Filed to story: Mated and Hated by My Brother’s Best Friend Book PDF Free by Anna Campbell
I didn’t recognize her by face, but by presence.
Her magic coiled in the air like a breathing entity, and her silhouette shimmered, caught between worlds. Violet fire curled from her hands-pure, unbroken. Her body trembled, barely holding form, but her spine remained straight, her chin lifted.
She looked like me.
No-like what I might become.
She was whispering. Not in words I could understand, but the cadence was familiar. Ritualistic. Reverent.
And then she turned.
Her eyes were like mine. But not just in color. In weight.
She saw me.
Across time, across memory, across everything that should’ve kept us apart-she saw me.
And she stepped forward.
My breath caught.
“Don’t let them bind you,” she said, her voice echoing through my bones. “Not by prophecy. Not by power.”
I tried to speak, but my lips wouldn’t move.
Her eyes softened. “You are not the gate. You are the flame that guards it.”
A tremor rolled through the earth,
Behind her, the Veil Gate pulsed, its runes glowing like stars.
A voice-not hers, not mine-rose from the stone. Deep. Commanding
“If it opens again, it must be sealed with willing flame.”
I staggered back. The words hit like a blade across my chest.
Serina’s face twisted. Not in fear. But in sorrow.
She turned to the gate.
And stepped into it.
Violet light exploded.
I screamed.
The world shattered-
And I was on the ground, breath ragged, Nate’s hands gripping my shoulders.
“Jiselle!”
Eva knelt beside him. Max hovered behind, his expression unreadable.
“She’s back,” Eva whispered. “She’s back-“
I pushed upright, the fire still sparking beneath my skin. The echo of the vision burned in my throat.
I met Max’s gaze. “You were right.”
His brows lifted.
“The rune… it’s hers. Serina’s. I saw her. I lived it-her final memory?
I turned to Bastain, whose face had gone pale as ash.
He didn’t speak right away.
So I did.
“The gate needs a sacrifice.”
Silence fell like a blade.
Bastain stepped forward. “What did it say exactly?”
“If it opens again, it must be sealed with willing flame.”
He closed his eyes, jaw tightening.
Eva reached for my hand, her fingers trembling. “Does that mean…”
“It means someone has to go in,” Nate said. His voice was flat, but his grip on my arm betrayed the tremor underneath.
“No,” I said immediately. “It doesn’t have to be like hers. Serina walked into that gate alone. She thought she had to die to close it.”
Her brows furrowed. “What?”
I pointed. “That mark. You etched it once-months before the Trial. In the old library on a scrap of parchment. I only remembered it because you said you’d dreamed it,”
She stared at the mark like it was foreign.
“I don’t remember that,” she whispered.
“Maybe you weren’t meant to,” I said. “Maybe Serina was.”
Jiselle looked up at me. And for the first time since the flame took her, her eyes held something raw. Something open.
Fear.
“Do you still love me?” she asked, voice barely audible.
I didn’t flinch.
“Yes,” I said. “But I won’t ask you to return it.”
She nodded slowly, as if the honesty hurt worse than any lie.
“I need you to know,” she said, “that I’m not that girl anymore.”
“I know,” I replied. “But she’s still part of you.”
We sat in silence again, this time different than any before.
This time, it felt like a truce.
Jiselle drew her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. Her aura flickered softly, casting faint reflections across the stone.
“You were my first,” she said. “In more ways than one. And I hate that the way we ended will always be tangled in that.”
I swallowed hard.
“But I also know,” she continued, “that in the final war, if I fall, you’ll be the one to catch me. Even if you hate me by then.”
I turned to her, throat tight.
“I don’t think I’ll ever hate you,” I said. “I think hating you would mean cutting out the part of me that still wants to be better.”
She gave a small, sad smile.
“Then maybe,” she whispered, “we’ll survive this. Not as what we were. But as something new.”
The wind picked up around us, and somewhere deep beneath the mountain, the leyline pulsed again-faint, like a distant heartbeat.
And still, I watched her.
Because even if I never touched her again, even if Nate was the one she gave herself to, I knew this truth like I knew the feel of a blade in my hand:
I would burn the world before I let her burn alone.
Even if she never looked at me that way again.
Even if she only remembered the worst of me.
Su may
I would still be her blade.
Because some weapons aren’t made to shine.
Some blades don’t rust.
They endure.
The morning air was thick with anticipation, the kind that clung to your skin and whispered of impending storms. I stood at the edge of the encampment, eyes fixed on the horizon where the first light of dawn painted the sky in hues of crimson and gold. The scouts had returned with grim faces and grimmer news: the Gatekeepers were a day out, their numbers double what we had anticipated.
Bastain’s command tent buzzed with activity. Maps were unfurled, strategies debated, and contingencies drafted. But amidst the chaos, my mind was elsewhere, drawn to the ancient texts that Bastain had meticulously collected over the years. If there was ever a time to seek wisdom from the past, it was now,
I slipped away unnoticed, making my way to Bastain’s archive-a modest tent lined with shelves of weathered tomes and scrolls. The scent of aged parchment and ink greeted me, a comforting aroma that momentarily eased the tension knotting my shoulders.
My fingers traced the spines of the books, searching for something-anything-that could offer insight into the Gatekeepers or the Veil. One volume caught my eye: a leather-bound book sealed with a wax emblem I didn’t recognize. Curiosity piqued, I broke the seal and opened it.
The pages were filled with elegant script, the ink faded but legible. It was a journal, penned by a Veilborn woman named Elira. Her entries spoke of visions-prophecies she claimed were bestowed upon her by the Veil itself.
“I see a girl of violet fire,” one passage read, “her flames consuming the sky, her scream the death knell of time itself.”
My heart pounded as I read on. Elira described a future where this girl stood at the precipice of the world’s end, her choices determining the fate of all. The imagery was hauntingly vivid, echoing the power I had witnessed in Jiselle.
As I neared the journal’s end, a final line sent a chill down my spine:
“And beside her, two men burned-one by love, one by loyalty.”
The book slipped from my hands, landing with a soft thud on the ground. The weight of the prophecy settled over me, heavy and suffocating. I knew, without a doubt, that the girl of violet fire was Jiselle. And the two men? Nate and Max.
I rushed back to Bastain’s tent, the journal clutched tightly in
“I found something,” I said, breathless. “A prophecy. Aby hands. He looked up as I entered, concern etched into his features.
Jiselle.”
He took the journal from me, his eyes scanning the pages. As he read, his expression grew darker.
“This changes everything,” he murmured.
Outside, the wind howled, carrying with it the scent of smoke and the promise of war. The Gatekeepers were coming, and with them, the fulfillment of a prophecy that could end us all.
Jiselle
The wind had changed again.
It didn’t smell like danger this time. Not smoke. Not blood. Just cold. The kind of cold that settled behind your ribs and whispered promises it didn’t mean to keep. I stood at the edge of the cliff where the leyline split the mountain beneath our feet, my hands curled around the rough edge of my shawl. Somewhere behind me, the others were packing. Preparing.
But I couldn’t move.
Not yet.
Not when Eva had come to me that morning with the book still clutched in her shaking hands. Not when her voice had trembled around the words men burned-one by love, one by loyalty.”
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