Filed to story: Mated and Hated by My Brother’s Best Friend Book PDF Free by Anna Campbell
“You let Eira in.”
“You think love will fix this?”
I clenched my fists. “This isn’t real.”
They smiled.
“That’s what you said when Max marked you.”
“When Nate left you.”
“When Ethan begged you not to run.”
I turned away. My throat closed. The floor under me began to ripple, the wood warping like heat on water. The room was folding in.
“Make it stop,” I whispered.
“Then rest,” said the quiet one. “You’re tired.”
“You’ve done enough,” said another.
“You don’t need to fight anymore,” the burning one said. “Let us burn for you.”
Their voices layered. Soft. Seductive.
“You were never meant to carry this alone.”
“Let go.”
“Let us take it from here.”
I sank to my knees. My hands shook. The world felt far away. I couldn’t feel the bond. I couldn’t feel my wolf. Just guilt. Thick and old and drowning me.
“You’re not strong enough anymore,” one of them said, kneeling beside me.
“You’ve tried,” another said. “It’s time to stop pretending you can do this.”
I closed my eyes.
Just for a second. Just to breathe. Just to escape the crushing pressure of their voices echoing through my skull like chants carved in stone.
And that’s when I heard it.
Not a sound exactly.
A whisper.
So faint I almost mistook it for memory. Like something I’d imagined a hundred times in the dark just to feel safe.
Jiselle…
The syllables slid into the space behind my ribs and curled there. Familiar. Gentle. Not the flame. Not the voices.
His.
My breath caught. Sharp and sudden.
The mirror-girls froze around me, mid-step, mid-breath-every version of me going still as if someone had rung a bell in a locked room.
Jiselle… can you hear me?
The voice drifted not through the air, but through the bond. Old and scarred, but still there. The thread frayed but not severed. It was Nathaniel. Not in full-but enough. Like the embers of a fire that refused to die.
Please come back to me.
My chest clenched, a sob building without sound. I didn’t realize I was reaching out with my thoughts until the tether pulled tight, the ghost of our connection sparking against the edges of my soul. I clutched at it instinctively, like breath after drowning. Like warmth after exile.
I opened my eyes.
And said, “No.”
The girls tilted their heads in eerie synchrony, as if glitching through confusion.
“No?” one echoed, blinking slowly.
I straightened, every part of me heavy as iron, but I stood anyway.
Because that was the thing about Nate.
He never stopped believing I could get up.
Even when I didn’t.
“He’s still with me,” I said, my voice steadier than I felt.
A sharp crack split the mirror behind them, slicing diagonally across the glass. The sound rang out like a warning. Like truth made manifest.
“You don’t belong here,” I said, eyes narrowing on them now. “You’re pieces. Ghosts. Regret dressed in skin. And I’m not done yet.”
They stared.
Silent.
And for the briefest of moments, I thought maybe they would dissolve. Fade. Let me
But one stepped forward.
Not the youngest. Not the oldest.
The one draped in flame.
She moved like smoke, her steps graceful, deliberate. Her eyes were Eira’s, but the mouth was mine-set in that stubborn line I only wore when I’d already decided how the story would end.
She stopped in front of me, chin tilted just slightly.
“I’m not a ghost,” she said, and her voice rang like steel wrapped in silk. “I’m the only version of you that survives.”
I stared at her. “No. You’re the version who gave up.”
She didn’t flinch.
Instead, she smiled.
And lifted her hand.
Flame poured from her palm-not wild, not violent. It danced like it had all the time in the world. Coiling upward in a lazy spiral, licking the air between us.
“I’m the fire you buried,” she whispered. “And the part of you that never stopped burning. You don’t have to fight anymore, Jiselle.”
My hands curled into fists.
“You’re wrong.”
Her flame arced slightly, casting shadows across the cracked mirror behind her.
“Let me burn,” she said. “You were never meant to carry this alone.”
And behind her, the mirror glowed brighter-no longer reflecting.
But opening.
Waiting.
*Jiselle*
The flame danced in her hand-steady, patient, terrifying in its calm.
The mirror behind her pulsed brighter now, no longer a reflection of my body or thoughts, but something else entirely. A gate. An opening. A warning.
The burning version of myself stood only inches away, her expression unchanging, as if she already knew what I would choose. Her voice lingered in the air like smoke: Let me burn. You were never meant to carry this alone.
But I didn’t move.
Not forward. Not back.
I just stared at her-and hated how much of her I recognized.
Her stance, her voice, the calm wrapped in certainty. The fire didn’t consume her. It adorned her like a mantle. And now, the flame behind her eyes looked less like Eira’s and more like mine.
“You’re not me,” I whispered.
The version of me with flame-coiled fingers tilted her head and stepped sideways, away from the mirror, gesturing to it with a single glowing hand. “Then look.”
I hesitated.
My body trembled-whether from fear or the pull of her power, I couldn’t tell. But I stepped toward the mirror. Slowly. As if moving too fast might crack the illusion or trap me inside whatever this was for good.
The glass rippled as I reached it.
And then it changed.
The image inside shifted-not a reflection, but a memory. Or maybe a present I hadn’t yet seen.
A room.
Circular. Marble floors fractured by old magic. A throne of stone and scorched silver sat at its center. I recognized the place instantly. The throne room of my mind-where I had first faced Eira. Where I’d seen her sit. Where I’d refused to bow.
But it wasn’t empty.
Nathaniel lay slumped at the base of the throne.
Unmoving.
Successfully unlocked!
Flame coiled over his skin like a parasite. His shirt had burned through entirely. Black scorch marks spread down his chest like vines. His face-normally so sure, so steady -was twisted in pain even unconscious.
And above him, drifting just behind the throne, stood the shadow of her.
Not fully formed.
Not entirely Eira.
But a wraith of me.
One foot in memory. One in flame.
And I felt it.
She was siphoning him.
Drawing power through the bond that had once been clean and tethered by choice. She was using him to stay rooted in me.
“No,” I breathed. My hands pressed to the mirror. “Nate.”
The image trembled.
The flame-ghost beside me stepped forward. “You asked to see him. I showed you.” “What are you doing to him?” I demanded, voice rising. “Why is he-why is he in pain?” Her head turned. “Because he wouldn’t let go.”
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?