Filed to story: Mated and Hated by My Brother’s Best Friend Book PDF Free by Anna Campbell
The mate bond.
Or what had once been.
The breath tore from my lungs as a rush of heat flooded my chest. Not the warmth I’d felt when she was near. Not the comforting flare of recognition that used to spark whenever Jiselle entered a room. This was different. It burned.
And then I saw her.
Not in memory.
Not in hope.
In prophecy.
Jiselle stood at the top of a scorched rise, flames coiled around her body like living armor. Her hair flowed like silk threaded with wildfire, and her eyes-gods, her eyes-they were silver and endless and gone. Not blank. Not cold. Just beyond.
She didn’t see me.
She didn’t feel me.
Around her knelt a dozen wolves, all cloaked in ash and blood. They bowed their heads, not in reverence but resignation. Their magic hung like smoke-dull, heavy, drained. They weren’t loyal.
They were afraid.
And Jiselle-my Jiselle-stood there like a queen without a heartbeat.
Like fire wearing flesh.
I stumbled backward, the blade clattering to the ground as I choked on breath that didn’t come. The vision shattered, the magic tearing from me in a violent wave, tossing dust and leaves across the circle. Bastain was already moving, hand on my shoulder, his voice distant.
“Nate. Breathe.”
My knees hit the dirt, and I braced myself, trying to force air into lungs that didn’t feel real. Everything around me was too sharp, too loud. The earth buzzed beneath my fingers, as if still trembling from what it had seen.
“What did you see?” Bastain asked once I steadied.
I looked at him.
And for the first time since she was taken, I didn’t know how to answer,
“She was.. crowned. Cloaked in flame. Wolves bowed to her.”
His brow furrowed. “Willingly?”
“No,” I said, my voice hoarse. “They feared her.”
He went quiet.
I picked up the blade again, slower this time. The edge still pulsed, but dimmer now, like it had used up whatever it had gathered from me. I didn’t feel severed, but I didn’t feel whole either.
The vision clung to me like a fever dream.
Bastain walked to the edge of the circle, watching the sky. The moon was high and half-full, cutting silver across his face like war paint. “If that’s what she’s becoming…”
“It’s not,” I said too quickly. Too desperately.
He didn’t turn around.
“Then what is she becoming?”
I couldn’t answer that. I didn’t know. But what chilled me most was that a part of me-some small, quiet part-recognized her in that vision. She hadn’t looked evil. She hadn’t looked lost.
She’d looked certain.
And I didn’t know how to fight certainty in the one person I’d always believed I could reach.
Bastain finally faced me again, his expression unreadable.
“If you try to save her like a lover,” he said, “you may lose her.”
I swallowed. “What does that mean?”
“It means love makes you hesitate. And hesitation gets you killed. Or worse-it gets her killed. You don’t have the luxury of sentiment anymore.”
He stepped forward, eyes steady. “Save her like a warrior.”
I looked down at the blade.
Its reflection shimmered faintly-just enough to show me my face. Not as it was, but as it had become.
Harder.
Older.
Tired.
I wrapped the blade and slid it into the leather sheath I’d carved for it days ago, tucking it close to my hip. Not because I’d made the decision.
But because I might have to.
The forest was quiet again. But this time, it didn’t feel like it was holding its breath.
It felt like it was waiting.
*Jiselle*
The ceremony was set for twilight-because, as Kael liked to say, the in-between hours were where change took root.
I stood on the balcony above the eastern courtyard, watching the sanctuary stir with movement. Smoke drifted in slow spirals from the ceremonial fires being lit across the platform, their scents thick with clove and wild sage. Robes of crimson and ash fluttered like flames against the stone. The gifted wolves gather in near silence, each of them prepared to offer a piece of themselves in exchange for something they didn’t fully understand.
Kael called it binding.
Not of chains or cuffs-but of purpose.
It was a rite meant to induct those with awakened gifts into the core of his vision: a world reborn under power, not politics. Unity through evolution. The end of fractured orders. The death of the Council’s doctrine.
And I was expected to stand at his side when the vows were spoken.
Not as a participant.
As a symbol.
My feet refused to move.
Beneath the robes they’d set out for me-silver threaded with deep crimson-I wore the same skin I’d always had. But it felt too tight now. Like I was growing beneath it, stretching into something I hadn’t given permission to form.
Kael had said little to me all day. Just a quiet nod when the morning flames responded to my call with no gesture, no incantation. The fire knew me now. It answered before I asked. That should’ve made me feel powerful,
Instead, it made me feel like I was being watched by my own reflection.
The doors to the platform opened behind me. I didn’t turn. I didn’t need to.
Kael’s presence was impossible to ignore.
“You should be below,” he said.
My hands gripped the balcony’s edge.
“They’re not my wolves.”
“They could be.”
“That’s the problem.”
His footsteps were soft, deliberate. “They chose this. You can either lead them or leave them blind.”
I finally turned to face him.
“You didn’t ask them to choose. You gave them a place to belong and told them the cost came later. You think that’s freedom?”
His gaze didn’t waver. “They are becoming what they were always meant to be. And so are you.”
I stepped back. “I won’t stand beside you tonight.”
Something flickered in his eyes-disappointment, maybe. Not rage. Kael never wasted energy on emotion he couldn’t use.
“This is your place,” he said. “It always has been.”
“No,” I said quietly. “It’s the place you want me in.”
The silence between us stretched, taut and electric.
“I won’t burn for a world I didn’t help build.”
I walked past him, my shoulders stiff, my heartbeat uneven.
He didn’t follow.
He didn’t have to.
The courtyard was lit by the time I descended the steps, but I didn’t stop at the platform. I kept walking-past the fires, past the kneeling wolves, past Lira’s scowl and the ceremonial brazier that hissed as if in protest.
The crowd parted for me.
Some bowed their heads-not out of reverence, but uncertainty. Like they weren’t sure if I was something holy or something dangerous. A few even reached out as I passed, not to stop me, but to feel me. To brush fingers against the hem of my robe as if touching me might grant them clarity-or courage.
Others watched with wary eyes, lips drawn tight, jaws clenched. They didn’t trust me. I didn’t blame them.
How could they, when I didn’t trust myself?
Whispers trailed behind me-some laced with awe, others with fear, I didn’t stop to separate the two,
Kael took the stage alone.
He didn’t glance in my direction. Not once.
He stood beneath the arch of firelight, hands clasped behind his back, every movement deliberate, every word honed like a blade.
He spoke of strength. Of unity. Of evolution.
He spoke of a future where wolves like us would no longer bow to Council chains, where power would no longer be feared -but followed. He painted rebellion as renewal, control as balance, and obedience as purpose.
He never mentioned sacrifice.
He didn’t need to.
I didn’t hear most of it.
Not because his voice wasn’t clear, but because every syllable felt like ash against my ears. I stood on the edge of that ceremony and felt the power in the air-the way magic shifted and settled around him, binding itself not to his truth, but to his will. He wasn’t asking them to believe.
He was teaching them to obey.
Because I was already drifting inward, away from the clamor and into the silence where the flame always waited.
That night, I lay in my chamber, staring at the ceiling of stone and rune-light.
I couldn’t sleep.
Every time I closed my eyes, I saw them kneeling. Saw myself beside him. The crown of fire he hadn’t offered yet-but already wore in his imagination.
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?