Black Keys Chapter 10

SM) owns Twilight.

(CozItRunsInMyBlood) owns the plot.

(RobzBeanie) is a lifesaver and she beta this.

(GrandeDame) is my soul-mate and per-reader.

Chapter 10

Isabella Marie

I swallowed thickly.

I wasn't expecting that, at all. I didn't expect that I'd see him again so soon. And thinking about it, I really hadn't thought about seeing him again. Not like I thought I'd never see him ever again; I knew he was around somewhere, but I didn't think about what would happen when we met.

And now that it had happened, and he wanted to meet with me … my blood ran cold just thinking about it. Something that just a few days ago, if someone had told me I'd feel that way about seeing my own brother, I would've called them nuts.

My heartbeat sped up; something that had happened to me more times than I'd like to admit since I’d come here. And I didn't like the feeling. Not for a second.

I took a deep breath, trying to calm myself down. It didn't work.

I let it out, thinking that my heartbeat would slow down a bit. It didn't work.

I repeated it, again. Still, no use.

"Sign the fucking papers, you selfish bitch!"

"Princess?" I felt a hand brushing mine, and automatically I flinched away, holding my hand to my chest and staring at him with eyes that were tingling with uninvited tears, tears that were fighting with me to be shed.

"Are you okay?" he asked in a low voice, his eyes pitying me; it was so obvious.

I hated it.

A tear falling was my answer.

The prince got up, motioning to Mona with his head to leave, which she did after a nod of her head, then he kneeled in front of me, his green eyes full of concern and never-ending shades of sadness.

It was the same pose my brother had taken when he pleaded with me to sign my soul to the … prince.

"You're so fucking selfish, Marie. I can't even find a word for your selfishness!"

"Princess, you don't have to do anything you don't want to do," the prince said quietly, his voice barely above a whisper.

He knew what I was thinking. He knew the thoughts in my head were eating away at my soul. He knew I was disturbed by the request Mona had just delivered. He knew that it wasn't something that I wanted to do.

But, it needed to be done. I'd have to meet with him sooner or later. And I knew I’d better do it now.

"It's seems like it's all I've been doing lately," I told him, and he waited for me to continue, so I did. ''Everything that I don't want to do."

He hung his head, his eyes that had just been looking up at me with so much tenderness now gone. For some stupid reason, I wanted to move my hand through his hair, and remove that look I saw flashing in his eyes when I spoke the words along with it.

I didn't do it. I only wiped my tears away, held my head high and then I announced, "I'm going to meet with my brother."

~BK~

The toughness with which I tried to fill my insides was nothing but a fake dream that I couldn't force to come true, no matter how hard I tried.

I was a shaking mess.

Still, I knew I could do it. I just had to do it. Maybe he was here because he knew of his mistake and the wrong he had done against me. Maybe he was here to offer me a way out. Maybe he was here to take me back home.

I hoped ….

"I'll be in the sunroom," the prince informed me once I was ready to see my brother.

I nodded hesitantly, but once he turned around to leave I felt as if the room was spinning. I stopped him, "Wait!" and he did.

"I, uh, I don't want to meet with him in here," I admitted. "Please, I know it's too much to ask, but I c-can't." My voice was shaking and my lips were trembling, unshed tears tingling in my eyes and hitched breaths caught in my throat.

I couldn't imagine myself meeting with him here again. It brought back the darkest memory in my whole life, the memory of my brother holding a gun – a gun that was pointed toward my head and ready to be used.

I couldn't breathe normally.

"Hey, hey," the prince whispered after he hurriedly took the two steps that parted us and stood right in front of me. It seemed like his hand was just about to caress my cheek but he thought better of it and moved it away immediately, maybe thinking about how I had shrugged the very same hand away not ten minutes ago. Little did he know that I was desperate to feel anything a nice caress on the cheek would offer, anything of the warmth and tenderness I knew his touch would make me feel, anything to replace the fear and panic that were filling my heart. Anything. Anything, at all.

"It's not too much to ask, it's not," he told me. "You won't see him here, you won't," he assured me, his hand touching my arm softly, his touch barely there as if he was still afraid I'd push it away. "You won't break the rules if you meet with your brother in any room that is connected to this room. Don't worry about it, Princess, don't worry about it."

I was grateful. It meant so much to me that I wouldn't have Jasper here in the same place where he’d destroyed me with his words and his actions, and killed a part of my soul along with it. I attempted to smile at the prince, but it came out more like a grimace. I kept avoiding his gaze; I couldn't bear his looks of sympathy that I knew would be there. I looked pathetic, I sounded pathetic, and I really was pathetic.

I nodded a few times, wiping my tears and whispering a, "Thank you."

"Call Mona whenever you're ready and tell her that you'll meet him in any room you choose, okay?"

Another nod and a deep breath.

He squeezed my arms tenderly in assurance and smiled sadly at me before he left to the sunroom, closing the mirror-door behind him.

I was supposed to call Mona and tell her I'd be meeting with him in whatever room, but I just stood still, frozen in place, not doing anything. Just the thought of the two of us alone in a room freaked the heck out of me. I found myself staring at the main door of the room, then glancing at the sunroom's door and staring at it as well, only to go back to staring at the main door and doing it all over again. It was seriously frustrating.

With heavy steps, I made my way to the door I knew would help me ease my anxiety and cool it down a notch. What I didn't know was the reason why my heart had decided that the prince's company would help me kick the worry away.

I held my pulled-into-a-fist hand up, and with my knuckles I knocked twice, as softly as I could, while biting down on my bottom lip. I felt like a little girl, going to her parents’ room in hopes that her parents would agree to her request to let her spend the night with them, or even come to her room and sleep beside her so she could go safely back to sleep knowing that they'd protect her from the boogieman.

He said a word in Arabic, thinking that it was Mona who was knocking, and I didn't know if the word meant that it was okay to come in, or if it was requesting me to stay out, so … I knocked again.

When he opened the door, there was a frown on his face, and a look of confusion in his eyes appeared when he saw me, an easily readable expression of worry covering his features.

"I can't do it alone," I blurted out, voice breaking.

Another sad smile tugged on his lips, and a nod was his only response. He stepped out of the room and offered me his hand. I took it. He walked me a few steps closer to the main door and then called Mona. No questions asked.

~BK~

The troubled feelings inside of me prevented me from admiring the beauty of the room we were now standing in. Simply, it was ridiculously big, with more than two sets of matching armchairs along with their matching couches and small coffee tables. It was filled with beautiful decorations and curtains that surrounded the whole place. There was a huge flat screen that dominated one of the walls and thick carpets that my heels kept digging into covered 

most of the marble floor.

In a different time, I would've gaped at the beauty of the room for 

hours and hours, but that wouldn't happen now, and if my brother was coming here to take me home like I hoped – it would never happen at all.

I couldn't sit down while we waited for Jasper like the prince had advised me to do. I just stood there, fumbling with my hands while my eyes fixed somewhere on the floor and sometimes on the wall opposite me.

"It's going to be okay," the prince's voice startled me and I jumped slightly.

He was right in front of me in a second, looking straight into my eyes and telling me again, "It's going to be okay, Princess," he assured me, his beautiful garden of eyes forcing me to believe him. They were just really honest and only inches away from mine.

A very small smile found its way to my lips and drew itself on them as I stared into the prince's confident green. He smiled back at me but the smile died less than a moment later when I heard a door being opened behind me, pushing my own barely-existing smile away with it.

"Please, come in," Mona's voice called. I didn't dare to turn around; I kept my eyes fixed on the prince's eyes, the eyes which were no longer fixed on me, but somewhere above my shoulder.

His gaze darkened, filling with anger, and a sneer showed up on his face. It scared me. His head was held high, and he stood tall, his posture changing from softness and tenderness to toughness and sharpness.

I found myself taking a half step back as I kept my eyes staring at his filled-with-rage ones.

It confused me that his eyes softened again for a split second before changing just as fast to shoot deadly glares to whoever was standing behind me.

"Prince Mazen." My brother's greeting made me take a step forward to the prince.

My chest ached.

"Marie."

My heart swelled.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, trying my hardest to control the burning in my eyes as a new round of tears formed in them at the sound of Jasper's voice.

Slowly, I turned around, finding myself moving to stand half-behind the prince and taking his hand in mine, using his tall frame to shield me from my brother.

My throat tightened.

My own actions confused me; I couldn't understand how I could, always, find comfort and safety in the prince's closeness. I wondered why I found the protection I craved right behind his body and why I took him – of all people – as a shield, from my brother, at that.

Full of strange feelings and mixed emotions, my head was pounding already, and I'd yet to glance my brother's way.

When I did glance at him, worry consumed me at first, seeing that my only-family-left sported a black eye. I held in a gasp when I reminded myself of what he had done and how he didn't deserve my worry over him. He didn't worry about me, after all.

For a few moments, there were no words spoken, just glares from the prince and panicked peeking from myself. Jasper, on the other hand, was completely ignoring him; his eyes were only looking at me, not moving, speaking silent words of things I didn't want to think about. Maybe he looked remorseful about what he had done, but that didn't fix anything. The only thing that would ever fix what he’d done was if he’d take me back home – and even then, it wouldn't mean I'd forgive him, not slightly easy to even think about it.

What made me even more upset was how he looked down at the prince's and my joined hands and then dared to smile sweetly while looking at me, as if he thought it meant that I’d magically fallen in love with the prince or something. Didn't he know how messed up that situation was? How I was holding the prince's hand only for protection because his actions made me fear him like I had never feared anyone before? Didn't he know that he was the very first reason, the very only reason why I was scared at all, or holding a stranger's hand at all, seeking safety that my brother couldn't offer me, that my own brother took away from me, ripped from me?

I wanted to scream at him, my fear turning into anger, but before I could say anything I heard a growl coming from the prince.

"Mona! Why you didn't say that she was with him?"

It was only then that I noticed the form standing beside Jasper. Alice.

"I, uh, I –"

"Silence!" It was a yell that made me lose my grip on his hand.

It scared me.

"Get her out of my sight," the prince commanded. This time his eyes were on Alice before he turned around, facing away from her.

The next thing I knew, Alice was running towards us and kneeling to the floor right behind the prince. Her light green dress that was similar to mine surrounded her form in a circle of its soft material. She touched both of his legs, her head hanging down as she bowed, her tears flowing like rivers as she spoke words I couldn't understand – but it didn't take a genius to know that she was begging.

But for what?

I stood there gaping at the sight in front of me with a stunned expression, not knowing why he was doing that to his sister. I knew from what he’d said yesterday that he loved her very much – he was ready to give up his own life for her. Why would he act like that towards her now? What did she do to deserve such treatment?

Games.

Lies.

Traps.

"You lost that right when you decided to give up my honor and your family's and put it in the dirt, Alica," the prince said through clenched teeth, still facing away from her while she still gripped his legs for dear life. "I can't even bear the thought of looking at you!"

She kept begging and crying, and only I was able to see the expression on his face from where I was standing. It was a pained one. But why? If it was painful for him to say those hurtful words to his sister, then why was he saying them?

"Not in this lifetime," he replied, and it sent her into another round of wails and cries.

Jasper's hands came to her shoulders and he brought her up on her feet, holding her to his chest where she buried her head and cried into it while his hand soothed and moved over her long hair that was laced with hair jewelry, shushing her with whispers and words of love.

My heart ached at the sight in front of me. I remembered not that long ago when I was doing the same thing she was doing. I was crying, wailing and begging, asking for mercy and another chance to feel my brother's love. I found none. I had no one to comfort me like she had my own brother and her own beloved husband to soothe her; I had absolutely no one.

I struggled more with the tears I didn't want him to see, because I was tired of feeling as weak as I was, tired of not finding a shoulder to cry on, tired of being the miserable one with no way out of this freaking palace. I was tired of being this new me, the one with absolutely no power over her surroundings.

I felt for Alice. A little. But I envied her, as well. She had someone while I had no one. And I wished she appreciated the blessings she was showered with.

Finally, the prince turned around and looked at them, "You had something to say, Jaser?"

Why was he calling him Jaser? Why was Mona calling him Jaser? I’d thought Mona couldn't pronounce it, but how could the prince not be able to? He’d lived in England for years. What was going on?

Jasper cleared his throat. "Uh, I just wanted to say goodbye to my sister before I leave with my wife.

~BK~