Filed to story: Mated and Hated by My Brother’s Best Friend Book PDF Free by Anna Campbell
Not gone.
But quiet.
Muted.
Dimmed.
I didn’t wait for a reply.
I walked out.
And this time, I didn’t look back.
Not even when I felt the pulse of heat behind me-gentle, steady.
Not even when the scroll he tried to hide glowed with fresh flame-like something inside it had woken up.
Not even when the scent of ash crept along the stone corridor like smoke.
And not even when a whisper followed me through the dark, curling down the ancient passage like a prophecy.
Love opens. Love burns. Love ends.
*Jiselle*
The wind was too quiet.
(36)
Not soft-quiet. Like it had nothing left to say. Like it had listened to everything I’d screamed into it earlier. and decided, simply, to hush. I sat outside the eastern hall on one of the stone benches that faced the leyline canyon, arms wrapped around my knees, Nate’s absence like a hollow beside me.
The bond wasn’t broken.
But it had thinned again.
Like a pulled thread in a cloak-still attached, but barely holding together.
I didn’t know what stung more-the fact that I had walked away… or the fact that he let me.
He hadn’t followed.
He always followed. Even when he was mad. Even when he was scared.
But now?
Now, he was nowhere.
And I couldn’t decide if that meant he was finally learning to trust me… or starting to give up.
“Hey,”
Ethan’s voice came gently, boots crunching against gravel as he walked up. I didn’t turn.
He sat beside me anyway, close enough that our shoulders brushed.
“You look like you could burn the whole mountain down,” he said after a pause.
“I might.”
“You’d be prettier doing it than the last time, at least.”
A weak laugh escaped me. Barely.
We sat in silence a while longer before I asked, “Do you ever think we’re just… pretending? That any of this will work out?”
Ethan rubbed the back of his neck. “Pretending’s gotten me this far.”
I turned toward him. “I think I’m starting to like it.”
“The pretending?”
“No. The power.”
:
His expression didn’t change, but his breath did-sharpening, just slightly.
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“I used to be afraid of it,” I went on. “Used to pray I’d wake up and it’d be gone. But now… I feel it. In everything. The way the flames curl when I call them. The way the leyline pulses when I get too close. The way people look at me-like I’m becoming something else. And the worst part is…”
He waited.
“I think I’m okay with it.”
Ethan didn’t answer right away. His hand found mine, squeezed once. “You’re allowed to change, Jis. You just have to know who you’re changing for.”
I nodded.
And yet, the guilt remained.
The child kicked.
It wasn’t the flutter I’d felt before-those vague shifts in pressure that might’ve been imagined. This was sharp. Real. Sudden.
I gasped, hand flying to my stomach.
“What?” Ethan asked, eyes darting.
Before I could answer, my vision turned.
Just slightly. Just enough.
The canyon shimmered.
The trees outside blurred into flickers of fire.
And inside the flames-standing perfectly still-was him.
Aedric.
At the foot of my bed.
Only, I wasn’t in my bed. But I could see it.
I could feel the cool sheets under my body, the pulse of the child still fluttering faintly inside me.
And he was there.
Tall. Shadowed. Watching.
He didn’t speak.
He didn’t have to.
Because I knew what this was.
The child had pulled me into the vision.
Or maybe he had. Maybe both.
Either way… Aedric was inside now.
And he wasn’t leaving.
I shot to my feet with a sharp breath, the image vanishing like steam off wet stone.
Ethan steadied me. “Jiselle?”
“I saw him,” I whispered. “I saw him again.”
Ethan’s jaw tightened. “Where?”
“My room. Standing. Watching.”
“Shit.”
I barely heard him. My heart was hammering too loudly, my breath too uneven. The child moved again- slight, nervous. Like it had just shown me a secret it couldn’t undo.
And I had no idea what it meant.
–
Bastain summoned us that evening.
All of us.
Ethan. Eva. Nate-who arrived late and didn’t look at me.
We met in the inner observatory, a dome carved from obsidian and stone, its ceiling reflecting the stars above like a mirror.
Bastain stood in the center, hands clasped behind his back, gaze sharp and unreadable.
“The Triad,” he said without preamble, “is waking.”
No one spoke.
He paced slowly. “I’ve traced the leyline fractures back to their origin points. There’s a pattern. They converge near sites with ancient Veil history… and blood.”
Eva frowned. “You mean someone’s bleeding on them?”
“No.” Bastain said “Something is drawing from them. The leylines are not just reacting to the Triad bond anymore-they’re feeding it”
I swallowed. “Feeding what, exactly?”
He looked at me. The child.”
A silence heavier than stone fell over the room.
Nate finally spoke, voice low. “Are you saying she’s pulling energy from leyline fractures?”
“Yes” Bastain confirmed. “And possibly more. If she’s connected to the Triad’s full alignment-flame, veil. blood-then she is no longer a vessel. She’s a source.”
“Then why are we feeling it?” Ethan asked, lifting his palm. “Why did I wake up last night with this-“
He stopped. Turned his hand over.
We all leaned in.
Burned into the flesh of his hand, raw but unmistakable, were three words:
“One must fall.”
Eva gasped. I stepped back.
Bastain went still. “When did that appear?”
“This morning,” Ethan said. “I thought it was a dream. Thought maybe I scratched myself in sleep.”
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