Filed to story: Mated and Hated by My Brother’s Best Friend Book PDF Free by Anna Campbell
Not crossed out.
Underlined.
The line glowed faintly.
Still active.
I took a step back.
The mural. The names. The surge we’d followed here-it wasn’t random. It wasn’t residual.
It was a record.
A prophecy.
Or worse.
A plan.
“She’s not the first,” Max said under his breath.
“No,” I whispered. “But she might be the last.”
We both stared at the names.
Then Max did something that made the hairs on my neck stand.
He turned away.
Not like someone caught off-guard.
Like someone who already knew.
“You knew about this,” I said.
“I didn’t know it would be this literal.”
I moved in front of him, blocking his path. “How long have you known someone’s been watching her?”
“Longer than I’ll ever admit.”
“Try.”
He exhaled, rubbing a hand over his face. “I overheard Kael years ago. Before the Trials. He said she was marked-before she was even born. That someone had seen her likeness in an outpost in the South. I didn’t believe him.”
“Until now.”
He didn’t answer.
I stepped back, fury creeping up my throat. “So while she was tearing herself apart, wondering if she was cursed-“
“I tried to protect her,” Max said, voice sharp. “Even when I didn’t know what I was protecting her from.”
“Then why didn’t you tell her?”
“Because I thought I could fix it before it mattered.”
“And now?”
He looked at the mural.
“She matters too much.”
His voice barely broke above a whisper, but it echoed through the chamber like it had weight-like it wasn’t just words, but a confession. One he’d been carrying long before the rest of us ever knew what she was becoming. He didn’t meet my eyes, and I didn’t force it.
We didn’t speak after that.
There wasn’t anything left to say that wouldn’t either bleed or bruise.
The silence that followed wasn’t like before. It didn’t feel like stillness. It felt like pressure. Like the chamber had narrowed around us, like the stone itself was breathing again, absorbing everything we’d said. The walls hummed, faint and rhythmic, not with energy, but with… awareness.
As if something in the ruin had finally heard what it had been waiting for.
She matters too much.
And now it knew.
A chill crept beneath my collar despite the heat pulsing faintly through the mural. I looked at Maximus again, but he hadn’t moved. He stood rigid, unreadable, staring just past the woman’s burning hands, like he didn’t dare meet her gaze.
I turned back toward her.
The flame carved around her fingers looked slightly different now-curved, mid-motion As though it hadn’t been painted, but paused.
Then I saw her eyes.
And I swear-
They weren’t the same as before.
The once-still white orbs had shifted. A single speck of black now rested in the left one-just enough to mimic a pupil.
I blinked, stepped closer.
The flames flickered again, catching the edges of the script carved beneath her name. The light rippled across the wall like breath passing over water.
And then-
The left eye twitched.
Not a trick of shadow.
Not a trick of flame.
The mural’s eyes blinked.
And in that split second, I knew:
This place wasn’t forgotten.
It had been waiting.
And now it knew we were here.
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*Jiselle*
I needed to be alone.
No Eva. No Nate. Not even Ethan.
Especially not Ethan.
The guilt sat heavy in my throat, sharp and thick like a swallowed blade. The rogue’s death. The blackouts. The voice whispering through my skin like it owned me. I couldn’ t look anyone in the eye and pretend I wasn’t cracking.
So I slipped away before dawn.
No one noticed. Or maybe they did and let me go.
I found a quiet stretch of forest a few miles out, where the trees grew tighter together and the light filtered in like fractured glass. The earth was soft here-damp with moss and long-forgotten rain. The kind of place that should’ve felt safe. Like something sacred lived here once and never fully left.
I sat on the edge of a rock hollowed by time and tried to breathe.
In.
Out.
Steady.
I focused on my hands. No sparks. No glow. No sign of the thing inside me that kept whispering in the dark. For a few minutes, it worked. The silence stretched long enough to convince myself maybe it was just exhaustion, or fear, or both. Maybe I’d imagined the voice. Maybe it wasn’t-
My fingers twitched.
I stilled.
And there it was again.
A flicker beneath my ribs. A hum at the edge of thought. A second rhythm pulsing beneath my heartbeat.
She won’t stay quiet forever.
I stood abruptly, pacing a circle into the earth, trying to outrun the static building beneath my skin. My breath shortened. My hands shook. The power wasn’t rising like before. It was waiting. Like a fire licking at dry wood.
My head snapped up when I heard footsteps behind me.
Ethan.
His scent hit first-pine, sweat, brother.
Then his voice.
“Jiselle.”
I turned slowly, chest tightening.
He looked exhausted. Eyes dark beneath the lashes, mouth tight.
“How did you find me?” I asked.
“I followed your trail.” His voice wasn’t angry. Just… strained. “You didn’t even try to cover it.”
I pressed my lips together. “I didn’t think anyone would come.”
“Of course I’d come.” He stepped forward, hesitating. “Why are you out here alone?”
“I needed space.”
“That’s not good enough.”
I stiffened. “It’s all I have.”
He exhaled. “What’s going on with you?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s not true.”
I flinched.
He took another step. “Talk to me. You can’t just vanish every time the flame stirs.”
“I don’t want to hurt anyone.”
His expression shifted, softening. “You won’t.”
“You don’t know that.”
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