Black Keys (The Colorblind Trilogy #1) - Rose B. Mashal Page 0,150

me? It’s killing me, Princess, killing me!”

I put my hands over his wrists while he still had his holding my face. “Then let me stay, let everything go as planned,” I told him. “I’ll spend those six months here, and it’s going to be okay.”

“You can’t know that, Princess,” he said. “I told you: royalty is a dirty game. Everyone is lusting after the throne and searching for ways to get themselves closer to it–it’s sickening. I’ve had my food poisoned twice and my brother has been shot just an inch from his heart, my father faced an assassination attempt against him, and my mother has gone crazy with her obsession to make my life perfect, to be the perfect king for decades to come. And don’t even get me started on my uncle and cousin.” His eyes begged me to understand.

“I can’t risk anyone hurting you anymore to get to me or my father like Jasem did. He only made a scene thinking the shock would kill my father with his weak heart and bad condition. I thank God it turned out okay, but I don’t know what will happen in the future. I’m not willing to wait and see, only to end up with something even worse happening to you within those six months.”

His words were convincing, but...there must be some way. “It couldn’t go worse,” I tried.

“Stop it, Princess!” he said softly. “You don’t understand. This,” his thumbs brushed away my tears, “is hurting me more than I can explain; your tears are too precious to me.” He whispered, “Do you have any idea how I felt when the first time I heard those beautiful lips calling my name was in terror and fear, crying for help?” He touched his forehead to mine. “It gutted me, Beautiful Princess. Gutted me.”

My tears flowed in silence. I didn’t know what to say to him; I was choking. There was so much I wanted to say, and at the same time, I had no idea how to put my feelings into words. I had no idea what to say.

“Mazen,” I whispered.

“Princess. My Beautiful Princess,” he whispered, his lips touching my forehead for a moment too long and too short at the same time. When I looked into his eyes, I saw the tears rolling down from them.

“You’re crying,” I choked out, reaching up to touch his tears, just learning in that moment what precious tears really meant as I saw his.

“How could I not, Beautiful Princess?” He asked, “Do you feel this?” He took my hand that was touching his face and put it over his chest, right above where his heart was. “It’s bleeding,” he told me, his teary eyes looking deep into my matching ones, before he pulled my head to his chest, my ear replacing where my hand was just a moment ago. “Do you hear it?” he asked. “It’s breaking,” he told me, and I couldn’t control myself as I hugged him and cried for the loss of someone who wasn’t even mine.

“It’s not even slightly easy for me, Princess, but I have to let you go.”

No, no! Please, no! Let me stay, let me!

We hugged until our legs almost gave out, we cried until there was no place on our faces that tears didn’t stain, and we hated our fates until there was no way to hate them even more.

“Can’t you come with me?”

Please, please, please!

“I wish I could,” he said sincerely, “but I have a duty here, responsibilities I can’t get away from.”

I nodded in understanding, but not in acceptance.

“I wish you could,” I told him honestly, hot tears wetting my cheeks, a pleading look in my eyes.

“Maybe in another life, Princess,” he smiled sadly, “when it wouldn’t be too dangerous to be with me, and only safer away from me.” His voice broke.

I hugged him tightly. “I’ve never been safer than when I’m with you.”

“But I can’t always be by your side,” he reminded me with the same words again. Words I hated so much, it wasn’t describable.

“So, that’s it?” I asked. “We get a divorce now?”

“We were never married in the first place, Princess,” he stated.

I pulled away and looked at him with a frown and tearful eyes. “What?”

“On paper, yes, but not in front of God,” he said. “You were forced, and in my religion, that’s a deal breaker.”

I looked at him for a moment, trying to understand.

“But just to make sure,” he said, looking at me for a moment, then