Filed To Story: Craving The Wrong Brother Book PDF Free by Elysian Sparrow
I wake to trembling.
At first, I think it’s me.
A dream, maybe. But then I feel it again. Not mine.
Him.
Knox.
His body jerks beneath me, not violently, but enough to shake the mattress. His chest is tight against my neck, and I can feel the tension in him-tight like a pulled wire ready to snap.
I shift slowly, raising my head to face him in the dark. I reach forward and turn on the lamp. His face is twisted, caught somewhere between pain and fear. Lips parted. Eyes moving under closed lids. But it’s not the typical twitch of REM sleep.
It’s too still. Too tense.
“No…” he murmurs, breathless. “No. Make it stop. Make it stop…”
His whole body flinches.
“Knox,” I whisper, reaching out, my palm finding his shoulder. “Knox, wake up.”
No response.
Just a sharp exhale and another tremble. Sweat beads at his temple. His hands are fisted in the sheets. His breathing turns shallow, rapid.
“Knox,” I say again, louder this time, shaking him. “Knox, wake up-please.”
But his eyes snap open-and they’re wrong.
All white.
No pupils. No black. Just… white.
I freeze.
He’s not awake. I can feel it in my gut. See it in his blank, focused stare. He’s trapped somewhere else. Some mem nightmare so deep it’s clawed him open.
“Make it stop,” he says, again. His voice is a rasp. His hands suddenly shoot out.
He pins me.
–ziste caught beneath his palms, pressed into the
Make It Stop
“Who sent you?” he growls.
“Knox,” I whisper, heart pounding. “It’s me. It’s Sloane.”
His eyes stay empty.
“Who sent you?” he says again, louder this time. “Answer mel”
My brain scrambles. My body tenses. He’s stronger than me-way stronger-and the way he’s holding me down, the way his chest heaves like he’s still stuck on a battlefield-it terrifies me.
“Knox, please,” I say, trying to keep my voice steady. “It’s okay. You’re safe. You’re dreaming. It’s just a dream.”
His hands tighten around my wrists. I wince.
This is not Knox.
Not the man who kisses my forehead in the dark.
Not the man who sings lullabies in Russian and arranges shoes like a monk,
This is something else. Something he’s fought to bury.
And it’s surfacing now-through me.
My heart is thrashing in my ribs. I can’t move. Can’t scream. But I try again anyway. “Knox,” I say louder this time. “Look at me!”
He flinches.
The whites of his eyes flicker. His grip loosens slightly.
“It’s me,” I say. “Sloane. Bunny. You’re home. You’re not there anymore. You’re safe.”
Silence.
Then his body shakes again, like something’s breaking inside him. A harsh, low breath leaves him, and his weight collapses -just barely, just enough for me to shift one wrist free and cup his face.
His jaw is clenched tight. His eyes blink, hard, twice-and then, finally, the black returns.
Focus.
Recognition.
And horror.
He blinks at me, panting. “Fuck.”
His entire body pulls away like he’s been burned. He scrambles back, nearly falling off the bed, one hand pressed to his chest, the other shaking in the air like he’s not sure what’s real.
“I-I didn’t mean to-” His voice breaks. He looks like he’s about to be sick.
KNOX-
I fell right into that trap, let myself be at rest, let myself become too happy. And now the dreams are back.
It’s the price of comfort. The consequence of peace.
I’d gone over a year without them. Twelve solid months of silence in my sleep, of not waking up drenched in sweat or shivering with the taste of blood in my mouth or phantom screams still ringing in my ears. I thought I’d finally outgrown it. That maybe I’d found the answer.
Hate.
It had worked. Hatred for Finn. For our father. For the bastards overseas. For the pimps and predators who loitered in my club pretending to be businessmen. Hatred kept the noise quiet. Kept the chaos buried. As long as I kept burning, I didn’t feel the cold.
But then came this woman. This girl who wore her damn glasses to bed like a librarian who got lost and wandered into my life, asking to be destroyed. She didn’t even know how enchanting she looked-curled up in my bed, clothed in one of my T- shirts, hair mussed and lips parted slightly like she belonged here. Like she had always belonged here.
She’s staring at me now. Through those goddamn glasses. With concern in her eyes.
And just like that, it all comes crawling back.
The sweat. The phantom fists. The gunshot that never stopped echoing. The fire. The blades. The heat. The whips. The chains. The…
I push off the bed with a grunt, my heart still pounding, like the ghost of the dream still has its claws in me. My hands are clenched, jaw tight. My mouth is sour with the taste of helplessness.
“I’m stepping out for a smoke,” I mutter, already moving.
“Knox.”
Her voice is soft, still sleepy, but I hear the worry underneath. She pushes herself to the edge of the bed, legs tangling in the sheets, her bare thighs catching the moonlight.
“Don’t shut me out. Talk to me about your dreams. Let me share the burden with you.”
I pause, not turning back.
“I don’t want you to worry about my problems,” I say. “I know the solution.”
“I don’t care if you have the solution,” she fires back. “I want to know what that was about. Was it PTSD from the war? Childhood trauma? You have to tell me something.”
“I did say I don’t like sharing a bed.”
“You thought I was going to let you sleep in the guest room?”
“I could have harmed you.”
New Book: Returned To Make Them Pay
On her wedding anniversary, Alicia is drugged and stumbles into the wrong room—straight into the arms of the powerful Caden Ward, a man rumored never to touch women. Their night of passion shocks even him, especially when he discovers she’s still a virgin after two years of marriage to Joshua Yates.