Filed to story: Mated and Hated by My Brother’s Best Friend Book PDF Free by Anna Campbell
“I-I didn’t touch her.”
“You don’t need to,” I said, slowly stepping forward.
:
The air had thickened. The warmth wasn’t the hearth anymore. It was her.
E55 vouchers
I reached out, hand trembling, and cupped the space beneath her body-half-afraid I’d burn, half-convinced she wouldn’t fall.
Her weight settled into my palms with no effort at all. Like fire made flesh, light made solid.
The moment I touched her, her eyelids fluttered.
And then she looked at me.
Her eyes weren’t just bright.
They were knowing.
Like she wasn’t seeing me for the first time-but remembering me.
My legs nearly gave out.
“I don’t think she’s… I don’t think she’s only ours,” Eva whispered. “I think she belongs to something older.”
Before I could answer, the baby blinked once, then closed her eyes again.
The light dimmed. Her breathing deepened.
The room exhaled.
And I did too.
Until the smell hit me.
Burnt.
Sharp.
Like seared blood.
And underneath that-something else.
Smoke.
But not from firewood.
From skin.
Eva’s face paled. “Where’s Ethan?”
7:34 Fri, Sep 19
I didn’t answer.
Because I was already moving.
I found him in the corridor, curled up by the window.
:
His shirt had scorch marks down the front. His fingertips were raw and red, trembling where they hovered above his lap. He didn’t look up when I dropped to my knees beside him.
But he didn’t need to.
I could feel it.
The wrongness.
The heat curling beneath his skin like it was alive. The way the air around him crackled, distorted.
And then I saw it.
His arm.
Burned black from the elbow down.
And still smoldering.
“Ethan!” I grabbed his shoulders, shaking him hard enough that I heard his head thud against the wall.
He blinked. Slowly.
Then his eyes finally found mine.
“She’s in me.”
I froze.
“What?”
He choked out a laugh that wasn’t a laugh. More like a cough dipped in agony. “The Gate. I can feel it again. I thought she freed me, but she just opened it wider.”
“No.” I shook my head. “She saved you. We all saw it-“
He grabbed my wrist. His grip was blisteringly hot.
“She chose me. And now it’s inside me. I can’t stop it, Jiselle. I can’t-” His breath caught. “I tried. I tried to burn it out.”
My heart shattered in two directions at once-toward the boy I had grown beside and toward the twin whose soul was stitched into mine.
“You tried to what?” a low voice thundered from behind us.
Nate.
He didn’t wait for an answer.
He crossed the distance in two strides and drove his fist into Ethan’s jaw.
The blow echoed off the corridor walls. Ethan slumped sideways. Blood dripped from his lip.
“Nate!” I shouted, scrambling between them.
“He was going to kill himself,” Nate spat. “And for what? To protect her?”
“He’s not well-‘
“He’s dangerous.”
I stood taller, angling my body between them, even as my knees screamed. “He’s our family.”
“He’s a vessel!” Nate shouted.
The word echoed like a curse. And it stuck in the air between us.
Ethan didn’t defend himself. He wiped the blood from his mouth and said nothing.
Nate turned away, breathing hard, knuckles still clenched.
I didn’t want to see what was written on his face.
Because for the first time since the birth-I felt the divide.
I knelt beside Ethan again. He trembled, but this time not from fire. From something else. From grief.
“I’m sorry,” he said, voice raw. “But I can feel her. In my blood. In my bones. And I don’t know where I end anymore.”
Before I could answer, Eva’s voice called from the nursery.
“Jiselle!”
I ran.
The baby had floated again.
Only this time-her whole body glowed.
Eva backed away slowly, her eyes locked on the child.
“She said something,” Eva whispered. “Or… I heard something. I don’t know if it was her voice. But it came the moment she opened her eyes.”
“What did it say?”
7:34 Fri, Sep 19
Eva looked at me, stunned.
“She is fire… and memory.”
I stepped closer.
The baby was still glowing-pulse-like, rhythmic.
I reached for her.
And that’s when the pain hit.
Sharp. Wet.
Low in my abdomen.
My hands flew to my stomach.
And came away red.
“No,” I breathed. “No, no, no-
Another pulse of blood slipped down my thighs.
Nate caught me before I hit the floor.
“What’s happening?”
“I-I don’t know. I thought it was over. I thought-” I couldn’t breathe.
Because the glow from the baby’s body flared brighter.
As if it were responding.
As if it knew.
“Get Bastain,” I gasped.
But Nate shook his head. “He left.”
“When?”
New Book: Veiled Desires of the Alpha King Novel
Dayson was the alpha of the largest pack in North America. Powerful figures from other packs sought to offer gorgeous girls as potential mates for Dayson. He steadfastly rejected these advances, he was not a pawn to be manipulated. But eventually there came a mysterious girl he could hardly say No. Who was she?