Black Keys (The Colorblind Trilogy #1) (22 page)

We believe that we all worship the same God.
Janna’s words found their way to my head, and my fingers found their way to my cross. I held it in my hand and hugged it to my chest, closed my eyes and prayed…just prayed. For God to be with me. And I knew my prayer would be answered just like every other prayer I’d ever prayed.

“We only speak in English in the princess’s presence, Janna. I’d appreciate it if you’d stick to that,” the prince told Janna when she said something to him in Arabic after they finished their prayer, causing me to smile softly.

“Oh, of course,” Janna said. “I’m sorry, Marie.”

“No, it’s fine.”

“I was just asking, why are we praying in the closet?” she asked the prince.

“She’s yet to see any of the other rooms; you know the tradition,” the prince answered with a sigh.

“Oh!” Janna’s eyes were shocked, then they were sad, then ended up with being regretful.

“Uh, what tradition?” I asked.

“The husband is not allowed into any room before his wife,” Janna answered. “It’s a sign of respect.”

Oh!

That’s…nice.

I nodded with another soft smile. I didn’t tell them that it was my first time to see this closet and he has already been in it more than a few times. I didn’t want to upset him…for some reason. But it was really nice of him to respect this little detail of their traditions, even with him knowing that our marriage wasn’t like any other marriage and he didn’t really have to stick to the rules that much with me, or at all. I wasn’t going to judge. Heck, I didn’t know any of it in the first place.

I wasn’t going to judge because I didn’t know…

Was that what the prince had been telling me?
‘Don’t judge without knowledge,’
he had said earlier. Was it true that I didn’t really know anything about Arabs or Muslims and I shouldn’t be judging them to be killers and peace-haters? But…I did know that. I knew enough.

Traps.

Lies.

Games.

Maybe I was learning that a
few
of them were nice, but I still couldn’t trust them. And all of those thoughts–the stupid thoughts–I’d had about the prince should be forgotten. I wasn’t that dumb. I refused to be.

The prince got up from his praying place and offered Janna his hand; she took it and stood up. “Woah!” she said.

“Are you okay?” the prince asked his sister, tightening his grip on her hand.

“Um…I’m not-” Janna sounded out of breath as if she’d just run a mile. “I–uh, I don’t feel–” She wasn’t able to finish her words before suddenly throwing up all over the floor, her dress, and…the prince.

“Janna!” It wasn’t a complaint; it was a concerned call.

I took a step back and looked away, listening to Janna as she gagged and apologized with a faint
‘Sorry.’
The prince hushed her with soothing promises of how
‘Everything will be okay,’
and
‘You’ll feel better now.’

“Mona!”

I thought she would come out of the sunroom since I hadn’t seen her leave it, but she came in through the main bedroom door, informing me silently and without me asking that the sunroom had another door.

Too. Many. Doors.
I groaned internally.

The prince went to the bathroom and I went to my now-favorite spot in front of the window as Mona took care of Janna.

When he came out, he was shirtless.

I swallowed thickly.

All of the thoughts I’d had about him not too long ago came back full force, wondering and admiring. And all of the thoughts about forgetting said thoughts were actually that–forgotten.

He looked mesmerizing.

“Are they still in there?” He pointed to the closet with the now closed door.

“Yeah, I guess Janna is changing or something,” I told him.

I guess you’ll have to stay shirtless for a while… Hmm…

He nodded, moved a hand through his hair and cleared his throat. “Uh…” His words were interrupted by the sound of the closet door opening.

Janna came out without Mona and closed the door behind her. “They are going to clean the floor,” she said with embarrassed eyes.

“They?”

“Mona and Nora – my maid. She brought me my clothes,” Janna said.

Her maid? Where the heck did she come from?

“I’m so sorry, Marie.”

“Hey, Janna, it’s really ok–” I was cut off mid-sentence with the sound of the main bedroom door being opened abruptly and with such force that it jerked back with a loud noise as it hit the wall.

The queen came running in our direction, and the rage in her eyes made me shiver. She was up to no good.

“Mother,” the prince said in greeting, his voice careful and his pose strong but humble.

The queen started screaming in Arabic–yelling words I didn’t think would be nice in anyway. Janna was trembling and tears filled her eyes as she looked down, fear seeping out of her in strong waves.

What’s going on?

“She was just coming to say goodbye with her husband,” the prince said.

The queen started yelling again, her hands flying in the air, her voice laced with venom and anger.

“Mother, she threw up and that was what delayed her. Everything is fine, she’ll go now.”

“I’m not going anywhere with him,” Janna blurted out with a shaky voice.

If I’d thought that the queen’s eyes were filled with rage before, I now thought they were filled with fire, hateful fire. Scary fire.

“Sagtah!” the queen yelled, her hand rising up in the air, ready to strike Janna on the face. I watched with terror as Janna flinched but didn’t move away–as if this was something she was used to, something that happened on a daily basis.

It broke my heart.

She was royal, a princess, the daughter of the king. She was supposed to be spoiled rotten and treated as if she were made of glass–not insulted, humiliated and abused. And even if she weren’t royal, nobody deserved to be treated this way. It was really sad to watch, especially knowing you could do nothing about it. I had to squeeze my eyes shut and turn my head away, because it was the only thing I could do.

The noise that followed wasn’t one coming from a slap, like I had expected; it was the prince’s deep voice, “I told you she was leaving.”

I opened my eyes to find him holding her hand up, just an inch away from Janna’s scared, pained face.

They stayed frozen in this state for several moments, the queen shooting him deadly looks and the prince holding her stare until she put her hand down.

She asked him something and he glanced my way for a second before looking back at her, which made her turn her face in my direction and sneer.

“Mona!” the prince called. “Have Nora take Princess Janna to her wing, and tell her to come to me if
anything
happens,” he said when Mona entered the room, his eyes not leaving his mother’s. It didn’t take a genius to realize that his words held a warning to…the queen.

Wow!

Janna left, using the living room door. I assumed her maid would be following or something, though she didn’t enter the bedroom.

The queen started yelling again, causing the prince to huff and then clench his teeth, replying by shaking his head every once in a while and that was it. Eventually he said, “It’s just a small problem with him that they’ll fix soon; there is no need for all of this.”

The yelling continued and I had to roll my eyes and look away. I had a strong feeling the queen was mental.

Suddenly her shrieking voice stopped, and I turned my head again to see if the prince had shoved his fist in her mouth already to finally shut her up, as I silently hoped.

Her mouth was agape, but there was no fist inside of it as I’d fantasized. Her eyes were wide open and fixed on the prince’s shoulder. She then grabbed the top of his arm and asked a question, her other hand pointing to his less-than-two-day-old wound.

Oh, no!

My mouth went dry.

“It’s, uh…the mirror in the bathroom broke; it caused this. No big deal,” the prince answered the question I now knew for sure was questioning what had caused the wound on his shoulder.

“
Ameer
!” the queen gasped, then spoke in Arabic again.

I wanted to scream.

“No, Mother, I’m not lying. It’s the truth.”

I didn’t like what I was seeing, nor did I like what I was hearing. The prince’s tone was not that strong, rough tone I’d heard him use many times with my brother, his sister and Mona. It sounded like he wasn’t that powerful person at all. And I think that there was some fading trace of panic in his voice.

I hated it.

And I hated the queen for it.

I didn’t understand why he wasn’t stopping her, shutting her up and kicking her out. She was sticking her nose in
our
business and involving herself in things that weren’t hers to ask or even talk about.

I wanted to tell her exactly that. I wanted to scream at her:
‘Shut up!’
that we had had enough, that
I
had had enough of her and her stupid attitude. But I couldn’t.

I just couldn’t.

There was this thing about her…she was scary. Like, really, really scary. I had a strong feeling she could do whatever she wanted to do, and that the
‘whatever she wanted to do’
wasn’t always a good thing. Or ever. Because, since the first time I’d met her at the wedding, she hadn’t seemed nice; she wouldn’t even talk to me. The morning that followed, she threatened me that I’ll see what I won’t find pleasing if I ever hurt her son, and then the prince told me that
‘she wouldn’t be happy’
if she learned about me being forced, that we didn’t want that. Then Janna told me that the queen
‘couldn’t hate her more,’
and right after that she tried to strike her. And now with the prince–the powerful, commanding prince–not daring to tell her to mind her own business…it was just too scary. Clearly, you just couldn’t mess with that woman.

And I hated it more than anything I’d ever hated.

Because no one should be like that, act like that, and just get away with it. On a daily basis. It was sickening.

The queen let go of the prince’s arm with a jerk and turned to look at me. Her eyes would be shooting fire if they could, scaring me even more if that was possible.

“You weren’t a virgin after all.” Bitterness filled her voice. “I knew it!” She threw her hands up in the air, screaming the words in frustration, causing me to flinch and to take a step back.

Even though my gaze was fixed on her, I was able to see from the corner of my eye as the prince gripped his hair with both of his hands–apparently this was something he’d never wanted to have happen.