Black Keys (The Colorblind Trilogy #1)

by Rose B Mashal

  When I didn’t know what to do with myself, I went to the bathroom and did more pacing, knuckle-cracking and hair-gripping. I brushed my teeth, then my hair just because I couldn’t find anything better to do.

  I could’ve been in the bathroom for hours, or maybe just half an hour, I wasn’t sure, but when I came out and found the prince just the same as I’d left him, I knew that I’d only spent a few minutes in there. I had no idea why time was really strange like that tonight.

  Because I couldn’t take it anymore, I pulled the bathroom door shut with force, causing a loud bang that did as I’d hoped, and startled the prince awake.

  His head jerked to where I was standing since that was where the noise had come from. “Princess,” he said sleepily. “You’re awake!” He rubbed his eyes then smiled lazily at me.

  I folded my arms in front of me, my eyes gazing down at him with a stern look, causing confusion to be painted on his forehead, as if he really didn’t know what he’d done at all. “Welcome back, your majesty!” I said sarcastically. “Was I supposed to wait for your highness? Is that a rule? Or a tradition that says ‘I shall wait forever for you to come back because it’s too disrespectful of me to go to sleep before you’?”

  The prince stood up, scratching the back of his head, the frown not leaving between his eyes. “Are you okay, Princess?” he asked, and then his eyes moved lower, way lower than my eyes–to my chest–and lingered there for a few moments. The frown magically left his forehead and something shifted in his eyes when they met mine again.

  I groaned in frustration, leaving him standing there as I made my way to the sunroom, trying once more to calm down a bit because what I was doing looked silly, even to my own eyes.

  A few minutes later, I felt something soft being placed on my shoulders. I looked down and found it to be some sort of a fluffy scarf–with the prince’s hands securing it in place. I looked up at him from over my shoulder and he smiled. My nostrils flared and I yanked the scarf off of me, throwing it to the floor.

  “Ok-kay…” the prince said. “I’m just afraid you might get sick again.”

  No answer.

  “Are you mad at me or something?”

  Nothing.

  “Is this because I left without explaining?”

  “Huh! So smart. No wonder you just graduated from medical school,” I said, and even with my back facing him, I still rolled my eyes.

  I heard him sighing. “You have every right to be mad. I’m sorry, Princess.”

  “You apologize too much,” I told him.

  “Believe it or not, I rarely ever apologize to anyone.”

  What does that mean? If he apologized to no one, why was I any different?

  “Maybe you shouldn’t have put yourself in this situation then,” I snapped.

  The prince sighed again. “Yes.” He paused. “It’s just–Salma is too important to me, and-”

  “I don’t want to hear it!” I said with a loud voice, cutting him off mid-sentence. “Do you really think I want to hear about the whore you were with?” My eyes started stinging suddenly.

  How could he?

  “Um, my whore?”

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” I made sure that my apology sounded as fake as it could be. “Am I using the wrong term? Oh, yeah, I know, you call your whores ‘harem’!” Venom laced my voice as I spoke the words to the glass walls in front of me.

  The silent pause that followed that was too loud in my ears and I wanted to scream my head off. I wanted him to say something, anything. But at the same time I was really scared that whatever he was going to say would hurt me even more, and I wanted him to stay silent.

  Why I was hurt by the thought of him with another woman was beyond me.

  “You think I was with my harem?” he asked.

  “Whatever!” Tugging at my heart and sickness in my stomach were the two feelings that dominated everything I was feeling at that moment.

  Another moment of silence passed. “Are you jealous, Princess?” Even without actually seeing him, I was able to tell that he was smirking; I could hear it in his voice.

  I spun too fast to face him, finding myself standing so close to his body that we were almost touching. “Absolutely not!” I was completely offended by his suggestion of me being jealous. Over him of all people.

  What a ridiculous thing to say!

  The jerk was seriously smirking just like I knew he was, and I found myself with a desperate need to wipe it off of his face. I wanted to hurt him. “I’d have to care about you first to be jealous.” I held my chin high, pulled the smuggest face I could manage and smirked, knowing full well that those words would hurt him and the smirk on his face would be gone, just as I wanted.

  I was wrong.

  The prince smiled one of those dazzling, crooked smiles of his and looked at me through his long, thick dark eyelashes before inching his face even closer to mine and whispering near my ear. “Exactly.”

  “Huh!” I gave him my back again. I couldn’t stand for him to be that close to me, smelling so freaking good, while facing him. It did things to my heart, things I didn’t like. “You’re delusional!”

  The prince didn’t say anything, and again, it was driving me nuts. “I only believe that it would’ve been nice if you cared enough to tell me where you were going, to not just leave like that, as if there was an earthquake or something.” I tried to fill the annoying silence.

  “You’re right…I shouldn’t have done...that. I really wasn’t…thinking.” His voice was a bit strange and his words were kind of slow.

  I looked at him over my shoulder to see what he was doing, why he was speaking that way, as if he was distracted or not really paying attention to how he was speaking. My eyes widened and I spun once again and faced him. “Were you just checking out my butt?” I gasped.

  It was the prince’s eyes’ turn to grow wide. “What? Me? No way!”

  “Yes, you were!” I insisted. “You were also staring at my breasts just five minutes ago when you woke up!”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about! I wasn’t doing anything like that.”

  “Oh, my God! You really are a terrible liar!” I yelled my frustration.

  “True.”

  “So you admit it?”

  “That nightgown is…um, really short,” he shrugged.

  “Ugh! Unbelievable!” I bent down and grabbed the scarf off of the floor and dropped it over my shoulders, leaving him standing there as I shook my head in disapproval of his so-not-royal behavior.

  A quiet groan stopped me midway. I turned around to find him with the same look again, but now he was biting his bottom lip, releasing it when he saw mine very far from my top lip as I looked at him in disbelief with a gaping mouth. “You were checking me out. Again!”

  “The gown is still short.”

  I crossed my arms in front of my chest again, but given what it did to my breasts, and the look in his eyes as he tried not to stare–but failed miserably–only managing to make his eyes bounce up and down between my eyes and chest, I dropped them to my stomach as I held the scarf in my hands, narrowing my eyes at him. “This is not acceptable at all!”

  “You’re right, but… He looked me up and down. “You’re really-”

  “Stop it,” I interrupted him. “You can’t have those thoughts about me.”

  “Excuse me, Princess. But my thoughts are all mine. I can have whatever thoughts I want.”

  That stupidly-beautiful smile was back on his stupidly-beautiful lips and the stupidly-beautiful, mysterious look was back in his stupidly-beautiful, attractive eyes.

  “You’re doing it now!”

  “Doing what, Jealous Princess?”

  “I’m not jealous,” I said. “You’re having thoughts.” I sounded ridiculous.

  “I am.” Crooked smile.

  “You shouldn’t.”

  “It’s my head.” He licked his lips. The sight of his tongue on his lip was distracting, and I found myself watching it
as it swept over his bottom lip, replaying it in my head in slow motion–and for a moment I forgot why we were arguing.

  No, seriously, why we were arguing?

  “You shouldn’t,” I said, lower than I intended for it to be–and not really knowing what it was that he ‘shouldn’t’ do.

  I left the sunroom with a sort of foggy mind, wondering if his words meant that he was attracted to me, confused by the smile that tugged at my lips when I had the thought. Why I found it pleasing to think that the prince was attracted to me was something I couldn’t understand.

  Games.

  Lies.

  Traps.

  “Princess,” the prince’s soft voice called in a whisper from right behind me. When I turned he continued, “I was just teasing, I only wanted to make you smile.” His smile was small and his words were warm. I found myself smiling back with one side of my lips, a small and careful smile. Careful not to show my feelings. It would be so wrong of me to let him know that I-…

  It would just be wrong.

  When I didn’t reply, he spoke again, “I’m in a very good mood, I had a very good night.” My blood pressure started going up again. “I wish I could make you have a good night, too.”

  I looked up at his eyes, waiting for something, but not really knowing what that something was. Or maybe I was just enjoying looking into his green eyes…

  Wrong!

  “Can you keep a secret?” he whispered.

  I frowned slightly, but nodded.

  The prince’s smile grew bigger and, the next thing I knew, he disappeared into the closet, spending no less than five minutes in there and then coming back with something black in his hands.

  “Put this on.” He handed me a black cloth and I took it from him, frowning again when I saw that it looked like the robe I’d worn over my dress on the night of the wedding, only in a thicker material with closed front. He must’ve seen the look on my face because he added, “Trust me. Please.”

  After I shrugged the scarf off, I put the robe on with the prince helping a little, because it was a bit difficult for me to wear it without getting lost inside of it, since it was so big. He then brushed my hair behind my ears and put the black hood attached to the robe above my head, whispering ‘Perfect’ when it was in place.

  “Uh, why am I wearing this?” I asked quietly.

  The prince’s lips came close to my face again and spoke so softly in my ear. “We’re sneaking out.”

  I was fighting myself to keep on showing him how angry at him I was, but I was still confused; my emotions were confusing me. Anger aside, I kept thinking of other scary things that I was feeling, and those things–those feelings–shocked me into an almost frozen state. I found that I had suddenly stopped the yelling and my sarcastic replies, worn the robe without first asking why he wanted me in it, then asked the why later with a quiet voice. It was strange, really strange. But what was inside of my head was even stranger.

  The fact that I was blushing at his comments and smiling at his playful remarks, that my heartbeats were racing each other when I thought about how good it felt for him to think I was attractive or for him to be attracted to me… It was scary. Why was I finding it so appealing?

  It was scary that I wasn’t finding it scary.

  I mean, I was alone with him in this room, at the very least for the rest of the seven days. I was supposed to be his wife. Why wasn’t I scared of what he might do now that he found me to be attractive or sexy? Why wasn’t I thinking that he might take advantage of me?

  Why wasn’t I paying any attention to all of this and only thinking–wondering–what it’d be like to be touched by him?

  What was wrong with me?

  “Sneaking out?” My eyes widened. Excited but disbelieving.

  “Uh-huh,” he said, tucking a wayward golden lock inside of my hood.

  “To where?” I asked.

  “Somewhere,” he smirked, earning a glare from me in response.

  The prince chuckled lightly and walked away, grabbing an apple from the fruit basket that had been placed once again on the round table. My guess was that Mona had come in when I was asleep and put it back, more likely when the prince came back from outside.

  “Eat this,” he offered me the apple.

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “You can’t not be hungry. It’s almost two in the morning and we had lunch eleven hours ago.”

  “I really don’t want to eat.”

  “You have to eat it and take another capsule of your medication, or else we are staying inside. The weather out there is nothing like the sunroom and you will get even more sick without your medication. I’m not risking that.”

  I huffed and took the apple from him, causing him to smile before he grabbed one for himself and started to eat it while gazing out the window. I did the same when my legs took me to stand beside him, and when I was finished with both the apple and the pill swallowing, he asked me if I was ready. My heartbeat sped up and I nodded frantically, so eager to leave the room that I almost forgot I was barefoot.

  When I put the heeled sandals back on, the prince offered me his hand. I took it and then he led me out to the living room. I thought he was going to lead us out the main bedroom door, since that was where I’d come from on the night of the wedding and it was the door he’d left from a few hours ago, but I didn’t question him. There were more doors and exits in this place than people who lived in it, and it was seriously disturbing.

  “God! Do I need a map for this palace!” I said to myself when the prince opened a hidden door.

  He chuckled, “I could get you one, but it’d be useless when it comes to the secret doors.”

  Of course!

  “Why do you need so many secret doors, anyway?” I wondered when we left an elevator, that wasn’t the same one I’d used before to get to the wing. We used this one to go down to some floor that was pretty much underground, then went into some kind of alley that looked like it wasn’t part of the palace, due to the lack of decorations and elegant paintings that were always on every wall I’d seen since I came here.

  “Security reasons,” he replied, opening yet another hidden door that led to a different alley.

  Duh!

  “I know that,” I said. “I meant: why so many?”

  “Time.”

  “Time?”

  “Yep.” He stopped walking and turned to look at me. “It’s a known fact that every palace–especially the ones belonging to royal families–has secret doors. Having so many of them gives us time to flee when needed by distracting the attacker.”

  Huh!

  “That’s smart,” I told him as we walked again. “But, why would anyone attack the palace? Or the royal family? There are no wars here or anything.”

  “That’s a story for another day, Princess.”

  I didn’t push.

  The second alley looked like a never-ending one. It went on forever, and it started to become trying, especially with my ridiculously long robe that was way longer than floor length. I kept most of it fisted in one hand, in order to be able to walk at all and not just trip on it and fall on my face.

  After what felt like two weeks of walking, and because I was the luckiest girl on earth and all, my heel decided to break. “Oh, snap!”

  “What’s wrong?” the prince asked, holding me by the waist to his side when I stumbled.

  “My heel broke,” I whined, bending down and holding my foot a bit up to look at the damage. If I broke the other one I wouldn’t walk any better since the front was way higher than the heel when broken.

  This is why I want my freaking clothes and my freaking shoes; those sandals are not to be worn outdoors!

  “Take them off,” the prince suggested.

  “And then?” I asked, annoyed. I didn’t want to go back after I’d already walked that far, but I didn’t want to walk barefoot either.

  “And then…” he said. The next thing I knew, my feet had left the floor and were being h
eld almost at the same level as my head, as the prince put one hand under the back of my thighs and the other around my back and lifted me up, carrying me bridal style and continuing to walk, smiling smugly when I squealed in surprise.

  “You can’t carry me the rest of the way!”

  “Yes, I can.”

  Smug jerk!

  “You still won’t tell me where we’re going?”

  “We’ll be there soon.”

  I sighed. “Are we still in the palace?”

  “Not really.”

  “Where are we then?”

  “You see, Princess, secret doors could lead you to other rooms or other wings, but the ones leading you to elevators take you out of the palace.”

  “How come?”

  “The elevators open to tunnels. Each one takes you to a different place, miles away from the palace.”

  “Wow!” I said, fisting his shirt. “How do you know where to go or which one to choose?” It sounded really complicated to me.

  “I’ve had it memorized since I was a little kid; my mother taught me.”

  “The queen?” I asked. Didn’t she have anything better to do? Like threatening others with death and giving them deadly glares? I could only imagine how many doors and how many alleys … tunnels, or whatever.

  “Only the immediate royal family knows of these tunnels, Princess. My parents, my siblings, and now you,” he smiled.

  I smiled a small smile. But then I remembered, “How about your sister-in-law?”

  “Wives are not supposed to learn of the tunnels until after they bring an heir to their husbands, in case they were intruders.”

  I frowned.

  “But–I’m here, now.” I didn’t bring him an heir, I wasn’t even… Why would he do that?

  He just smiled, but said nothing.

  “What if the palace was attacked? Your sister-in-law could be the first victim!”