Filed to story: Mated and Hated by My Brother’s Best Friend Book PDF Free by Anna Campbell
Maximus sat by the old wellspring, legs stretched, a bottle of something near his boot. He looked up when I arrived but didn’t move.
“You okay?” he asked.
I laughed once. “No.”
“Didn’t think so.”
I sat beside him, knees drawn to my chest, the air between us full of memories we never said out loud.
He handed me the bottle. took a sip.
It burned like truth.
He looked over. “You going to tell me what happened?”
“No.”
He nodded. “Fair.”
Silence.
Then-
“I didn’t mean for it to happen,” I said.
“I know.”
“I wasn’t awake.”
“I figured.”
“And yet I still did it.”
He turned to me then, eyes sharper in the dark.
“Are you scared of yourself?”
I hesitated.
“Yes.”
He looked away. “Good.”
I blinked. “Good?”
“It means you haven’t given in.”
My throat tightened. “What if I already have, and I just don’t remember?”
He didn’t answer that.
Just took the bottle back, tipped it to his lips, then set it down.
“Are you sure you’re whole?” he asked quietly.
I didn’t respond right away.
“I don’t think I ever was,” I said at last. “Not fully. Not even before the Trials. Before the gate. Before the prophecy.”
“Then what are you now?”
“I don’t know,” I whispered. “But I’m still trying to be her.”
He didn’t say anything for a long time.
But he stayed.
And in that silence, I realized something that scared me more than any flame.
The voice inside me?
She hadn’t burned to destroy.
She’d burned to protect.
And that made her harder to hate.
And even harder to stop.
*Nathaniel*
I didn’t trust the silence this deep into the woods.
It wasn’t the usual stillness-the kind that came with distance from camp, or with dusk setting in. This was heavier. Thicker. Like the air itself was waiting for something. Holding its breath.
Maximus walked a few paces ahead, boots crunching against old frost-laced moss. He hadn’t spoken much since we left the ridge that morning. Not about Jiselle. Not about what she’d done. Not about what might still be inside her.
We both felt it-that shift. The one after the rogue scout’s death. The way the fire pulsed wrong in the air afterward, like it wasn’t entirely hers. I didn’t ask if he blamed her.
I didn’t need to.
Because I blamed myself.
She should’ve never had to carry that much alone.
The leyline trail we were following had been faint-just a flicker of magic that bled through the stone like a vein under cracked skin. But it called to both of us. And whether we admitted it or not, it smelled familiar. Old. Veilborn.
Max slowed suddenly, his head tilting. “We’re close.”
I stepped up beside him. The forest had thinned. We stood at the edge of a sunken clearing, half-swallowed by rock and vine. Broken stone arches rose crookedly from the center, half-collapsed and etched in faint, weatherworn markings.
A ruin.
Veilborn-made.
My skin prickled.
“Did you know about this place?” I asked quietly.
Max shook his head. “Not exactly. Kael used to talk in riddles. Said we had ‘roots’ in the valley. I never knew he meant this literally.”
We descended slowly. The earth felt brittle here. The air colder.
Inside the structure-what was left of it-moss grew thick between crumbling flagstones. A half-buried doorway yawned open at the far wall, leading into what must’ ve once been a subterranean vau! Successfully unlocked!
We hesitated before entering.
Then the magic pulsed again.
Soft.
Measured.
Deliberate.
“Someone was here recently,” Max muttered.
We pushed inside.
The stairwell led down into shadow, curving once, then opening into a wide chamber. Stone walls, ceiling intact. Shelves carved from the walls-long since emptied. It looked like it had been looted decades ago.
But the marks remained.
Veilborn script lined the far wall-symbols carved with careful precision. Not slashed like Kael’s field runes. These were intentional. Ancient.
A cold wind ran across the back of my neck, and I turned instinctively. That’s when I saw the mural.
It took up the full back wall.
A woman.
Or what used to be a woman.
Her body wreathed in fire, arms spread, a crown hovering just above her head-but not touching. Her hair flowed upward like smoke, her eyes entirely white. And carved around her in blood-rusted paint were lines of text I couldn’t read-but one word stood out.
Eira.
I took a step forward. My heart dropped.
The face-
It was hers.
Jiselle.
Not an approximation. Not a generic match. Her.
Her cheekbones. Her mouth. The tilt of her chin when she was determined not to cry.
“She’s been here before,” I said.
“No,” Max murmured. “She’s never been here.”
“But someone knew she would be.”
We stood in silence, the weight of it pressing into our lungs.
I walked closer. There were small marks below the mural-etched in the base stone.
Names.
Some faded.
Some crossed out.
Some still legible.
I read slowly, eyes tracking one line at a time.
Then I froze.
Nathaniel Morningstar.
Scratched into the wall with surgical precision.
And slashed clean through with a single diagonal mark.
My breath caught.
“What is it?” Max asked, but his voice sounded far away.
I couldn’t move.
I couldn’t speak.
Because there, next to my name, was a second one.
Jiselle Johal.
New Book: Veiled Desires of the Alpha King Novel
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