Filed to story: Mated and Hated by My Brother’s Best Friend Book PDF Free by Anna Campbell
“You think?”
“You were chasing her like she was prey. Now you’re hunting her like she’s sacred.”
“She is.”
“She’s also dangerous.”
“I know.”
Maximus exhaled. “You still love her?”
“With everything.”
He looked away. “Then be ready to bury that love if she forgets what it feels like.”
“I’m not going there to remind her of what we were,” I said. “I’m going there to see who she is now.”
His gaze cut back to mine. “Then I’ll follow you.”
That surprised me more than I let on.
Not because we were friends. We weren’t. Not really. But because Maximus loved her too, in his own quie powerful way. And hearing him say he’d follow me meant he was choosing her-not his pride. uriating,
The journey to the Veil Gate took two days.
The woods grew stranger the deeper we moved. Trees bent in unnatural curves. The light filtered through the canopy in colors that shifted too quickly-sunlight tinged with blue, then violet, then gold. It made the air feel like glass, like the forest itself was watching.
When we reached the base of the cliff that marked the Veil Gel’s outer edge, 11
A hum
Not magic.
Not even memory.
Something older.
Ethan stepped beside me, his voice quiet. “This is the closest I’ve ever felt her?
“She’s near, Eva confirmed. “But she’s not waiting”
“She’s burning,” I said.
Maximus looked up at the gate. “Then let’s pray we’re not too late?
That night, I sat alone by the fire, the Mirror Fang in my lap.
I didn’t hold it like a weapon,
I held it like a question,
And this time, I didn’t ask how do I save her?
I asked:
Can I let her become someone I can’t follow?
The blade didn’t answer,
But the runes stayed dim.
For now.
*Jiselle*
It started with the shadows.
Small things at first-details I couldn’t account for. A cut on my palm I didn’t remember earning. A scorch mark on the chamber wall where none had been the day before. Waking up with soot under my nails. Standing somewhere with no recollection of how I got there. It was like my body kept moving while my mind refeed to follow. Like the flame inside me- so recently my ally-had started charting its own path.
I told no one.
Not even Lira.
Not even myself.
Because admitting it would make it real. And I wasn’t ready for real. Not after what happened in the ritual chamber. Not after the fire turned white and the world bowed-not to Kael, not to prophecy-but to me.
And that terrified me more than anything.
Kael pretended it was nothing.
Or maybe he believed that if he ignored the cracks, the foundation wouldn’t fall.
He smiled too much now. Spoke of stability, control, ascension. Every word more polished, more careful, but the desperation behind his eyes frayed like rope in storm wind. He’d begun wearing his old regalia again-the heavy crimson cloak, the obsidian neck-piece carved with Sovereign sigils. The pieces he’d worn before I arrived. Before the fire bent to me instead.
The shift in power wasn’t spoken of.
But it was felt.
And Kael? He was losing control.
Of me. Of the wolves. Of the story he’d written around us both.
So he offered me a choice.
“I want to help you, Jiselle,” he said one morning, his voice low and even as we stood above the leyline pool in the central chamber. “You’re losing time. The surges are worsening. Your flame is raw. Uncontained. If this continues, you’ll destroy yourself. Or worse, burn the sanctuary from the inside out.”
I didn’t argue.
Because he was right.
I was unraveling.
But then he added, “There’s a final rite. One that fuses the Sovereign fully with the leyline. It stabilizes the mind. Anchors the flame.”
“Or binds it,” I said before I could stop myself.
Kael’s expression didn’t change. Not overtly.
But something in his eyes narrowed.
“I wouldn’t do anything without your consent,” he said.
But his magic was already creeping toward me across the floor, subtle and quiet like a snare beneath snow.
And I realized then that I had to leave.
Not just the room.
The sanctuary.
The moment I felt the next blackout threatening-heat climbing my spine, thoughts scattering like ash-I ran.
I didn’t know where my legs were carrying me until I recognized the slanted corridor leading into the leyline tunnels. These were old, forbidden. Built not for travel but for channeling-the arteries of the mountain itself. No wolf ventured here unless guided by Kael himself. No wolf came out unchanged
But I wasn’t afraid of what the tunnels would s
Successfully unlocked!
I was afraid of what would happen if I stayed.
The descent was immediate.
Steep. Cramped. Breathless.
The deeper I went, the louder the pulse became-not sound, but feeling. The steady beat of something ancient, something alive, humming through the stone like veins of living fire. My vision blurred with each step, flames curling at the edges of my eyes. The walls trembled with old echoes.
I thought I was alone.
Until I wasn’t.
She stepped from the shadows like she’d always been there, like the mountain had carved her from its ribs and sent her to wait for me.
The rogue elder.
She was small, cloaked in a mantle of weathered bone-thread, her hair white as snow, braided down her back like a spine. Her eyes were silver-not bright, not glowing. Just…. endless.
“I wondered when you’d come,” she said.
I stopped, breathing hard. “Do you know who I am?”
“I know what they call you.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
She studied me with a gaze that didn’t flinch. “You’re the spark born at the fracture. The flame they tried to name before it knew how to speak.”
I didn’t answer.
I didn’t need to.
She gestured for me to follow and began walking without waiting for consent.
I hesitated only a moment before trailing after her.
The tunnel widened into a chamber lined with smooth obsidian. The center of the room pulsed with a wellspring of leyline magic-liquid fire churning in a deep bowl of stone. The room breathed with it. So did I.
The elder sat on the edge and motioned for me to do the same.
“You’ve begun to lose pieces of yourself,” she said without preamble.
“How do you know?”
“Because you’re not the first.”
My fingers dug into my knees. “There were others?”
“One.”
I turned sharply. “The first Sovereign.”
She nodded.
“She bound herself to the leyline to stop what she feared she’d become.”
“And did it work?”
The elder’s gaze turned inward. “It stopped her. But not the fire.”
I looked away.
“She left something behind,” I said. “A letter.”
“She left many things behind.”
I hesitated. Then, quietly, “Why am I blacking out?”
“Because the flame no longer recognizes its cage,” she said. “It’s trying to escape. And you keep pulling it back with names. Sovereign. Flamebearer. Queen.”
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?