Filed to story: Mated and Hated by My Brother’s Best Friend Book PDF Free by Anna Campbell
He finally turned fully toward me.
His expression didn’t shift. But the weight in his voice made everything inside me still.
“I’m okay with anything that keeps you here.”
Those words.
That voice.
That truth-
They unraveled me.
Something cracked-not with pain, but with love so fierce it made my throat ache. So wide it left no room for air. It was raw, aching, and honest in a way nothing else had been since the day I became something more than human.
I stepped into him.
His arms opened before I asked.
And when they wrapped around me, everything else disappeared.
Our bodies pressed close, the thud of his heart steady beneath my cheek. I listened to it. Memorized it. Because it was one of the few things it in the world that reminded me I was alive and wanted.
“You’re still afraid,” he said softly against my hair.
“Yes,” I admitted.
“Then let me hold it.”
So I did.
I poured every trembling piece of myself him-my fear, my hope, my terror of losing control, and the unspoken question of whether love could survive the weight of becoming something more than a girl, more than a mate.
And for a long, infinite moment…
The world fell away.
No sigils.
No flames.
No gods.
Just two people holding each other against the edge of what was coming.
And believing, if only for that breath, that it could be enough.
That night, I traced the rune from the shard into the dirt.
The others had gone quiet-Eva working at the far end of camp, Ethan checking supplies, Bastain poring over scrolls like they were maps to salvation.
But I couldn’t rest.
Sleep felt distant. Useless.
So I knelt beneath the shadow of an old pine tree, the moonlight casting silver lines across the clearing, and drew the rune into the earth. Again, And again.
Jiselle
The wind wouldn’t stop moving.
It sliced through the trees with a low hiss, as if the whole valley had begun to hold its breath. I stood at the edge of the cliff above the leyline, arms crossed tightly across my chest, watching as the light below shimmered faintly-no longer red, no longer golden. Violet streaks ran through it now, veins in the stone that pulsed in time with something I didn’t fully understand.
Behind me, footsteps.
I didn’t need to turn to know who it was.
“You’re quiet,” Nate said.
“I’m thinking.”
He came up beside me, close but not touching. Not yet.
“You saw what Kael’s doing,” he said after a long beat. “You saw the second rune. If he finishes the triad-“
“I know,” I said sharply. “I saw it too, Nate.”
He ran a hand through his hair, then clenched it at his side. “Then why are we waiting? Why aren’t we going after him right now?”
“Because we don’t know what happens if he dies,” I snapped, turning to face him. “We don’t know if killing him stops the gate or opens it.”
His eyes flared. “You think letting him live is safer?”
“I don’t know!” I shouted, the words tearing out of me more violently than I’d intended.
The wind whipped between us. The silence after felt heavier than any scream.
I looked down at my hands, at the faint violet glow that curled beneath my skin like threads of ink trying to draw meaning in a language I didn’t speak.
“If we kill Kael,” I said, more quietly, “we might kill the one thing tethering the seal. What if his life is part of the lock? What if the triad isn’t power-it’s protection?”
He shook his head slowly. “Or it’s a key, Jiselle. A countdown. And the longer we wait, the closer he gets to finishing it.”
I turned away, my throat closing.
I didn’t want to be right.
I didn’t want him to be, either.
“I’m tired of playing god with guesses,” I whispered, “I’m tired of every step being a gamble we can’t take back.”
Nate’s voice softened, but didn’t lose its urgency. “Then let me do this. Let me end it before he pushes you into another sacrifice.”
My body stiffened.
“That’s not your call,”
“It’s not just yours either.”
I turned back, meeting his eyes.
And that’s when I saw it not just frustration, not even fear. Grief. Beneath everything, Nate looked like someone trying to hold a river in his hands.
“I’m not ready to lose you,” he said. “Not to Kael. Not to the gate. Not to your flame. And if killing him means giving you a chance to stay then a do ti –
I stared at him. At the man who had carried my secrets, burned for my mistakes, and stayed through storms no one else could have weathered
“I don’t want to be a reason you kill,” I said softly. “I want to be a reason you live.”
He looked away, jaw clenched. “You already a
/are.”
The words hit deeper than I was prepared for.
I stepped forward, hesitant.
The leyline hummed below, the ground faintly vibrating.
“Nate…”
He turned toward me again, and this time, I didn’t see a warrior or a protector or a man holding a sword between me and fate.
I saw him.
The boy who used to run beside Ethan.
The man who stayed even after the mark.
The one who waited, not because he had to-but because he chose to.
I reached for his hand.
He took it instantly.
His palm was warm, steady, rough in the best way-like it had shaped scars into something sacred.
“We’re going to make it,” I said.
“You keep saying that,” he murmured.
“Because it has to be true.”
His hand squeezed mine.
“Then give me something to hold onto.” blinked. “What do you mean?”
He stepped closer.
So close that his breath touched my lips, soft and ragged.
“You,” he said. “All of you. Not just the flame. Not just the chaos. You.”
And then he kissed me.
Not like the first time-frenzied, broken, desperate.
This kiss was slower.
Deeper.
The kind of kiss that remembered.
That claimed.
That said you’re mine, not because I own you-but because we survived the fire and still chose each other.
My hands curled into his shirt, pulling him closer, until his body pressed flush against mine. He wrapped his arms around my waist, grounding me, anchoring me, and I let myself fall-not down, but into him.
Into this.
Into us.
Because for once, the storm wasn’t around us.
It was inside us.
His mouth slid down my jaw, his breath searing against my neck. I shivered, not from cold-but from relief. From the terrifying comfort of being wanted- not as a weapon, not as a symbol-but as Jiselle.
My back met the stone of the cliff wall gently, and he pressed into me. Our lips met again, slower now. Tender. Full of ache and promise.
“I’m still afraid,” I murmured.
“I’m still here,” he whispered.
Our foreheads touched, breath mingling. My heartbeat thudded against his chest. His fingers brushed over my scar-gentle, reverent.
And the moment stretched.
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?