Chapter 5: The Mysterious Man
Iris's body went rigid, trapped within an absolute, inescapable confinement. Her breath caught in her throat, racing wildly with the pounding of her heart against her ribs, in rhythm with the roar of the night wind through a shattered window somewhere in the distance. Held in those strong arms, she could no longer feel the cold of the night at Blackwood Academy. Instead, a strange wave of heat scorched every inch of her skin from the points where their bodies touched without an inch between them.
Her sense of smell was instantly overwhelmed by a powerful scent that filled her lungs until she felt almost drunk. The deep, sacred aroma of old sandalwood blended perfectly with the mysterious, masculine fragrance of cold tobacco. The scent was so distinctive, so deeply woven into the dark history of this building, that it seeped into Iris's blood and paralyzed the last remnants of her common sense.
The touch of warm, heavy breath brushed against Iris's exposed neck. Her skin broke out in violent gooseflesh—not from fear, but from a sharp, tingling jolt of pleasure. The pulse in her neck leaped wildly, beating so hard it seemed to push its way out from beneath her skin, begging to be touched.
"Your scent..." The baritone voice vibrated low beside her ear, so close that the man's vocal cords seemed to send their vibrations through the air and caress the skin of Iris's neck. "...so sweet for a creature that should have already run screaming through these gates."
Iris swallowed with difficulty, her throat dry as dust. That voice was more than merely a voice; it possessed weight, a physical presence that pressed against Iris's soul until she felt utterly naked before the darkness.
"Who... who are you, really?" Iris stammered, her voice sounding so fragile and pleading amid the silence of the corridor. She tried to summon the last of her strength to resist this enchantment. "Why do you keep following me? What do you want from me?"
The man did not answer at once. His arm tightened around her waist, applying such possessive pressure that it seemed to confirm Iris had been rightfully his from the very first day she set foot on this cursed ground. His cold fingers slowly stroked beneath her coat, tracing the curve of Iris's waist with a touch so practiced it kindled desire.
"I'm not following you, Iris," the voice whispered, growing ever more intoxicating, its invisible lips seeming to graze the strands of hair beside her ear. "I'm merely welcoming what was destined to become mine a century ago."
"I belong to no one!" Iris protested in a trembling voice, even as her body softened and leaned more heavily against the man's broad chest. "I came here by my own choice, not to become a captive of the shadows!"
"Choice?" A low hum followed, mocking yet steeped in an intoxicating tenderness. "You call fleeing from the outside world a choice? Deep in your heart, your dark soul has been calling to me ever since you first saw this academy's tower."
Before Iris could answer that provocation with another word, something strange suddenly occurred around them.
The white fog that had been thickly coiling around their feet like a ghost's grasp suddenly spun rapidly, forming a small vortex. Within seconds, all the fog along the corridor was sucked into the air and vanished, as though drawn away by the breath of the mysterious man standing before her.
The man leaned his face closer, erasing the last distance between them. The chill radiating from his body mingled with the wave of Iris's heated desire, creating such intense physical tension that her vision began to swim.
"Open your eyes, Iris..." the man whispered one last time, his voice so urgent and intoxicating it overwhelmed her common sense. "...and feel what it's like to live within my immortality."
Driven by burning curiosity and unbearable desire, Iris instinctively turned her head to the side, trying to force her retinas through the darkness and see the face behind that deadly voice.
But the room was empty.
In the split second it took Iris to turn, the arm around her waist miraculously loosened. The man in the black suit had simply evaporated into thin air, leaving a sudden, chilling emptiness at Iris's side. There was no shadow, no footprint—only traces of sandalwood and cold tobacco still drifting faintly through the air, along with the searing heat left around her waist, as though those cold fingers were still truly gripping her skin.
"No... don't go!" Iris cried softly, groping at the empty space before her as she struggled for breath.
She stood alone in the middle of the corridor, now silent once more and bright with reflected moonlight. When she lowered her gaze, Iris realized that something had been left in her open palm.
An antique pocket watch made of old copper lay there. It gleamed with an elegant, dull metallic luster. What sent a shiver of both terror and fascination through Iris's blood was the watch's hands—they were not moving forward but ticking steadily backward, while its cover glass slowly misted with fresh beads of condensation, like living blood that had just dripped.