Filed to story: Mated and Hated by My Brother’s Best Friend Book PDF Free by Anna Campbell
The absence.
She’d shifted-her wolf fur showing at her jawline, her eyes glowing faintly gold-but the runes at her feet hadn’t flared the way they had for others. There was no burst of energy. No elemental charge. No ripple of premonition or shadow. Just her.
Plain.
Ordinary.
Sira’s voice boomed above, a detached echo that offered no comfort.
“Enhanced.”
The word struck like a thunderclap.
There were murmurs immediately. Gasps. One girl even laughed quietly until someone elbowed her.
Emari didn’t move.
Not at first.
Then her face twisted-shock giving way to denial, then fury. Her lips parted like she was about to speak, about to refute the assessment. But nothing came.
No one corrected it.
No magic burst from her fingertips to prove them wrong.
No alternate flare of power answered her silent scream.
And then she did scream-but it wasn’t pain.
It was rage.
A deep, guttural howl that cracked from her throat and echoed through the chamber with such wild desperation it made the hairs on my neck rise.
She dropped to her knees.
Fists slammed into the stone with so much force I thought she might break her own bones. Her pride-her legacy- shattered in front of everyone who had ever praised her, feared her, wanted her.
She wasn’t a powerhouse.
She wasn’t a threat.
She was Enhanced.
The lowest of the five ranks.
The most common.
Successfully unlocked!
The rank given to wolves who had only the basic gifts. Heightened senses. Speed. Healing. But no magic. No greatness
And Emari Johar-the girl who had mocked everyone and carried her family name like it was a crown-was now one of them.
I watched, frozen.
And for a brief, fractured second-l pitied her.
But only for a moment.
Because then another sound split the air.
A roar.
Not like Emari’s. Not broken or angry. This one was pure, wild energy. It came from across the chamber-loud, hot, alive.
Ethan.
He stood in the middle of his circle, fists clenched, head tipped back as fire poured from his hands like Wing lava, Flames spiraled up around his arms, licking across his shoulders, forming a barrier of heat between him and his opponent.
The boy opposite him tried to shift-but it didn’t matter.
Ethan was already in motion.
He struck the ground with his palm and the stone cracked beneath him. Wind surged outward in a dome, sending the other student flying across the ring. The boy hit the edge and groaned, stunned but conscious.
The crowd roared.
Sira’s voice rang out again. This time with real energy.
“Elemental. Rank Four.”
Students gasped. A few clapped. Eva let out a low whoop beside me and grinned. I couldn’t help smiling back, pride swelling in my chest.
Ethan glowed-not from the flames-but from within.
He looked powerful. Confident.
Like this was always meant to be his.
And then-another sound. One that made my stomach drop.
A scream.
Not one of triumph.
Not of anger.
This was terror.
A circle near mine.
A boy-maybe fifteen-slim and small, with pale brown curls and wide eyes. He stood frozen. Trembling. The rune circle beneath him sparked once… then went dark.
He hadn’t manifested.
Not even a flicker.
I saw the panic in his eyes before he even moved.
He looked up-toward the instructors-begging, pleading.
I couldn’t hear what he was saying, but I saw the tears.
Then the two instructors entered his ring.
No words.
No trial.
They grabbed him by the arms.
He fought. Kicked. Screamed.
But they dragged him out of the circle and into the shadows without pause.
Gone.
Just like that.
No explanation.
No second chance.
Eva’s hand gripped mine. Tight.
We both stared, horror curling in our stomachs like ice water.
“This isn’t a trial,” I whispered, voice hollow. “It’s a purge.”
Eva didn’t answer.
She didn’t need to.
Because in that moment-I saw the truth.
This wasn’t about growth.
This wasn’t about celebration.
This was about elimination.
About refining the pack to only those who were strong, special, controllable.
The rest?
Expendable.
I felt my stomach twist. My magic simmered beneath my skin-angry, restless, hungry.
The plan. The plan had to work.
We couldn’t let this continue.
We wouldn’t.
I glanced back at Ethan’s circle. He was grinning now, chest heaving, fire still pulsing faintly around his fingers. The instructors called for reset, ready to move the next trial into motion.
Then, subtly, he did something that wasn’t part of the original plan.
A small pulse of wind erupted from his feet-a ripple that skated across the floor and knocked over one of the lesser pillars near the back of the chamber. It didn’t fall-but it cracked just enough to splinter the rune glowing beneath it.
Gasps followed.
A minor disruption.
Enough to draw attention.
Enough to begin.
My gaze shot to Nate-already on the far end of the chamber, using the moment to slip past two enforcers. His presence was barely there. Veilborn stealth at its best.
Eva looked at me, eyes wide.
But then… she stiffened.
Her entire body went still. Her gaze snapped toward the left side of the arena, where one of the Council members had begun murmuring into a spell circle.
“What is it?” I whispered. “What’s wrong?”
Her grip tightened. “I… I can feel something. There’s too much energy. Too many threads pulling in too many directions. Something’s going to go wrong.”
I stared. “You’re sensing it?”
She nodded, dazed. “I can’t explain it. But something’s going to fail. We’re going to fail.”
I blinked, realization dawning.
“You’re Sentinel,” I breathed.
New Book: Veiled Desires of the Alpha King Novel
Dayson was the alpha of the largest pack in North America. Powerful figures from other packs sought to offer gorgeous girls as potential mates for Dayson. He steadfastly rejected these advances, he was not a pawn to be manipulated. But eventually there came a mysterious girl he could hardly say No. Who was she?