Black Keys (The Colorblind Trilogy #1) - Rose B. Mashal Page 0,79
falling for one of them. Falling hard!
Cheater, cheater, cheater…
Oh, God, help me!
“I won’t, I won’t.” His hand surrounded my body as I sank slowly to the ground, still gasping for air and holding my throat and collarbone tightly, as if it would help me to breathe better that way. “It’s okay, you’re fine, just breathe.”
“C-can’t brea-the.”
“Yes, you can, Princess. You are breathing. You’re okay. I’m here,” he told me, his left hand under my head as held me to him while I lay half on the ground. His other hand tried to remove my hands from my throat.
“C-can’t-t.”
“Yes, yes, you can. Inhale deeply through your nose and let it out slowly through your mouth, as if you’re blowing into a balloon. Breathe. Yes, you’re doing well. It’ll pass.”
“Ca-n’t find it.” My hands moved frantically over my chest and above the shirt. My world was darkening by the second, and my mouth was getting drier and drier.
“There, there, it’s in your hand,” he said, his hand moving from my wrist–where he was probably checking my pulse–to my palm, which he placed my cross in. I held it in a tight grip and brought it up to my chest, trying to focus on my breathing like he was telling me to do and like I knew I should be doing.
“You’re safe, Princess, you’re all right, it’s okay,” he kept reassuring me with his words. His hand moved my hair out of my face before he placed his hand above mine which was over my chest, as if he was trying to tell me he was here by his gentle touch.
“Our Father–” I whispered breathlessly, “Our Fathern Who art in Heav–” I took a deep breath and tried to say my prayer, finding it really difficult and almost impossible to breathe while doing it, so I prayed silently instead.
My heart was thumping so hard inside of my chest, that I thought it was trying to make its way out of my body, but my breathing was getting a little bit better, as I lay there trying not to think of all of the things that had stirred up my panic attack.
I don’t know how long we stayed there that way on top of the mountain, trying to get myself back to normal, encouraged by the prince’s words as he kept telling me that I was fine and that it was okay. When I was finally fine again and my panic attack had passed, we made our way back to the royal stable.
The prince left me for a minute, after asking if I was okay to stand by myself while he got Thunder situated again in his stall. I watched as he tied him up as he was before we’d taken him for the ride, then patted him a few times before walking away from him.
The prince was almost out of the stall before I told him to wait a minute. I went up to the beautiful creature and hugged his neck. “Bye, Thunder. Thanks for the good time,” I whispered near his ear, smiling softly.
When I turned around, I found the prince watching me closely. I didn’t say anything, just looked and walked away, up the path we’d come from, passing by one stall after another of horses that were peeking their heads above the doors. I enjoyed watching them, all the while I was walking with the prince following behind me.
One of the stalls was slightly opened and I just had to look. When I looked inside I gasped. The sight was too adorable not to stop in my tracks and take a step closer to the stall. Inside, there were three horses; one of them was much bigger than the other two–actually, the other two were so little, even smaller than Salma. The three of them were beautiful shades of white. The mare, that I knew for a fact was the mother, had a white coat that was slightly darker than the two foals, who were nursing from their mother in such a beautiful way that I couldn’t help but stand there and stare.
A few minutes later, I heard the prince’s voice as he spoke, “This is my brother’s.”
I only nodded but didn’t say anything. I think it was only then that I realized why the prince was so fond of horses and why they were his passion. I also understood why Mona had said that he forgot time whenever he was with Salma because, standing there, I just found myself