to jump?”

“You weren’t?” Mikel shook him again, al­though Gabriel didn’t think the other man re­al­ized he was do­ing it.

“Not even close.”

“Mierda!” Mikel re­leased Gabriel and sagged back on his heels, his head dropped for­ward, his eyes squeezed closed. “I thought…the kid­nap­per…you might be…”

“Sui­ci­dal? No.” He had stared into the abyss of that par­tic­u­lar hell be­fore he had found the strength to step back. He never in­tended to re­turn.

Gabriel sucked in an­other breath and rolled onto his side, mas­sag­ing the shoul­der that had hit the ground first. The cliff grass looked soft and cush­iony, but its roots scrab­bled for tiny pock­ets of soil de­posited on the un­der­ly­ing rocks’ hard sur­face.

Mikel opened his eyes, and re­gret sharp­ened the lines around his eyes and mouth. “My apolo­gies.”

“For try­ing to save me from my­self?” Gabriel gave him a slanted smile. “I’m grate­ful.”

“You won’t be grate­ful to­mor­row morn­ing when the bruises start throb­bing.” Mikel leaped to his feet and of­fered his hand. Gabriel took it, pulling him­self up to a stand­ing po­si­tion.

“Let’s go to my car,” Mikel shouted as the wind blasted them both again. “I’ll give you a ride to yours.”

They walked to where Mikel had driven his black SUV part­way across the clifftop and aban­doned it when the jut­ting rocks pre­vented it from go­ing far­ther, leav­ing the door wide open and the en­gine run­ning. Gabriel glanced side­ways at the slim, in­tense man pac­ing be­side him. Mikel had be­lieved Gabriel was on the verge of jump­ing. He hadn’t hes­i­tated to tackle him to pre­vent that tragedy.

The depth of Mikel’s con­cern made Gabriel’s heart twist.

Not for the first time, Gabriel won­dered about the man’s past. Mikel had ar­rived on Cal­eva with his young daugh­ter five years be­fore. Dur­ing and af­ter the kid­nap­ping, he had made him­self in­valu­able to the king. Maybe Un­cle Luis knew where Mikel had come from and why, but no one else did.

But that was not un­usual for Cal­eva. It had been both a hid­ing place and a sanc­tu­ary from its very be­gin­nings.

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