Filed to story: Mated and Hated by My Brother’s Best Friend Book PDF Free by Anna Campbell
And in it-something beat.
A rhythm.
Not like a drum.
Like a heart.
One that didn’t belong to the world.
One that didn’t belong to Kael.
And yet-it called for her.
Jiselle.
The bond inside me yanked hard.
I grabbed my chest, gasping. “She’s connected to it.”
“Not just connected,” Bastain said. “She is it.”
“What?”
“The Gate… was never a place. Not really. It was a convergence point. A soul waiting for a vessel. And Kael… he’s trying to complete the triad-body, flame, and bond.”
My head spun.
Max stepped beside me. “You’re saying he’ll force the Gate open by becoming the second vessel?”
“No,” Bastain corrected. “He’ll force it by copying what Serina once failed to do. She sealed it alone. But if Kael sacrifices himself into the wrong channel, it won’t close.”
“It’ll open wider,” I breathed.
Bastain nodded. “And consume everything in its path.”
Max swore under his breath, running a hand through his ash-smeared hair. “So what the fuck do we do?”
“We stop him,” I said, already rising.
Max laughed once, bitter and low. “That’s your plan?”
“No,” I said. “That’s my promise.”
Lightning forked across the sky, and the ground shook again.
The heartbeat beneath us beat faster.
Max stepped closer, lowering his voice. “Nate… if we do this, there’s a chance we don’t make it back.”
I met his gaze. “Then we don’t come back.”
Bastain swallowed hard, still clutching the scroll. “She has to know.”
“She does,” I said.
“She needs to choose,” he pressed. “If Kael reaches that Gate first, she won’t get the chance. The Gate will choose for her.”
I looked back toward the split in the ground. The violet light swelled again, brighter this time. Stronger. Like it could feel our decision hanging in the air.
And the scar at my chest flared once more-answering.
Max turned toward his horse. “I’ll get Ethan. We move before dawn.”
I didn’t speak.
Just knelt again beside the crack, pressed my palm to the soil.
And whispered.
“Hold on, Jiselle.”
A breeze stirred the edge of the gorge.
Soft at first.
Then sharper.
The flame that rose from the fissure curled once, forming a shape.
A name.
Hers.
And beneath it-
Another pulse.
A sound so low, so ancient, I almost missed it.
But I knew what it was.
A call.
From the other side.
Waiting to be answered.
By the threshold.
By the flame.
By her.
And time… was running out.
*Jiselle’
The bond stirred before I did.
Not a tug. Not a whisper.
A low, pulsing call-like blood humming in the earth beneath me.
I sat up in my bedroll, the cold already licking at my skin. The fire from the night before had burned to embers, and everyone else remained asleep, scattered around the main circle. But I couldn’t rest. Not when my chest felt like it was vibrating from the inside out.
I rose quietly, wrapping a shawl around my shoulders and glancing once toward the others. Nate’s silhouette was nearest the ridge, his head tilted toward the gorge, even in sleep. I didn’t wake him.
Because whatever this was-it was mine.
I followed the call barefoot.
The ground was cold, damp with morning mist. The trees were silent. Even the wind felt like it had paused, waiting. As I slipped deeper into the woods, the bond grew louder. It wasn’t pain, but it was heavy. Heavy like grief. Like memory trying to resurface before it drowns.
My path curved toward the gorge again, where the leyline pulsed in slow, invisible waves beneath the soil. I walked until the scent of smoke turned bitter -until something beneath my ribs twisted.
And then I saw it.
The body.
Not sprawled. Not discarded.
Positioned.
Kneeling. Head bowed. Arms outstretched like prayer.
His robes were Gatekeeper, but torn. Burned. Blood soaked the front of his chest, staining the empty white circle carved over his heart. His hands trembled, still twitching even in death, as if the ritual hadn’t yet let him go.
My breath caught in my throat.
I dropped to my knees beside him, and the second I touched his shoulder, the flame inside me surged.
Violet light pulsed from my palm into his blood-soaked tunic-and the world reeled.
The bond snapped taut.
My body went still.
And my mind…
My mind wasn’t mine anymore.
I was standing somewhere else.
A ruin. Cracked stones. Smoke curling along the ground in thick tendrils, like something alive. In the center of the circle stood Kael-barefoot, arms raised, blood dripping from his left palm.
He was chanting.
Not loudly.
Low.
Like prayer.
And every word was my name.
Jiselle.
Jiselle.
Jiselle.
He carved the syllables into ash with each step, and the ground drank them like offerings.
Behind him-three bodies. Gatekeepers. One already dead. One barely breathing. One sobbing as if they’d seen the end of the world.
Kael moved to the third.
Pressed a kiss to their brow.
And slit their throat.
The smoke swallowed them.
The blood didn’t splash. It curled, lifted, coiled into the air and formed symbols I didn’t recognize-but felt in my spine.
I tried to move.
I couldn’t.
Because this wasn’t a vision.
It was a memory.
His.
Or… no.
The dying Gatekeeper’s.
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