Filed to story: Mated and Hated by My Brother’s Best Friend Book PDF Free by Anna Campbell
But later-when the camp began to mobilize, when packs were shouldered and weapons distributed, when Bastain began speaking to his inner circle in hushed tones-I slipped away.
The moon was low, dragging violet threads across the treeline. I found the same stone I’d always gone to when I needed clarity. I sat. I breathed.
I waited.
And Nate found me.
He didn’t say anything. Just dropped to the ground beside me, our shoulders brushing.
I don’t know how long we stayed like that. The wind shifted. The stars wheeled. My thoughts refused to quiet.
Finally, I said, “I thought I’d feel stronger. Knowing who I am. What I carry. But all I feel is borrowed.”
Nate didn’t look away from the trees. “Then make it yours.”
I turned toward him.
He didn’t flinch. “Burn the script,” he said. “Write the ending.”
I closed my eyes.
The ache in my chest didn’t lessen. But it steadied.
“I’m afraid,” I said. “That if I claim it… I won’t come back.”
He reached over, took my hand.
“You already came back,” he whispered. “Every time. So if you don’t… I’ll come find you. No matter what world it takes.”
My eyes burned, but I didn’t cry. Not yet.
We sat like that until Bastain returned, nodding once to signal it was time.
We moved fast.
The outer border passed behind us in silence.
Nate, Eva, Bastain, Ethan, Max, and I-we were the point team. Others would follow later, guided through the cliffs if we broke through first.
The Ashroot tunnels were nestled behind a wall of false stone, camouflaged with decades of moss and a lattice of silver bark trees that never bloomed. I placed my hand on the symbol carved into the base of the arch. Flame pooled under my palm, then sank into the stone.
The wall split.
The tunnel opened.
And the air shifted.
Not stale.
Alive.
Like something had been waiting.
We stepped into the dark.
Our flames lit the path. The tunnels curved and dipped, ancient roots woven through the ceilings like ribs. The walls bore carvings-faded marks, names long erased. I passed one that felt familiar. I didn’t stop.
“Jiselle,” Eva whispered behind me. “Something’s wrong.”
I turned. “What do you mean?”
Her eyes had gone distant. Glazed. Her hands trembled at her sides.
“I feel it again,” she said. “The Gate. Not the pulse. The presence.”
Bastain moved closer, reaching into his cloak. He pulled a relic from the Sentinel order-a thin disc of obsidian etched with a single eye at the center.
He pressed it to Eva’s palm.
She flinched.
Then froze.
Then gasped.
The vision hit her like lightning.
She stumbled backward, eyes rolling white. Max caught her just before she fell, cradling her head.
“Not flame,” she whispered. “Steel. A blade she knows. A brother’s scream. A fall too fast-“
“What does that mean?” Nate demanded.
But Eva wasn’t speaking to us anymore.
Her lips moved, fragmented.
“I saw it. The Academy burning. From the inside out. Not siege. Not attack. Detonation. The stones are screaming-“
Her eyes snapped open.
“There’s someone else”
We all froze.
“Not Kael,” she whispered. “Someone standing at the altar. Sovereign robes. Masked, Waiting,”
“Who?” I asked.
“I don’t know.”
She clutched Bastain’s arm. “But it wasn’t Kael. And the Gate… it’s obeying them.”
A chill settled into my bones.
Not fear.
Confirmation.
Because deep in my ribs, the rune pulsed again-three times, like a countdown.
I looked at Bastain. “Can we get to the south hall entrance through these tunnels?”
He nodded, jaw tight.
“Then we don’t stop,” I said. “We run.”
And we did.
The pulse of the leyline thrummed beneath our feet, and I felt the Gate watching again.
But this time… it wasn’t waiting.
It was listening.
And what it heard was footsteps.
Ours.
Coming home.
Jiselle
The tunnels beneath the Academy had always been sealed to students. Whispered about, Feared. Marked with ancient sigils none of us had ever dared touch. But now those sigils were cracked open-burned from within, not broken from outside. Whatever had once been meant to keep things in had failed.
We moved in silence.
The air was thick, like something dead had tried to exhale and gotten stuck. Violet light flickered down the stone walls from the leyline slivers that pulsed through the ceiling cracks-just enough to see the corridor ahead, but not enough to feel safe.
Nate walked just ahead of me.
His shoulders tense. His steps careful but fast, as if he were trying to outpace a feeling he couldn’t name. I could feel his protectiveness like a second pulse-anchoring me, surrounding me, pulling me back from the edge whenever my thoughts strayed too far into what-ifs.
“You’re gripping the flame too tight,” he murmured, not turning around.
“I’m fine,” I said.
“No, you’re not,” he answered gently. “I can feel the heat rising. Slow it down, Jis. Just… stay here with me.”
His voice worked better than my own breath.
I let the fire settle, just slightly. Let it curl back beneath my skin like a creature returning to sleep. But the ache didn’t leave. The warning didn’t fade. Every inch of this place reeked of old power-and something else. Something twisted.
Behind us, Ethan kept pace, flanked by Max and Bastain. Eva moved just behind me, her steps uneven. She hadn’t spoken much since the vision. But I could feel her fear pressing against mine. We were running out of time, and whatever storm was coming-it had teeth.
We turned the final bend.
And then we saw it.
A chamber so wide the walls dissolved into shadow. The stone beneath our feet turned black-scorched from ancient fire. And in the center… the remains of a throne.
Not gold.
Not marble.
Stone.
Carved into the earth itself, rising like a spine from the floor. It had been cracked down the center. Shattered. But not forgotten.
I stepped forward.
Something groaned beneath my boots. Not stone. Not magic. Something deeper. Like a memory waking.
Nate grabbed my wrist, stopping me just before reached the base of the throne.
“Wait,” he whispered.
I opened my mouth to argue-then heard it too.
Scraping.
Shuffling
Not footsteps. Not quite.
From the far end of the room, something moved.
The torchlight didn’t catch it fully at first-just a glint of bone. A shimmer of tattered robes. And then it stepped into view.
Or rather-stumbled.
A woll.
But wrong.
Twisted.
Fur melted into scorched armor. Eyes hollow. The scent of veilfire clung to its skin like decay.
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