Filed to story: Mated and Hated by My Brother’s Best Friend Book PDF Free by Anna Campbell
I felt it drag along my spine like a line of fire. It threaded through my ribs, curled against the base of my skull, and coiled at the edge of something deeper
Mon, 26 May MT
-memory, instinct, legacy.
“She’s not doing this,” Ethan shouted across the field, bracing Jiselle’s arm as she wavered on her feet. “It’s pulling from somewhere-feeding too much,”
“She’s feeding off the bond,” Eva called back, panic slipping into her voice.
“No,” I said, stepping forward, my voice firmer than I felt. “The bond’s feeding into her.”
And it was.
Not just emotion. Not just memory.
Power.
Magic. Raw and unfiltered, flowing into her through a connection that shouldn’t still exist.
But it did.
And now, it was changing.
The bond wasn’t static anymore. It wasn’t simply a tether of love or grief. It was a channel. A living conduit linking us not just by fate-but by function. The leyline that had woven through her now wove through me, and the energy that tried to settle in her skin bled through mine like heat through metal.
My bones ached with it. My breath caught. My pulse slowed.
This wasn’t resonance.
This was becoming.
“Jiselle “I called her name, more to anchor myself than to summon her.
She turned.
Slowly.
Not dazed. Not broken. Just… aware.
Her gaze locked with mine, and in it, I didn’t see fear.
I didn’t see the girl I’d left too many times.
I saw a force. A center.
Herself.
She opened her mouth like she wanted to speak-but then her entire body arched with another wave. The flame surged, not as a flare but as a pulse of violet energy that rippled outward from her core, lifting dust from the earth and bending the branches of nearby trees.
I lunged forward just as her knees buckled.
She didn’t fall hard. I caught her before gravity could make a spectacle of it, before her body could hit the ground. She was half-limp, not unconscious, but weightless in a way that terrified me.
Her breath was shallow. Labored.
But not panicked.
And the glow-it was still there, coiling beneath her skin like a second soul, like the storm inside her had gone quiet only because it had found a place to live.
I held her close, pressing my forehead to hers, feeling the damp heat of her skin and the slow, deliberate rise and fall of her chest,
“It’s okay,” I whispered, letting the words settle between us. “You’re safe.”
But even as I said it, the bond inside me shifted again.
Not from strain.
From evolution.
I saw it not with my eyes, but with something older. Something beyond physical sight. Like instinct written in the language of magic.
The scar that once marked our severance-the line that had been marred by years of silence and pain-wasn’t healing.
It was rewriting.
I felt it stretch between us, not as a wound, but as a braid.
My breath caught.
My heartbeat slowed.
And then synced.
With hers.
I felt her inhale before I did. Felt her magic before she moved. The bond wasn’t just humming in the background anymore. It was active.
Alive.
An extension of her… and now, of me.
And I knew.
With a certainty that didn’t need prophecy or proof.
The bond wasn’t just scarred.
It was becoming something else.
Jiselle
I didn’t sleep much the night after the bond shifted.
It wasn’t fear that kept me awake. It wasn’t even the heat of my own magic whispering beneath my skin. It was something quieter. A feeling I couldn’t name. Like the world had tilted just enough to make everything I thought I knew suddenly feel distant.
I could still feel Nate’s breath against my temple, the way his voice steadied me when my legs gave out, the way his arms didn’t hesitate even when he could’ve been burned. But this new version of the flame didn’t lash-it reached. It responded not to rage or reflex, but to the people who stood closest to my heart.
It had spoken without words. And now, I needed to learn how to listen.
The next morning, Eva found me sitting at the edge of the leyline rise, my legs tucked under me, palms facing upward on my knees. The field was quiet, mist still rising off the grasses like the ground itself was dreaming. We were far enough from the others that I didn’t have to keep the flame caged.
“I figured you’d be out here,” she said, settling beside me, her tone soft and even.
“Didn’t feel like staying still,” I murmured. “Too much noise in my head.”
“Is it her?” Eva asked, gently.
I shook my head. “Not anymore.”
Truth was, I hadn’t heard Eira’s voice since the merging. Whatever pieces she left behind weren’t speaking. They were watching. Observing this new path like they hadn’t yet decided whether it would hold.
It wasn’t the ghost I was wrestling with now.
It was the fire.
Not old fire. Not rage, not pain. This new power-it didn’t scream. It waited.
“Ready to test it?” Eva asked.
“I think so.”
We rose together. I kicked off my boots and stepped into the clearing barefoot, grounding myself. I needed to feel the earth beneath me, the leyline humming through my bones like it had been stitched into me.
I took a breath. The air was cool, but it didn’t bite.
“Okay,” I said, raising my hand, just slightly. “Let’s see what you are.”
Nothing happened at first.
No sparks. No explosion.
But the instant I opened myself-not with force, but with feeling-it responded.
The violet light shimmered beneath my skin like it had always lived there. It moved gently through my fingertips and curled outward into the space around me. No heat. Just presence.
I thought of Ethan.
Not just his name, but the weight of him. His loyalty. His pain. The way his eyes still searched for me like I hadn’t become something other. The way he’d stood between me and fire-even when the fire was mine.
I remembered the moment my flame lashed and struck him. The crack of it. The way he hit the ground. And still, still, he crawled toward me. Hot to light Not to subdue.
To reach me.
Because even in his fear, he never saw me as something to be put down.
He saw me as his.
My brother.
My tether to the girl I used to be.
The flame stirred.
It curled around my wrist like breath-cool, not hot. Like it understood reverence. Like it recognized Ethan not as a source of pain, but of anchor.
Then I thought of Eva.
Her laugh, loud and sharp even in places where joy shouldn’t have survived.
The way she stood in front of me during the Trial of Flame when others stepped back.
The nights we curled up back-to-back in silence because words were too heavy but presence was enough.
The morning I woke from darkness and saw her kneeling beside me, palms cut from holding too tightly, voice breaking from screaming my name.
She didn’t follow me because she had to.
She stayed because she chose to.
Her resilience didn’t roar. It hummed.
And the flame responded.
The light around me strengthened-brightening not in heat, but in density. Violet lines spun outward from my palm, delicate and slow, like silk being teased apart by wind. A spiral began to take shape, weaving itself into the air, not as fire but as something far more rare-
Creation.
I held my breath.
The spiral didn’t crackle. It didn’t consume.
It drew.
It absorbed the magic floating between heartbeats and memory, and began to gather light around it, thickening with every thought I offered.
It was listening.
“Jiselle,” Eva whispered, her voice just beside my shoulder now. Her eyes were wide, awestruck. “You’re not just channeling. You’re… creating.”
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