Chapter 9: Sleep Paralysis
Night crept slowly over Blackwood Academy, bringing with it a suffocating silence and icy air that pierced the thin blankets in Room 204. Iris lay awake on her wooden bed, possessed by a strange sensation crawling through her entire body. Her eyes were wide open, staring at the ceiling shrouded in dark shadows, yet her whole body felt rigid, as though carved from ice.
The paralysis came without warning. She wanted to move her fingers, wanted to cry out Clara’s name from the bed beside her, but her vocal cords seemed tightly locked by an unseen force.
Trapped in a state of consciousness between sleep and wakefulness, the air inside the room suddenly grew unbearably dense. The temperature plummeted, and frost slowly crept across the windowpane. From the dark corner of the room, a tall silhouette in a black suit moved closer, stepping soundlessly across the creaking wooden floor.
The shadow floated up over Iris’s bed.
In an instant, a heavy, cold yet intoxicating weight pressed down on Iris’s body with absolute force. Mr. Zephyr’s broad chest pressed mercilessly against hers, imprisoning every inch of her movement and stealing the last traces of oxygen from her lungs. Iris gasped silently, her eyes widening in terror as stifled desire caught in her throat.
“You looked at me with such defiance in the atelier this afternoon, Miss Francesca,” whispered a deep, trembling baritone in her ear, so close that the maestro’s cold breath brushed the heated skin of her cheek. “But look at you now... helpless beneath my power.”
“Mmm...” Iris moaned soundlessly inside her head, struggling against the stiffness in her body.
Mr. Zephyr bent lower, cupping the side of Iris’s face with a palm cold as ice. The touch sent an electric jolt burning through every nerve in her body, creating an astonishing contrast between their vastly different body temperatures.
“I told you...” the man whispered, his lips nearly brushing Iris’s earlobe and making her entire body shudder violently. “...you can’t hide from me, not even in your darkest dream.”
Iris lifted her face as far as she could, allowing her eyes to lock onto the maestro’s dark, gleaming gaze in the dimness of night. Absolute possession filled that stare—a dark dominance demanding total surrender.
And then Mr. Zephyr lowered his head.
For the first time, amid the terrifying sleep paralysis, those cold lips landed directly on Iris’s. The kiss came with devastating intensity—cold as eternal snow, yet scorching her skin with such profound passion. Iris felt a sweet, poisonous sensation mingled with tobacco and sandalwood spread through her mouth, dissolving the last remnants of her resistance in an instant. The kiss was so real, so demanding, sucking every remaining breath from Iris’s lungs until she felt her world spinning wildly.
Gasp!
Iris gasped sharply, waking at once from the grip of sleep paralysis. She sat up on the bed, breathing in ragged gulps, her chest rising and falling wildly as cold sweat dampened her temples.
With violently trembling fingers, she touched her own lips. The sweet taste of tobacco and the chill of that touch still lingered there, vivid upon her senses, proving that what had just happened was not merely a midnight nightmare.
Clara slept soundly in the opposite bed, completely unaware of the storm of emotions that had just subsided in the room.
Still breathing hard, Iris slowly threw off her heavy blanket to recover herself. But when her gaze dropped to her feet, her heart stopped once again.
Wrapped perfectly around her right ankle was a bluish icy mark shaped like the imprint of fingers—a tangible trace of the grip from the long night she had just endured.