Filed to story: Mated and Hated by My Brother’s Best Friend Book PDF Free by Anna Campbell
My eyes stung.
Not with smoke.
With memory..
The sound of his voice telling me he’d stand between me and the flame.
Whether it killed him or not.
I didn’t even notice the tremble in my hands until Nate took one of them in his and pressed it to his chest.
“He made a choice,” he said softly. “The same one we keep making, over and over again.”
“But I didn’t get to say goodbye,” I said.
And that-that was the part that shattered me.
I curled into Nate, not out of romance or even love, but out of need. Out of disbelief. Out of the weight of everything we’d carried and everyone we’d lost and how fast it was all falling apart.
Eva, still shaking, lifted her head.
“There’s more,” she said.
We all looked at her.
Her eyes were glassy. Haunted.
“The vision didn’t stop with the fire.”
Bastain moved to her side. “What did you see?”
She looked straight at me.
“You.”
The room went still again.
Eva’s voice dropped to a whisper.
“Your flame wasn’t burning anymore. It was… swallowing. Everything.”
I froze.
“You were standing at the edge of the courtyard,” she said. “The stones beneath you were cracked, and the Gate-Jiselle, the Gate was open. And you weren’t fighting it. You were part of it.”
The silence after her words was a void.
I couldn’t breathe.
I didn’t know if I wanted to.
Bastain turned to me slowly. “We have to leave. Now. Before the Gate completes the tether.”
“The tether’s already complete,” Eva said softly. “She just hasn’t stepped through it yet.”
“No,” Nate said, his voice calm but low and steady. “She won’t. Because she’s not going anywhere near it alone.”
His arms tightened around me. Not in fear.
In promise.
And in that moment, I clung to him not because I didn’t believe Eva.
But because I did.
Because every word she said felt like a thread of truth pulling itself tight beneath my skin.
Something had changed.
Something was changing still.
And this war-
It wasn’t about stopping the Gate anymore.
It was about choosing whether to become it.
The chamber might’ve sealed.
But the path?
The path was just beginning to open.
The Gate answered.
.was worth it.”
His hand slipped from mine.
His head fell to my shoulder.
And he was gone.
Maximus Laker.
The boy who once marked me in pain.
The man who tried to make up for it in loyalty.
The friend who stood between me and death.
Who chose my life over his without hesitation.
And all I could do was scream.
Because nothing about it felt worth it.
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Max’s body was still warm.
That was the part that broke me first.
Because it meant he hadn’t been gone long. Because some part of me-some foolish, aching, deluded part-thought that maybe if I held on tight enough, screamed loud enough, breathed hard enough, he’d come back.
But he didn’t.
The fire that had always burned too close to the surface in Maximus Laker was gone.
Extinguished.
I held him in my lap, arms cradling him like the way my mother used to hold me when I was a child crying over scraped knees and stormy nights. Only this-this was not a wound that time or balm or whispered comfort could ever fix. My sobs cracked the air open. Raw, ugly, guttural. I didn’t care who heard. I didn’t care that we were still surrounded by war. That danger still loomed behind the smoke.
Because grief didn’t care.
Grief screamed when it wanted to.
Grief collapsed the strongest of us.
I pressed my forehead to Max’s, ignoring the way his skin had already begun to cool. “You stupid, stubborn, beautiful bastard,” I whispered through clenched teeth. “You said you were going to walk me to the end. You said you’d stay behind me. Why didn’t you stay?”
A hand touched my shoulder.
Gentle.
Careful.
Nate.
I didn’t move. Couldn’t. If I did, I’d shatter in a way I didn’t think I could come back from. So I just held Max tighter.
Behind me, I heard Bastain murmuring a ward. Ethan’s voice low and tight. Eva-gods, Eva was sobbing. Not like me. Hers was high-pitched. Breathless. A child’s grief in a grown woman’s body.
“No,” she kept repeating. “No, he’s not-he’s just winded. He’s just unconscious.
Bastain tried to move toward her, but she shoved him away, dropping to her knees on the blood-soaked stone beside us.
Her fingers trembled as they reached for Max’s sleeve. “Come on, get up. I didn’t see this. I would’ve seen it.”
Ethan’s voice broke for the first time. “Eva…”
“I would’ve seen it,” she snapped, turning wild-eyed to him. “I always see it!”
She didn’t say it, but the words hung in the air like poison:
Why didn’t I see him die?
I held Max tighter, tears streaming silently now. I had no more voice left. Only the hollow, echoing ache of a heart that had known too many ends.
And Nate-
Nate knelt behind me, arms wrapping around my back. He didn’t speak. Didn’t try to make it better. He just let me fall against him, Max still in my arms. And when I shook-when the next sob tore out of me like flame-he held me tighter. Anchored me.
“I was so angry with him,” I whispered hoarsely. “I hated him for so long. I hated him for touching me, for hurting me. And I think-goddess, I think he died thinking that’s all fremembered.”
Nate pressed a kiss to my temple. “No,” he said. “He knew.”
“He died for me.”
“He chose you.”
“That doesn’t make it right!”
“I know.”
“I didn’t want this,” I whispered, fingers curling into Max’s torn tunic. “I didn’t want him to die a hero. I just wanted him to live. Just… live. Find his true mate. Be happy.”
Ethan crouched across from us, shoulders trembling. He looked as if someone had broken a part of him that would never be mended.
“He always talked about it,” he said quietly. “About wanting his death to mean something. I thought it was guilt. Maybe it was. But… I don’t think he regretted it.”
“He didn’t,” Nate said.
I didn’t respond.
We all sat there for too long.
The war outside didn’t care. I could still hear it. Roars and steel, fire and shouts. The Gate screaming through the ley blurred beneath the weight of what we’d lost.
But in that moment, all of it
Eva was the first to stand.
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