Filed to story: Mated and Hated by My Brother’s Best Friend Book PDF Free by Anna Campbell
A silence followed. Heavy. Grieving. Nate didn’t move to stop me again.
Because he knew he couldn’t.
I walked to the pedestal. Laid the dagger down gently.
Its blade shimmered the moment it touched the old stone. The runes around the circle glowed brighter, reacting like a system of veins waking beneath skin.
Bastain cleared his throat. “If the ritual begins, it cannot be reversed. Once the blade draws energy, it will feed. Either the bond will sever… or it will fuse beyond breaking.”
“I understand.”
A new voice joined us.
Ethan.
He stood near the threshold, his expression unreadable. But his hands were clenched into fists.
“Then let me do it.”
I blinked. “What?”
Ethan walked in, slow but sure, and stepped beside the dagger.
“Let me take the pain if it fails. Let it burn me, not you.”
“Ethan, no. That’s not how this works.”
“Why not? I’m part of the Triad too. My mark burns same as yours. If someone has to pay the price, let it be me.”
“And if it kills you? If it severs your half and not mine?”.
Ethan shrugged. “Then I die knowing I did something that mattered.”
I stared at him.
My brother.
My twin.
The other half of a soul I never asked for but would die without.
“You can’t ask me to let that happen.”
“I’m not asking,” Ethan said. “I’m offering.”
His voice broke. Just slightly. And I saw the boy he’d once been, the protector he’d always tried to be, and the man who stood beside me now.
“This gift… it’s yours. Always has been. I’m just the echo. The shadow. But if I can take some of it off your shoulders-even once-then let me.”
My knees nearly buckled.
But I didn’t cry.
Instead, I reached up, cupped his face, and kissed his forehead.
“Thank you.” I whispered. “But this time… it has to be me.”
He didn’t argue.
He just nodded and stepped back.
I turned to Bastain.
“How do we begin?”
His gaze flicked to Nate, who still hadn’t spoken.
Then back to me.
“You must hold the blade in both hands. Let the runes cut through you. Let the Triad speak. And when the mark burns bright, you must choose: fusion or severance.”
My throat closed.
But I nodded.
I reached for the dagger.
The second my fingers curled around the hilt, the world shifted.
The stone beneath my feet pulsed. The air thickened. The bond between us-me, Ethan, Nate-twisted taut like a golden thread pulled tight across a chasm.
Flame. Veil. Blood.
One mark on my back.
One on Ethan’s shoulder.
One on Nate’s chest.
All three began to glow.
The dagger lit up.
And I heard the voice again.
“Choose.”
I stepped into the circle.
And I chose.
*Jiselle*
The dagger sat between my palms like it had always belonged there.
It shouldn’t have. It shouldn’t have fit so easily into my hand, like it had been forged to my pulse, molded to my shape. The weight of it didn’t feel foreign. It felt inevitable.
Bastain stood in front of me, arms crossed behind his back, his expression unreadable. His usually impassive. mask was cracked, the lines around his mouth tighter than usual, his eyes darting once-just once-to my stomach.
To the child.
Then back to the blade.
“The veilstone,” he began, voice low, “was never meant to be found. Not again.”
I swallowed, tightening my grip. “Then why was it in my room?”
He didn’t answer right away. Instead, he stepped closer, lowering himself slowly until he crouched before me like someone approaching a flame too hot to touch. I noticed the way his eyes shimmered faintly with the mark that used to brand him. The same Sovereign trace that had long since burned out of his blood, but never fully left.
“It was waiting,” he said simply. “Veilstone is alive in a way that most weapons are not. It reacts to need. To magic. To despair. But it was created for one purpose only.”
I held the blade tighter, waiting.
“It severs tethers,” he said. “Soul-tethers.”
The silence that followed that sentence was heavier than the blade itself. It stretched between us, pressing on my chest, thickening the air.
“Mine?” I whispered.
“No,” Bastain said. “The child’s.”
My blood turned cold.
“It’s forming,” he continued. “Stronger than we anticipated. Three flames-yours, Nate’s, Ethan’s-merging through her. Creating a kind of… hybrid bond. Triadic. Unnatural. She’s not just feeding from you anymore, Jiselle. She’s pulling. And if she continues… the balance could fracture.”
“Fracture how?” I forced out.
His eyes softened, but not kindly. “The Triad may merge completely. You, Nate, Ethan-entangled in a bond you can’t break. Shared memories. Shared pain. Shared death.”
The blade burned warmer in my hand.
I tried to breathe. Failed.
“There’s a ritual,” Bastain said. “Rare. Dangerous. But it’s the only one that can decide the outcome.”
“What happens?” I asked. “If I use the dagger?”
“If you choose to sever the tether,” he said, “it could weaken the Triad, but save the child. She may lose her gift entirely-especially if it’s still forming. You could lose her magic before it ever blooms.”
“And if I don’t?”
“If you allow the bond to form,” he said slowly, “the child will carry the Triad’s full imprint. Power. Purpose. Pain. She’ll be born Sovereign. Or worse.”
I blinked back the sting in my eyes.
“There’s no safe path,” Bastain said. “Only choice.”
I stood. My hands trembled. The dagger pulsed again-once, twice, then steady like a second heartbeat in my palm. My own pulse skipped trying to match its rhythm.
“I need to think.”
He didn’t stop me as I turned and walked away.
But I felt his words chase me down the corridor.
“Don’t wait too long. The bond strengthens with every breath she takes.”
I didn’t know where I was going until I got there.
The observatory was empty, dark except for the faint shimmer of moonlight bleeding through the high windows. I didn’t turn on the lamps. I didn’t want light. Not for this.
I sat on the steps beneath the arched glass and stared at the stars I couldn’t name. The dagger rested on my knees, its edge glinting softly like it was absorbing the light, not reflecting it.
The door creaked open behind me.
I knew it was Nate before I turned.
“I heard,” he said simply, stopping a few feet away. “About the ritual.”
“Of course you did.”
“I want you to wait.”
I exhaled. “Of course you do.”
He came closer, sat beside me, close enough to feel the warmth from his arm, but not touching me. His presence filled the space like it always did, familiar and steady. But tonight, there was something frayed around the edges of him.
“Jiselle,” he said, and my name sounded different in his voice. “You don’t have to do this.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do.” His voice tightened. “You think giving up part of her will save her? That severing the bond will protect her? That’s not how it works.”
“And what if I let it merge?” I snapped. “What if I let it grow and grow until there’s no difference between where I end and she begins? And then what, Nate? When Aedric comes? When the Gate pulls us in?”
“We’ll stop him together.”
“You don’t get it.” My voice cracked. “This thing inside me-it’s not waiting. It’s choosing. It’s hungry.”
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