Filed to story: Mated and Hated by My Brother’s Best Friend Book PDF Free by Anna Campbell
“I’m not doubting her,” Ethan said after a long moment. “But I am doubting the thing inside her. I don’t trust it.”
“Neither do 1,” I said quietly.
“But you’re still bonded,” he added.
I didn’t answer.
He stopped walking. So did).
“You’re still bonded,” he said again. “And it’s changing you, isn’t it?”
I looked at my hands. Flexed them once.
“I feel her flame in my lungs sometimes,” I said. “I dream about battles she hasn’t fought yet. I smell smoke when she’s not burning. And today when she walked past me-my heart stuttered like it wasn’t mine.”
Ethan went still.
“That’s not normal,” he muttered.
“No.” I said. “It’s not.”
“Does she know?”
“She suspects,” I said. “But she’s already carrying too much. I don’t want her thinking she’s the one breaking me.”
He stared at me.
Then said, “She needs to know if she is.”
I turned, jaw clenched. “Would you rather she push me out? Cut the bond completely? Go into whatever the Gatekeeper wants with no one tethering her back?”
Ethan’s nostrils flared. “You think I don’t want her protected?”
“I think you’re afraid she won’t come back this time.”
His silence told me I was right.
“She’s not just your twin anymore, Ethan,” I added, quieter now. “She’s not just flame. She’s… becoming something else. And aane of us know what that means yet. But I’m not going to be the one who lets her drown in it alone.”
His shoulders dropped.
The fight went out of him-not fully. Just enough.
“Sometimes,” he said, “I hate that it’s you.”
My lips twisted. “Sometimes I hate it too.”
He huffed. It wasn’t quite a laugh. “I never thought we’d end up on opposite sides.”
“We’re not,” I said. “We just walk different angles of the same blade.”
He studied me for a beat longer, then turned.
We started moving again.
The trees grew sparser near the outer rise of the valley. No sounds but wind and the distant crackle of the southern torches. Ethan reached for his canteen. I reached for my senses-stretching them across the clearing like a net.
I felt her.
Like the sensation of e marrow of the world. An
Not like I used to-where the bond would jolt in my chest like lightning chasing a storm-but deeper now. Quieter. More re standing barefoot on ancient stone and knowing something sacred once happened there. Distant, yes, but steady. A puls echo running uphill, brushing the base of my skull and the backs of my teeth, threading through muscle and memory and all the pieces of me I thought I’d already offered her.
“She’s close,” I murmured, more to myself than to Ethan.
He walked beside me, jaw tight, footsteps careful, gaze never still. He was scanning the tree line, but I could tell-his mind was elsewhere. Still tethered to her. Still straining toward the sister he’d bled for, who now carried more than either of us could explain.
“You said the bond was guiding,” Ethan said at last. His voice was lower now, stripped of tension but not of weight. “But is it guiding her? Or is it using you to hold the line?”
The question hung in the air between us, fragile and sharp.
I didn’t answer right away.
Because I already knew the answer.
And I hadn’t wanted to say it out loud.
But now?
Now I had to.
“I think it’s both.”
The forest didn’t move. The night didn’t speak. The sky held its breath like it knew what was coming next.
Ethan inhaled sharply.
His boot caught on a rock he should’ve seen.
He stumbled.
“Ethan-?”
I turned just in time to catch the way his knees buckled beneath him, like the ground had yanked itself from under his spine. He tried to stay upright, but his weight crumpled inward, and his palm hit the dirt with a force that sent dust into the air.
Then I saw it.
The blood.
A single drop at first.
Then another.
Dark and gleaming beneath his nose.
His breathing hitched, unsteady, the rhythm off. His pulse jumped beneath his skin like it was trying to escape. Every inch of him was locked in place, trembling.
“Shit.” I dropped beside him, heart racing.
“What is that-” he gasped, voice cracking around the edges, fingers clawing at the moss beneath us like he was trying to stay grounded. “What the fuck is-“
“I don’t know,” I said, though my gut twisted with the
Because I did. uth.
Not fully.
But enough.
I pressed my palm to his back, fingers splayed over the bones of his spine. I expected resistance. A snap of irritation. A shove.
But he didn’t move.
Didn’t flinch.
Because something deeper was gripping him now.
Magic.
But not just any magic.
Not his.
Not mine.
Hers.
The signature of her presence was unmistakable-raw heat laced with violet threads of flame and memory and something older than either of us could name. It pulsed beneath my skin, coiling around my ribs and reaching out, not like a whisper, but a hand.
The bond between us trembled.
But it wasn’t only mine anymore.
I didn’t push into it. Didn’t try to control or dampen it.
I didn’t have to.
Because it pulled.
Harder than it ever had.
And not just on me.
On him.
On the space between us. On the threads that once only tied her to me, now fraying and rewiring and unraveling through every person she loved.
Ethan gasped once-sharp and guttural.
His back arched slightly under my palm.
Then his voice dropped to a whisper, so soft I almost didn’t catch it.
But I did.
“The bond…” His eyes rolled toward me, wide, panicked, shining. “It’s spreading.”
*Jiselle*
The wind carried a strange weight that morning.
Not dread. Not quite. But something leaning toward it. Like the earth knew something it hadn’t told us yet.
I stood near the edge of camp, my hand resting on the spine of a weather-worn tree. The bark felt cool, grounding. Below the soil, I could feel the leyline hum-a rhythm I’d started to sync with more often than not. Sometimes it comforted. Sometimes it whispered.
Today, it waited.
Footsteps behind me didn’t need introduction. I felt him before I turned.
“Jiselle,” Bastain said, voice even, but slower than usual.
I faced him.
He held something in his palm. Small. Irregular. Blackened on one edge, glowing faintly along the other. Stone-but not common stone. It pulsed softly like a creature with its own heart.
“A gift?” I asked, a weak attempt at lightness.
“No. A warning.” He handed it to me.
The moment it touched my skin, I flinched.
Not from pain.
From recognition.
A memory that wasn’t mine coiled under my ribs and struck like lightning.
The world tilted.
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