Knock Knock
“Come now, frère. I killed the lights, not your courage.”
— Bryan
I didn’t mean to sleep. But there’s this line your body crosses—not when it’s safe, not when it’s calm, but when it’s simply too tired to keep up the illusion. That brittle, high-wire kind of exhaustion that doesn’t give you peace. Just gravity. And eventually, even fear has to blink.
I remember the moment I lost the fight. It wasn’t soft. It wasn’t surrender. It was survival giving up her last cigarette and saying, “Fine. Five minutes.”
Rhys was already there. He didn’t speak. Didn’t shift. Didn’t try to coax me down into his arms like I was something breakable. No, he just held me—silent, patient, steady. One arm around my back like a barrier against the dark, the other spread over my belly, his palm broad and warm, thumb tracing slow, idle loops that synced with the rhythm of my heartbeat like he was trying to remind me it was still there. That I was still there. He didn’t pull me closer. He anchored me.
And I—I think I let him. Just a little. Not because I felt safe. That word hadn’t applied to me in a long time. But because something in him didn’t flinch when I couldn’t offer comfort in return. Because he didn’t demand softness to stay.
My dreams didn’t ease. Of course they didn’t. My mind doesn’t do gentle. It just replays things—warped, too loud, too close. I must’ve twitched. I remember gripping something in my sleep, maybe the blanket, maybe his shirt. Maybe nothing. Just the way your hands curl when you’re trying to hold onto yourself.
And still, he didn’t move.
That’s what killed me. That someone like him—Rhys Llewellyn, ruthless, feared, mythologized—could be this still. This deliberate. His breath low and even, his strength reined in to the edges of a whisper. All for me. Not to possess. Not to restrain. Just to be there.
I felt his lips against my temple. Just barely. The brush of a vow too quiet to echo.
“I’ll still be here when you wake, Jasmine Llewellyn. Let the storm come.”
God. The way he said my name—like it meant something. Like he’d carved it into the bones of his patience and bled for every letter.
Outside, the wind started rising. I remember that part too. That sick little shiver the world gives before it breaks. The groan of trees thinking about falling. The first taps of rain like a warning, soft and unassuming, as if the sky hadn’t decided yet whether to sob or scream.
But I didn’t startle.
Because Rhys didn’t. He didn’t check the door. Didn’t look to the windows. Didn’t play protector with bravado and biceps. He didn’t need to. His stillness was protection. His presence was the barricade. Because he wasn’t holding a woman. He was holding me. And that man—the one who waited with me, counted heartbeats with me, touched me like prayer and spoke to the dark like he owned it—that man was mine.
Even if I hadn’t chosen sleep. Even if I hadn’t said a word. Even if I woke up clawing through dreams I couldn’t shake.
He’d still be there. Watching. Waiting. Burning. And when the monsters came, they wouldn’t find me undefended. Not anymore.
2:52 AM. The cyclone was throwing an absolute tantrum. Winds howled like they were mourning something, rain slammed sideways against the windows, and somewhere deep in the night, the world felt like it was trying to tear itself apart from the edges inward.
I woke up with a sharp inhale, heart in my throat, the bed beside me cold.
A violent gust hit the side of the house so hard I genuinely thought a wall might give way. Then—bang. Not thunder. Not roof tiles. Something closer. Heavier.
My phone buzzed on the night stand. I grabbed it instinctively.
Rhys (encrypted): Checking something by the back treeline. Stay inside. Doors locked. Don’t wake Elara. I’ll text when I’m back inside.
I didn’t question it. Not the code. Not the message. Not him. The signature line checked out. Encrypted, timestamped. It looked exactly like any of the emergency protocols we’d rehearsed. And Rhys didn’t play with protocol. If he said stay put, I stayed. That was the deal. So I waited. Clenched the blanket tighter around me, swallowed the rising tightness in my throat, and stared into the storm beyond the glass. The lights flickered once. Just for a second. Enough to make me hold my breath. Then… nothing. No footsteps. No door. No second message. I texted back.
Me: You good?
I stared at the screen. The storm screamed louder. Rain pelted the windows like it was trying to etch warnings into the glass. Five minutes. Nothing. Ten. And that was when the itch started. That slow crawl beneath my skin. Not panic. Not quite. Just instinct shifting gears. My survival mode, the one that had kept me alive too many times to ignore, leaning forward with narrowed eyes and a low, warning growl in its gut.
I threw off the blanket, feet hitting the cold floor with a wince, and padded into the hallway. Every step was slow. Quiet. Careful. No creaking. No voices.
Then—He walked in.
Not from the treeline. Not from outside. From the opposite side of the house. From the direction of the guest bedroom. Gun in hand. Body alert. Eyes already scanning the hallway.
My breath caught.
“You just came in?” I asked, voice thin, uncertain. My fingers clenched harder around my phone.
He looked at me. Confused. Brow furrowed.
“You said you were outside.”
And right there—that was the moment. The freeze. The stillness. The micro-expression that told me everything I needed to know.
He hadn’t sent that message. He hadn’t left the house.
My phone buzzed again. Same number. Same encryption. Same signature.
Rhys (encrypted): Too late.
And then—darkness. The lights died with a final flicker, and the house dropped into pitch black. No hum. No glow. No illusion of safety.
Just me. My heartbeat. And whatever the fuck was already inside.
I saw it on his face. That rare, razor-sharp tension that made Rhys look more like a war about to detonate than a man. Something primal in me bristled. Survival instinct? Gut feeling? Or maybe it was just the way his voice dropped into that low, spine-slicing register that made everything in the room feel like it was holding its breath.
“What are you talking about?”
It wasn’t a question. Not really. More like a warning dressed up in syllables. And I knew—I knew—before I even turned the screen toward him. His name. His encryption stamp. A message he didn’t send.
Oh fuck no.
And then the lights died. Just—gone. Like someone snapped their fingers and carved the world in half. The air changed. Thick, tense, electric. The kind of silence you only hear right before something ends.
“Back—get back into the bedroom, now.”
He was on me in two strides, a blur of heat and muscle and ruthless control, grabbing my wrist like the world might rip apart if he let go.
And for once, I didn’t argue. Didn’t sass. Just let him drag me through the dark like we were dancing with ghosts.
“Elara,” he snapped into the comm. Nothing. Not even static. Just that same thick, perfect silence.
Outside, the storm howled like it had teeth. Wind thrashed against the windows, but inside? Inside, everything was still. No doors. No broken locks. No glass. Not even a damn creak of a floorboard. And that was the part that made my stomach flip.
Because he didn’t break in. He waited. Like he always fucking promised. And now… he was here.
Rhys pushed me behind him, hard. Not cruel. Not careless. Just necessary. Like if anything touched me before he handled it, the world could burn and he’d still blame himself. He braced against the wall, body coiled, gun raised. And his voice—
“Jasmine. He’s in the house.”
That should’ve broken me. Should’ve ripped a scream right out of my throat and left me shaking. But it didn’t. Because I knew. Of course I fucking knew. This wasn’t random. This was designed. The timing. The message. The storm. He picked this night on purpose.
What he didn’t pick? Was me.
He didn’t count on what it would cost to come crawling out of the dark again. Didn’t know the girl he stalked in shadows had grown claws. Or that the man standing between us wasn’t going to let him walk away breathing. And if he did know? Then I hope he brought a body bag. Because tonight, someone was going to die. And it sure as hell wasn’t going to be me.
Silence. Not the kind nature leaves behind. Not the hush after thunder or the pause before lightning. No—this was different. The kind of silence that felt designed. Precise. Measured. Like someone had vacuumed all the sound from the air with a scalpel and left nothing but intent behind.
Rhys was already moving. One breath. One shift of muscle. Gun drawn. Shoulders squared. Eyes narrowing like he could hear thoughts instead of footsteps. His whole body recalibrated in real time. No fear. Just mathematics. I felt the change in him before he took a single step—the gravitational shift that meant the world had just gone tactical. His breathing slowed, deliberate and quiet, and I knew without asking: he was already counting the angles. Exit points. Ricochet risk. Blind spots.
My brain tried to keep up. But the pounding in my ears wasn’t helping.
The solar system was still humming faintly—that deep, muted tone of something still working—but it wasn’t the power Bryan had cut. It was the house itself. He’d gone after the internal circuits. A direct strike. A surgical one.
Rhys reached the bedroom door, locked it, then pulled me in so fast I barely caught my breath. My face landed against the centre of his chest as he angled us into position—his body shielding mine, his back to the wall near the far window. I could feel the tension in him, electric and anchored, like a drawn bow that didn’t shake.
And then—I heard it.
At first, just the storm. The mad, ragged howl of wind outside, hurling rain sideways like it hated the glass.
Then—Knock.
I flinched. Not at the door. The wall. My head jerked around instinctively, eyes locking on the built-in wardrobe across the room. No entry there. No adjoining passage. Just flat painted surface, closet space, and one too many jumpers I kept forgetting to cull.
But the knock came again. Three. Slow. Deliberate. Familiar.
“Knock knock…”
His voice. Bryan. Muffled. Close. Dripping with that sick amusement that always made my stomach twist. It was the kind of tone someone used when playing hide-and-seek with a corpse. Intimate. Icy.
Rhys moved like a damn machine—silent, lethal, immediate. He stepped between me and the wall, arm raised, gun levelled with surgical precision. His whole body was still, except for the minute rise and fall of his chest. Finger resting near the trigger, not on it. He was listening. Calculating.
And I was suddenly, viscerally aware of how quiet the silence had become.
“Come now, frère,” Bryan said gently, voice muffled by plaster and smugness. “I killed the lights, not your courage.”
Then—Nothing. Not even footsteps.
Rhys didn’t fire.
Because Bryan was smart.
But so was Rhys.
And neither of us said it aloud, but the thought was already curled tight in my gut like a coiled wire: Bryan might not be behind that wall.
Or worse—He was. Waiting. Smiling. Just close enough to hear me breathe.
