Filed to story: Mated and Hated by My Brother’s Best Friend Book PDF Free by Anna Campbell
Nathaniel Morningstar looked afraid.
Jiselle’
The path to the sacred cavern wasn’t marked on any map.
It lay behind a crumbling arch beyond the academy’s outer walls, hidden beneath an overhang of ancient stone and twisting vines, where the roots of trees tangled with the bones of the earth. Nate didn’t speak as we walked. He just held my hand, steady and warm, guiding me through ash-dusted undergrowth and narrow tunnels that pulsed faintly with old magic.
We hadn’t said much since the ceremony.
What could we say?
Max was gone. Ethan had questions we weren’t ready to answer. And inside me- -growing, watching, unknown-was something that had changed everything.
When we stepped into the cavern, I paused.
It was beautiful.
Not grand or bright or polished, but real. Untouched by war. Crystalline veins pulsed faintly along the walls, humming in quiet rhythm, like the heartbeat of the land itself. Water trickled somewhere in the shadows, the sound soft and steady. Moss crept along the stone in patches, glowing faintly blue in the darkness.
A haven.
Nate let go of my hand and crossed the space to kneel near the spring that bubbled out of the far wall. He tested the water with his fingers, then nodded.
“Still warm.”
He began to gather stones, stacking them at the base of the spring to build a shallow basin. He didn’t ask for help. He knew I wouldn’t move yet. My legs were frozen.
I stood at the threshold, arms wrapped tightly around myself, staring at the soft rise of steam from the spring. The air here felt thick with something ancient. Not hostile. Not safe, either. Just… aware.
“You used to come here?” I asked quietly.
He didn’t look up. “Once. After my second-year trial. I needed space. I didn’t know I’d find this. It felt like the only place in the world that didn’t want something from me.”
I took a slow step forward. Then another.
The further I walked in, the more the tension in my shoulders unraveled.
He looked over as I approached, water cupped in his hands. “It’s safe.”
“Is anything?”
He didn’t answer that. Just rose, offered the water to me. I drank without question. It tasted like the earth after rain.
He guided me to sit near the basin. Unfastened my boots. Pulled them off gently. His fingers brushed over my ankles, then up my calves as he checked for tension. Not as a lover. As someone anchoring me back into my body.
He peeled away the torn remnants of my uniform, layer by layer, reverent and slow. His hands shook only once-when they passed over my bell
He said nothing. Just leaned forward and pressed a kiss just above my navel. A whisper of breath. A vow unspoken.
I wanted to cry,
Not from fear, Not even from grief.
From the way he touched me like I mattered. Like I wasn’t something dangerous or sacred or prophetic.
Just Jiselle.
He helped me into the warm spring water, his arms beneath mine, guiding me down like I was something breakable. I sank slowly, the heat curling around my muscles, loosening the knots I hadn’t realized were there. My eyes fluttered closed.
For the first time in days, I felt like I could breathe.
Nate washed me without words.
His hands were steady. Gentle. He cupped water and poured it over my shoulders, over the mess of blood and soot tangled in my hair, down my back. Every motion was deliberate, like he was trying to memorize each part of me that war hadn’t claimed.
I let him.
When he helped me out of the water, he wrapped a thick blanket around me and rubbed warmth back into my arms. He dressed me in one of his old shirts-soft, oversized, familiar-and sat me near the glowing moss with another blanket around my shoulders.
Then he sat in front of me, legs crossed, hands resting on his knees.
We stared at each other for a long time.
It was the first time we’d been alone since the word pregnant had redefined every breath we took.
“Are you going to run?” I asked.
His brows lifted.
“I mean it. If you need to walk away, do it now. Because I can’t do this with someone who’s half-in. Not with what’s coming.”
He leaned forward, rested his elbows on his knees.
“Jiselle. I ran once. I won’t make that mistake again.”
My throat tightened. “Then say something. Anything. Because I don’t know how to carry this without breaking.”
He reached for my hand. Pulled it to his chest.
“I don’t have the right words. All I have is this: I will protect you. Even from the stars. Even from myself.”
My lips parted. A sound rose in my chest but died before it could form.
He kept holding my hand.
“You’re scared,” he said. “I am too. But we have survived worse. You’ve survived worse. And this-“
He glanced down at my stomach. “This isn’t a curse. Not unless we let it become one.”
I looked away.
“I feel it,” I whispered.
He went still.
“What do you mean?”
“It’s not just growing. It’s… watching.”
His breath caught.
I closed my eyes, searching for the right words. “Sometimes when I close see it. Not a shape. Not a face. Just a presence. Like something me trying to remember the world.” ancient is peering out from inside
His hand drifted to my belly again. Slowly. Tentatively
“And how does it feel?”
I opened my eyes. “Curious. Not cruel. But it doesn’t feel like a child. It feels like… a door.”
He frowned. “A door to what?”
“I don’t know.”
The silence stretched between us again. But it wasn’t hollow. It was full. Heavy with everything we didn’t know how to say.
He shifted closer. Kissed my forehead. My temple. The corner of my mouth. Each kiss soft, lingering, like punctuation marks on the quiet.
He laid me back gently, pulling the blanket over us both. His arms wrapped hair. He didn’t speak. dround me, one hand resting lightly over my abdomen. His nose brushed my
And for the first time, I let myself be held without apology.
I must have dozed.
When I woke, the cavern glowed faintly with the moss’s light. The spring still trickled quietly in the background. Nate lay beside me, eyes open, watching.
He didn’t smile.
Just leaned down and pressed
And as his lips touched my skin- kiss low across my stomach. A reverent gesture. a flicker of violet light sparked beneath the surface.
Just for a heartbeat.
But we both felt it.
His eyes snapped up.
I stared at him.
Neither of us breathed.
Something had awakened.
And it was watching us back.
“
Jiselle
The warmth was still there when I woke-not from the blankets, not from the low pulse of the sacred cavern’s spring water, but from something beneath my skin. A flicker of violet fire still lingered where Nate had kissed my stomach, like the memory of it had stitched itself into me while I slept. It wasn’t a burn. It wasn’t pain. It was presence. Soft, pulsing, undeniable. Like a second heartbeat.
I opened my eyes slowly. The moss still glowed faintly across the stone walls, casting pale blue light across the cavern. Nate lay beside me, awake already, one arm tucked beneath his head, the other resting across his stomach. He wasn’t watching me, but I could tell by the stiffness in his posture that he hadn’t slept deeply. Maybe not at all.
He must have sensed I was awake, because his eyes shifted to mine. There was no surprise in them. Only a heaviness that matched the one blooming in my chest.
“You felt it too,” I said softly.
He nodded. “It wasn’t just you glowing.”
I pulled the blanket tighter around me and sat up slowly, one hand resting unconsciously over the curve of my lower belly. It wasn’t showing yet, not visibly, but something about the way my hand settled there felt… intuitive. Protective,
“It’s not just a child, Nate,” I whispered. “It’s… something else. Something aware.”
He sat up too, exhaling slowly, rubbing his hand over his jaw. “I know.”
We sat in silence for a long time. The air between us held more than heat now. It held questions we couldn’t answer. Fears we hadn’t named. And beneath it all, the quiet, rhythmic pulse I could feel beneath my ribs, like an echo not entirely mine.
When he finally spoke again, his voice was steadier than I expected.
“It’s time.”
I didn’t need to ask what he meant. I nodded slowly. “We need to tell them.”
We returned to the academy just after sunrise.
The ruins were quieter now. The last of the wounded had been relocated to the inner halls. What remained of the outer structure stood like bones picked clean, cracked pillars and scorched stone, the skeleton of a home that had tried to survive fire. A few wolves moved through the halls, eyes cautious, grief still etched in the shadows of their faces.
Eva and Ethan were in the study wing. The room had once been a classroom, but the war had stripped it bare. Only a long table remained, surrounded by cracked chairs and walls darkened with smoke. Ethan was hunched over a map, marking areas where supply caravans had gone missing. Eva stood near the window, staring out at nothing.
It was the stillness in her that struck me.
Eva wasn’t still by nature. She was kinetic, quick-tongued and sharp-eyed. Even when she was silent, she usually carried a hum of energy beneath her skin. But now… she looked like someone who had unraveled and stitched herself back together with threads too thin to hold.
Ethan looked up first when we entered. His brows furrowed immediately, a silent storm gathering.
Eva turned next. Her eyes widened slightly when she saw me, then flicked down to where my hand instinctively rested over my stomach. For a heartbeat, nothing moved.
“Can we talk?” I asked. My voice was quiet. Not fragile. Measured.
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