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The sound of the hinge opening sounds like Pandora’s Box snapping open, and basically, all shit breaks loose as the sound scares the crap out of me. My hand wavers again, and my phone goes clattering to the floor. I have a big case on it, so it’s unharmed, but the noise is violent. Meryl lets out a shriek and flails in surprise. Her hand hits the ring box, which sends it flying. The box goes bouncing down the stairs, hitting just about every step on its way down. Somehow, it comes to a stop right at the bottom, lid facing up, the ring sitting on its cushion just like a tiny little egg in the middle of a nest, miraculously spared from the kind of fall that should have cracked its shell and spilled out all its insides.
I think fast, snatching up my phone and tucking it away. I have my cleaning rag, and I clear my throat like I just got there and haven’t been standing at the bottom of the steps the whole time, eavesdropping madly.
I snatch the box up and look up the stairs.
“Uh, I…Elisa? That’s your name, right?” Ash leans over the top. He’s all chiseled features, a shock of jet-black hair, and piercing blue eyes, which makes my insides do something very strange.
Including my brain. A brain blip. That’s what it does. Because the box is open, and that ring with the ornate gold setting and big diamond in the middle surrounded by all those little diamonds is…I don’t know. This is going to sound crazy, but it’s like it calls to me with all its pretty, shiny diamond and gold glory. I don’t think. Instead, I just react as one hand plucks it out while the other hand is already flexing, my fingers straightening. My brain just short circuits itself straight out, and there is nothing but pleasant and peaceful silence in my head.
However, it is abruptly shattered by this weird pounding, like drummers drumming, and then a scream like the wail of a thousand ghosts all joined in a ghostly choir at some bizarre church in my head, with chanters chanting, urges urging, and my blood surging. Put it on. Put it on. Put it on.
So, I do. I slip it straight onto my left hand, onto my ring finger.
And what do you know? It’s a perfect fit.
CHAPTER 2
Ash
Holy, epic, cursed shit. She put the ring on. Onto her finger. She’s wearing the cursed soulmate ring!
“Elisa,” I hear myself snap. My voice sounds a lot like my frayed nerves at the moment—raw and ready to go straight over the edge. “Take it off right now!”
“It’s cursed!” Meryl screeches. “Get it off! Oh god, get it off before something happens to you.”
I thought neither of us believed in it being cursed but listen to us now.
Elisa studies us from the bottom of the stairs, where she has this trance-like expression on her face. It’s a pretty face, even with all the blankness going on. She doesn’t smile or frown or react at all. Her eyes are an abnormal shade of…of…what the fuck? Are her eyes supposed to be that blue? They’re like melting ice, the depths of the sea, and a strange aquamarine. They’re also permanently fixed open, staring forward.
Meryl gasps from beside me. “Oh shit. She’s in a trance. It’s eating her soul. That ring really is cursed! Ash, we have to help her. Now!” Meryl takes off down the stairs, gripping the railing to keep from toppling on those crazy heels she has on. She must seriously like them because I’ve never seen her in anything else.
Why the hell am I thinking about heels when that ring might be devouring my maid’s soul?
I race down the winding staircase after my fake fiancé to be, and we both stop when we reach Elisa, who hasn’t moved and is still looking up at the top of the stairs. I can see her chest rising and falling. Thank god. But her eyes. I’m pretty damn sure her eyes are not supposed to be that color. Her full coral lips are parted ever so slightly in surprise. She has a pretty olive undertone to her skin, but two pink spots still make themselves known on her cheeks. With a heart-shaped face and an absolute riot of mahogany hair with rich copper highlights, she’s quite pretty.
You know, if it wasn’t for the fact that her eyes are doing this weird thing that makes her look like she could produce alien babies out of them from another dimension.
“She’s not moving!” Meryl snaps her fingers in front of Elisa’s face. “Oh my god, she’s not…she’s not responding. She’s just frozen there.”
Fear sinks itself like a bird of prey into my flesh, and goosebumps break out all over my skin. I’m wearing a t-shirt, and as per usual, my t-shirt and jeans are paint-stained since I was working on an art piece before Meryl got here. I didn’t change because she knows I’m an artist and doesn’t mind seeing me all paint-spattered. She always looks immaculate, but she has no expectations that I have to be the same way behind closed doors. Ours isn’t a real relationship, so she technically has zero expectations from me at all. The only thing she wants is a nice smile and a fake front whenever other people are watching, which is pretty much whenever I exit the house.
