Filed to story: Mated and Hated by My Brother’s Best Friend Book PDF Free by Anna Campbell
“I do.”
He reached for me.
And I broke.
The power snapped like a whip across my spine, tearing through me in a searing burst of heat. The ground cracked beneath my feet. The air sparked gold and red. I tried to pull it back-gods, I tried-but it slipped from my fingers like sand through a sieve.
“No!” I screamed.
Too late.
The flame lashed outward-wild, instinctual, violent. There was no thought in it. No control. Just heat exploding from every inch of me like a living scream. It cracked through the clearing, a wave of light and fury and unspoken fear. Ethan had only a second to react. He tried to shield his face, but the blast sent him flying.
He slammed into a tree with a sickening thud that vibrated through my ribs.
I heard bark split. I heard his body crumple.
Smoke curled from his clothes, thin and bitter. The front of his tunic was burned away, skin beneath raw and pink, the edges already blistering. His body twitched once, then went terrifyingly still.
My breath left me.
“Ethan-” My voice cracked as I stumbled forward. My knees hit the dirt so hard I tasted blood. “No, no-no, please…”
He groaned, barely audible. It was enough to prove he was still alive, but not enough to calm the terror that shattered through my chest like glass.
He moved, slow and clumsy, dragging himself upright with one arm. Pain etched across every line of his face-jaw clenched, breath shallow-but his eyes… his eyes still searched for me. Still found mine.
And the look he gave me-
Not horror.
Not accusation.
Just… love.
Like I was still his sister.
Still his twin.
Still his.
I couldn’t bear it.
I crawled to him, sobs breaking loose as the fire still coiled off my fingers like snakes, hissing against the ground. I was losing myself, and I knew it, and I couldn’t stop.
“I didn’t mean to,” I choked, voice splintering. “I didn’t mean to, I swear-“
“I know,” he rasped. He tried to lift his hand, fingers trembling. Reaching for me, even then.
That nearly broke me all over again.
But I couldn’t touch him.
I wanted to. Gods, I wanted to.
But if I did, I might finish what the flame had started.
And that truth-that certainty-ripped something raw and vital inside me.
I screamed.
Not at him.
Not at the world.
At myself.
I curled inward, hands over my face, fire licking up my arms, the heat building and building like a volcano beneath my skin. I could feel her in the depths of it-the presence, the echo, the other.
She slipped through my mind like silk sliding across bruises, her voice threaded into every pulse of my fear.
Let me take this pain. You can sleep.
I shook my head, violently, clawing at the dirt like I could bury the sound.
“No.”
But the whisper didn’t stop.
It never did.
You’re breaking. Let me hold you together.
I gasped, the sobs turning into hiccuped breaths. My whole body shook. The heat was worse now-no longer defensive. It wanted out. It wanted control.
“You’ll destroy them,” I whispered.
No, she said. I’ll protect them. I’ll keep them from you.
I looked up.
Ethan was crawling toward me, dragging himself through the dirt despite the pain. Despite what I’d done. His voice broke into pieces as he called my name, over and over, lips cracked, bleeding.
He still wanted to reach me.
He believed he still could.
But I couldn’t hear him anymore.
All I could hear was her.
Let go. You’re tired. Let me carry it.
And I wanted to.
Gods, I wanted to.
Just for a moment. One sliver of silence. A breath where I wasn’t the monster. Where I wasn’t the bomb waiting to go off. A moment where I didn’t have to hate myself for what I might do next.
But if I gave in…
I wouldn’t come back.
And if I did?
I wouldn’t be me.
I stared at Ethan’s face, twisted in pain but still calling out for me. Still reaching.
And I knew if I stayed, I’d kill him next time.
Not the flame.
Me.
So I did the only thing I could think to do.
Iran.
I turned from my brother, from his bloodied hands and burned chest and infinite faith, and I ran like the fire itself had my legs. The trees blurred around me. The wind screamed. My heartbeat raced like it wanted out of my body.
Flames chased me, curling behind me in long streaks along the grass. I left scorch marks in every step. I didn’t know where I was going, only that I couldn’t stop. Couldn’t look back. Couldn’t risk letting them see what I was becoming.
The woods opened.
The sky cracked above me.
And then I was gone.
Swallowed by the dark.
By the power.
By the voice.
By the fire.
Missing.
*Nathaniel*
We found her at the edge of the valley, where the tree line began to fray and the land dipped into a hollow thick with smoke. Her body was curled into the earth like something dropped from the sky-knees tucked, arms folded tight, face turned to the ground.
Flame bled from her back in thin golden threads, rising slowly like steam from a cracked hearthstone. It didn’t burn the moss. It didn’t catch the trees. But none of us could get near her.
The air around her pulsed.
Alive.
Territorial.
Ethan reached for her first. Of course he did. Burned and furious, half-splintered with guilt, he ignored the way the heat cracked his knuckles as soon as he touched her. I caught his wrist before he reached again. His arm was already blistered. The look he gave me was part rage, part terror, part helpless love.
“She’s in there,” he said. “She’s in there, and she needs us.”
“I know,” I said. “But we can’t reach her like this.”
He didn’t speak after that. Just dropped to his knees beside her, a protective shadow, eyes locked on her face as though willing her to wake up by sheer force of twinhood.
Eva stood a few steps behind, her arms crossed tight over her chest, jaw set, pale. Maximus lingered further back, expression unreadable. He’d said nothing since we found the trail-since the flare of her magic lit up the trees like a beacon. But I felt his tension too. All of us were holding our breath.
And Jiselle?
She didn’t move.
Her breathing was shallow. Her body trembling in faint, intermittent pulses. The magic around her was too wild to touch. Not malevolent. But frantic. Like it was trying to hold her together while she unraveled from the inside out.
I stepped closer. Just until the heat kissed my boots.
She didn’t react.
Neither did the magic.
Successfully unlocked!
But the scar on my chest-the place where our bond had once been clean and unbroken-flared like someone had struck it with a hammer. It pulsed once, twice, a jagged, aching tug.
And I understood what I had to do.
“I can reach her,” I said.
Ethan looked at me sharply. “How?”
“Our bond,” I murmured, already kneeling. “It never fully healed. It’s still raw, still open. I think… I can use it. Get inside.”
Max stepped forward, finally. “You don’t know what’s in there.”
“No,” I agreed. “But I know who’s in there.”
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