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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.
