Filed to story: Mated and Hated by My Brother’s Best Friend Book PDF Free by Anna Campbell
Fur retracted. Bones shifted. Skin stretched.
She rose up on two legs until she wasn’t a wolf anymore.
She was me.
Naked, unblemished, her hair a glowing halo behind her shoulders, her body glowing like moonlight in a storm. But her eyes… they weren’t mine. They were white. Fully white. No iris. No pupil. Just light. Ancient. All-seeing. “No,” I gasped, stumbling back.
She smiled-not cruelly, but not kindly either. Like she’d seen the end of the world and found it inevitable. “You carry what I couldn’t,” she said. Her voice echoed-not in the air, but in my bones.
“Who are you?” I asked again, but it came out cracked. Fragile.
“You already know.”
She took another step. The fire moved with her.
“The stars chose once before,” she continued. “And they chose wrong. But the moon has not forgotten.”
“I’m not ready for this,” I choked out.
“No one ever is.”
My knees gave out. I collapsed to the earth, smoke filling my lungs, tears stinging my cheeks. “I’m not her. I’m not you. I don’t even know what I am.”
“You’re what happens when the veil tears.”
She crouched beside me. Touched my chest-right over my heart-and light exploded from her fingers. Not pain. Not heat. Just… power. It rushed into me like breath after drowning, like lightning and calm and terror all at once.
“You don’t have to survive,” she whispered, “but if you do… change everything.”
And then she turned.
The fire surged again, curling around her body Successfully unlocked! ehind her. The trees groaned.
She didn’t look back.
She walked into the heart of the blaze and vanished.
And I woke up screaming.
My breath tore from my lungs like I’d been submerged in cold water. My body bolted upright, drenched in sweat, shaking so violently the sheets tangled around my waist like shackles. My throat Burned from the force of the scream I couldn’t finish. The room was dark-moonlight streaming through Nate’s open window, soft shadows dancing across the walls.
The fire was gone.
But the heat… it lingered in my chest.
I looked down.
And that’s when I saw it.
Not the mark from the ceremony.
This one was new.
Etched directly over my heart, its edges glowing faintly in silver. A swirling design of three crescent moons interlocked in an endless loop, framed by a ring of tiny stars. It wasn’t made of ink. It wasn’t burned or branded.
It was part of me.
It pulsed once.
Then stilled.
“Jiselle?”
Nate’s voice was thick with sleep, but the moment he sat up and saw me, he was alert.
I scrambled to cover the mark with my palm. “I’m okay,” I lied, my voice hoarse. “Just… needed air.”
He looked at me for a long moment. Eyes sharp. Knowing. But he nodded. Laid back down. “Come here.”
I didn’t move.
Couldn’t.
He drifted off again, his breathing even.
But my heart… it hadn’t slowed.
I climbed out of bed on silent feet, tiptoeing toward the small cabinet where I’d hidden the journal. The one Bastain gave me. The one no one else knew I had.
Serina’s.
I pulled it free from beneath the floorboard where I’d stuffed it days ago, fingers trembling as I brushed the dust from its cover. The leather was cracked, the edges worn. It felt heavier now. More alive.
I sat on the floor in front of Nate’s window, letting the moonlight fall over me. I opened the first page.
Blank.
I flipped to the next.
Also blank.
The third… same thing.
I nearly tossed it in frustration.
But then, I stopped.
I closed my eyes, took a slow breath, and whispered, “Show me.”
The page beneath my fingertips shivered.
Lines appeared-first faint, then darker. Ink rose like smoke. Words I couldn’t understand began to fill the page in swirling script. Symbols I didn’t know but somehow recognized started sketching themselves into the margins.
The cipher.
It wasn’t written for eyes.
It was written for minds.
For mine.
I flipped through as more pages began to fill-each one crawling with thoughts, images, fragments of a life that wasn’t mine but felt too much like it was. There were drawings of celestial bodies, diagrams of shifting patterns that made my temples throb.
And then the words came clearly, as if they’d been waiting for me:
“She who carries the moons shall not burn, but they will try to set her aflame.”
“Her howl will shatter the balance. Her gift will bend the laws And th
“There were five. There must always be five. But only one who sees the veil.”
I swallowed thickly.
At the bottom of the page, a single line was scrawled in bold ink, as though added after the rest had aged:
“They killed me before I became her.”
I slammed the book shut.
My breath came fast and wild.
That was her. Serina. Speaking through time.
And her warning was clear.
I wasn’t just the next Ethereal.
I was the first to survive.
*Jiselle*
There were eyes on me.
Not the obvious ones-Nate’s fierce, watchful gaze or Eva’s protective glances across the dining hall. These were quieter. More deliberate. The kind you didn’t see, but felt.
The kind that made the back of your neck prickle. That turned every mirror into a threat and every shadow into a whisper. It started two days after the ceremony. After the sigil seared my skin like a warning from the moongoddess. After Bastain screamed at a council elder in front of half the faculty. After Nate refused to leave my side for twenty-four hours straight and Carrow ordered layers of protective magic into our shared room that made even enchanted ink smudge and bleed. At first, I thought I was imagining it.
The way conversations would fizzle the moment I entered a room. The way people would turn slightly, just slightly, to avoid my path. Like I carried something in my aura now-something they didn’t want to breathe in.
Even Eva had grown quieter.
Not distant. Not angry. But wary. Like she was trying not to step too close to a burning wire.
I didn’t blame her.
I felt like a live current. Like there was something under my skin that hummed with a frequency only other wolves could detect. It wasn’t power, exactly. It was something stranger. Like the moon was whispering in a language only I could hear- and I hadn’t yet learned how to translate it.
The worst part?
I couldn’t tell if they feared me… or pitied me.
Maybe both.
That morning, I found Emari leaning against the hallway wall near the back courtyard stairs, arms crossed, one boot pressed against the stone behind her like she’d been waiting for someone. Or maybe like she just couldn’t stand being inside.
We hadn’t really spoken since I saw her with the ceremonial dagger. Since she said that thing about not trusting everyone who pretends to be on your side.
I didn’t expect a warm reunion.
But I didn’t expect her to speak first, either.
“You need to stop walking around like you’re untouchable,” she said as I passed.
I turned. “Excuse me?”
Her eyes were shadowed, serious in a way that unsettled me more than any insult ever had. “This place is a pit, Jiselle. It chews people up. And you-” she tilted her head, assessing. “You’re just shiny enough to draw blood when you break.” I frowned. “Why do you care?”
“I don’t.” She pushed off the wall. “But I don’t want to be caught in your blast radius when the storm hits.”
Cryptic. Of course. That was her language.
But something in her tone lingered long after she was gone.
Even in class, the instructors were different around me. They didn’t say my name out loud. Didn’t pair me with anyone unless it was absolutely necessary. The new assignments for the Solstice trials had been updated and my name was- strangely-missing from the main board. No one would give me a straight answer.
Only Bastain’s narrowed eyes and clenched jaw told me everything I needed to know: I was being removed. Or protected. Maybe both.
It wasn’t until that night, back in the dorm, that my wolf started growling again.
It wasn’t a loud growl. Not a scream of danger. Just… unease. A soft, low hum in the pit of my belly that made my hands sweat and my instincts sharpen.
I looked around.
Eva was in her bed, laying down-probably pas.
Successfully unlocked! tinted shadows across our desks and beds. My bag was half-unzipped on the chair. My books stacked neatly.
For room was Quiet. The flickering wall lights cast soft, gold-
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