Black Keys (The Colorblind Trilogy #1) - Rose B. Mashal Page 0,57

the prince wasn’t there to stop her, what kind of power did I have to prevent anything like that from happening? The answer wasn’t hard to find. There was nothing I could do. Absolutely nothing.

“She’s a virgin, Mother, she’s a virgin,” the prince said in a rush, both of his hands in front of him in a settle-down motion. “It’s not what you think.”

She yelled at him in the language that had grown to drive me insane, since I didn’t get a word in it, and my head started spinning faster than ever.

“Mother,” the prince said slowly. “I s-swear to God she’s a virgin. She just–needs time.”

That seemed to shut her up for a minute. I peeked over his shoulder to look at her and see what her reaction was to that. Her eyes were focused on the prince’s in a look that seemed like she was studying him, like she was searching for something else, other than the words he’d just said, only breaking her stare when he nodded his head as if he was begging her wordlessly to believe him.

My heart almost burst out of my chest when her glare found my eyes. I had to look down and hide behind the prince’s broad shoulders again.

“Or you’re just not man enough to do it, Ya-Ameer.”

I watched as the prince clenched his fists by his sides and I heard his breathing change. It didn’t escape my notice that those were the first words she’d said to him in English, and that when she said it–she didn’t mean only to insult him. No, she said it my language to humiliate him as well.

It hurt me.

“Please, Mother,” the prince said in a quiet voice. “It’s between me and my wife.”

Wife.

The word went straight to my heart and settled there after sending tingles all over my insides.

“Huh,” the queen let out a sarcastic noise. “We’ll see about that,” she said, using my language again, and when the words made the fear inside my heart rise, I knew that that was exactly the purpose of it.

A deadly glare of hers managed to reach my eyes from behind the prince’s shoulder when I peeked again, a promise of something I didn’t know and a warning filling it, so that I almost shivered just looking at her before she left.

Janna’s promise of getting me out of here was the only thing that kept me from screaming my guts out. The queen was scary. I had a strong feeling she was up to no good, like she was planning something for me.

My head kept going back to her words: ‘You and your brother are dead.’ It kept repeating itself in my head. Over and over again. Eating away at my soul with the fear it caused. I was terrified. And I blamed Joseph some more. I blamed him to the point that I didn’t know if I had any drop of love for him inside of my heart anymore. I blamed him to the point I started thinking that I was about to hate him. More than hate itself, at that.

‘You and your brother are dead.’

‘You and your brother are dead.’

‘You and your brother are dead.’

I took a deep breath and wiped a tear with the back of my hand that was formed in a tight fist around the item inside of it. My eyes gazed away toward the window, not really able to see any of the magical sight of the gardens that I knew were down there from my spot on the bed. My heart wouldn’t stop thumping so fast and so loud in my ears, nor would my silent tears stop falling over my life that had turned upside down in the matter of a few short days.

When the queen left us, the prince asked if I was okay, his voice low and full of so many feelings, and he wouldn’t look me in the eyes. Feelings that were all around sadness, sorrow and a hint of anger. Feelings that were dominated by that one feeling I hated to hear in his voice the most: humiliation.

It made me really sad to hear that tone from him. Beyond sad. I didn’t want anything in that moment except to reach out and hug him, to try with the little I had of words of assurance or a caring embrace to soothe him and take the pain in his eyes away. But those very thoughts scared me even more than I already was, because I found