The strange ring

Lola P.O.V

The strange experience I had for the past few hours left me feeling dizzy. Perhaps being pushed, I fell to the floor. I huddled in the corner, watching the doctor, the owner, the servants—all of them constantly changing and flickering in front of me.

They were all circling around Ragnar. The unfamiliar environment kept my nerves on edge, and I spent the whole time cowering in the corner. Soon Ragnar was taken out, and together everyone left with him.

The bedroom was finally quiet. This kind of quietness relaxed my tense nerves.

I struggled to lift my numb left hand. I had a hunch that my hand was now a bloody mess. I was really in pain, and I wanted the doctor to tend my wound too.

But I knew that the doctors here wouldn’t care about me, even if my injury was inflicted by Ragnar. No one would ever be concerned about me. In fact, any of my needs were absurd.

I really wanted to go back. My forehead was now against my knees. I really wanted to go back.

Despite the searing pain in my hand, I realized, as time passed, the pain began to fade away, and I was soon overcome by drowsiness.

I rested my forehead on my knees, yearning to escape this strange place. I sat there for a long time, my mind foggy with exhaustion, until I finally drifted off to sleep.

I didn’t know how much time had passed when I was abruptly woken by a rough banging on the door. Startled, I opened my eyes, only to find that the sun had already risen.

When I was about to get up and open the door, it was pushed open. An elderly maid led two servants and pointed at me in the corner. She then said, in an emotionless tone,

“Take her away.”

Before I could grasp the situation, the two servants pulled me out from the corner and hauled me toward the door.

“Hey, what are you doing? Let me go!” I shouted, struggling against their grasp.

The two of them ignored my scream and continued to drag me downstairs to the living room. There were at least five people there, and that included Ragnar’s mother, Evelyn, who was seated in the middle. She was the current Queen Alpha.

In front of her stood a woman adorned in a billowing gown of the purest white. I believed the rest of them were the elders of the Silverfang family.

The two servants hauled me forward and flung me to the floor before the queen. My teeth gnashed together in agony as I landed with a thud.

With a steely gaze, the queen fixed her eyes upon me, and then turned to the woman in front of her.

“My dear witch, look at her and tell me—is this not Calista, the precious daughter from the Frostbane family?”

With a subtle nod from the lead servant, Agnes, the other two servants moved in closer and roughly lifted my chin upwards.

The witch studied me intently for a moment before turning to the queen and speaking in a measured tone,

“Your Majesty, without a doubt this is she. The energy emanating from her body is a match for that of the Emerald’s army. Furthermore, Miss Calista has been seen at public events in the past, and this girl bears a striking resemblance to the photos taken on those occasions.”

The witch concluded her assessment and motioned for her assistant to pass over Calista’s photo. As the queen glanced at the photo with a furrowed brow, she lashed out in frustration,

“Yes, yes, she looks the same as this girl in the photo, but you said they were destined to be together! You said she was the key to saving my son’s life! So why did Ragnar fall ill on the very first night?”

“Your Majesty, this…” The witch couldn’t come up with an answer. As I observed the witch’s perplexed countenance from the floor, a wry smile involuntarily spread across my lips.

How foolish these people were, unable to discern that I was not Calista.

“Talk to me, witch!”

The queen was gripped by a mix of anxiety and anger. “You’ve been insisting that my son should develop feelings and fall in love with her before he can rightfully claim to have found his mate!”

But the queen paced toward me, coming to a halt right in front of me. Gazing down at me, she continued in a cutting tone,

“How can my son possibly harbor any feelings for a creature such as her? How can he ever love her? If you have an answer, then by all means do show me!”

With a powerful shove, the queen pushed me toward the witch, and I hit her chest hard, causing me to feel dizzy with pain.

At this moment, I couldn’t care less about the pain. Everything felt like a dream, and I even wondered if everything that happened the previous night was a trick played by the Silverfang family to torment me.

Perhaps Ragnar was a healthy person, and he was never sick. He didn’t even bite me on my hand the night before.

As I thought about the wound on my hand from the previous night, it started to ache again. I knew how terrible I looked at the moment, with my messy hair and disheveled clothes.

I must look like a mad woman. It was no wonder the queen would make such a remark about me.

“So what should we do about her, Your Majesty?” asked Agnes.

“What do you think? Let’s just get rid of this trouble,” replied Agnes, gesturing to the other two servants. “Take off the ring on her hand.”

The two alert young servants quickly grabbed my hand, attempting to take the ring off my ring finger.

“Hey, what are you doing?!” I protested and shouted in anger as I struggled to free myself.

Being gazed at me expressionlessly, the queen said,

“You have already entered the Silverfang family and have seen my son’s illness. Therefore, you can never return to the Frostbane family.”

“What do you mean? What are you going to do with me?”

I stared at her in fear. I saw Ragnar’s illness. Did she mean the way he looked when he was sick the previous night? But the bedroom was pitch black, and I didn’t see anything.

“Right now, you have two options. First, choose something from this tray to end your own life.”

The queen beckoned, and a maid came in carrying a tray. To my horror, I saw a gun, sleeping pills, and a fruit knife on the tray. I instinctively stepped back and asked,

“What’s the second option?”

“The second option is to go to the airport tomorrow morning. Someone will take you to another place where your daily needs will be taken care of.”

I finally understood that they intended to imprison me in a remote place and ensure that I could never return.

“Ragnar, you are ruthless,” I thought to myself.

I shook off the servants’ hands angrily and hissed, “I’ll do it myself.”

It was a beautiful ring, made of gold, embedded with a round shiny black stone. The ring had a unique and attractive design, as if it was bought from an antique store.

When the witch put the ring on my ring finger the previous night, I couldn’t help admiring its beauty and uniqueness silently. But before I could even get used to it, I had to take it off.

Of course, it belonged to the Silverfang family, and I had no interest in keeping it anyway.

“Do you really have to take off this ring?” Zoe suddenly spoke up when I was pulling the ring off my finger.

“I don’t want you to take off this ring. Why?”

I continued to work on taking off the ring. “Zoe, we should have some self-respect. We don’t need this stupid ring.”

But as I held my breath and pulled hard, the ring remained stuck on my finger no matter how hard I pulled.

Maybe seeing that I couldn’t take it off, Zoe spoke again in a soft voice,

“Why don’t you just leave it on, Lola? This ring gave me a comforting feeling. For some reason, a comforting feeling…”

As I was struggling to remove the ring, Agnes noticed my predicament and instructed a servant to fetch soap water.

However, even after drenching my hand in it, the ring remained stubbornly fixed on my finger.