Filed to story: Mated and Hated by My Brother’s Best Friend Book PDF Free by Anna Campbell
It had been about Jiselle becoming someone-something no one could stop
And if she reached the point where the fire inside her no longer burned for something, but instead simply bored, then maybe…
Maybe I wouldn’t be enough.
The thought made me physically ill.
I moved away from the center, needing distance, needing breath.
The forest beyond the shrine was quiet, Still. And Maximus stepped up beside me, as if the silence had called Kim too.
He didn’t speak for a moment.
When he did, it wasn’t soft.
“If she tips too far,” he said, “I’ll end it.”
I didn’t look at him.
“Even if it kills me,” he added.
I closed my eyes. “Don’t.”
“You know I’m not saying it because I want to.”
“I know,” I said. “But I don’t want to hear it anyway”
He was quiet, then asked, “Do you believe you can bring her back?”
“I have to,”
“That’s not an answer.”
I turned to him, the distance between us crackling like dry leaves underfoot.
“She’s not just power to me, Maximus. She’s not prophecy. She’s Jiselle. And even if she forgets, even if they strip every part of her down to ash, I’ll still know her. I’ll still find her.”
He held my gaze. “And if she becomes the thing that cracks the realms open?”
“I stand between her and the world.”
“And if she won’t let you?”
My voice came out quieter than I meant it to. “Then you do what you have to. After I fail.”
He nodded once. And that was the truest form of understanding we’d ever had.
Not trust.
But necessity.
Behind us, Ethan called out. “There’s more.”
We turned and returned to the pedestal. Eva had uncovered a second inscription on the inner ring-one meant to be read only when the first vow had been made.
If the flame rises again, the Veilborn must fall, or the stars shall burn red.
Maximus’s eyes narrowed.
“It’s not just a prophecy,” I said. “It’s a design. A cycle.”
Eva’s fingers trembled on the edge of the stone. “A design that ends in blood.”
We left the shrine before sunset. We didn’t speak of what we’d found. We didn’t need to.
But I knew, as the wind shifted behind us and the leyline pulled again toward the east-
We were running out of time.
We left the shrine before sunset. No one said a word for a long time. The weight of the past-of blood-de ucts and names lost to fire-pressed on our shoulders like invisible chains. We weren’t walking out with clarity. We were walking out with consequences.
I glanced once over my shoulder as we crossed the ridge. The stone arches stood silent, but something lingered beneath them. A pulse. A watching.
I didn’t know if it was memory or magic.
But I knew it had teeth.
And I knew it was waiting.
Because somewhere ahead, Jiselle was choosing her path.
And we were choosing whether to follow…. or to stop her.
*Jiselle*
The ritual chamber was built into the heart of the mountain-older than the sanctuary, older than Kael. No doors led to it. Only descent. Step by step, breath by breath, into stone and shadow and heat. The flames along the walls burned blue here, flickering along veins of molten rune-light etched into obsidian columns. It felt like standing inside a heartbeat.
Or a tomb.
Kael walked ahead of me in silence, his ceremonial cloak trailing embers as he moved. I followed, barefoot, the hem of my robe brushing against warm stone. The fabric was white this time-not crimson, not ash, not the flame-threaded silver I wore during the Trials. Just white. Pure. Blinding.
Wrong.
Dozens of rogue wolves had gathered in a crescent around the perimeter of the chamber. Some knelt. Others stood with their heads bowed. Not one of them looked at me. Not really. They looked at what they believed I was. What Kael had taught them to expect.
The Sovereign.
The Flame reborn.
The one who would fuse with the leyline itself and burn a new order into the bones of the world.
I wasn’t sure who I was anymore.
But I knew I wasn’t that.
Kael raised his hand and the chamber fell utterly still. The air itself stilled-thick, viscous, breathing.
“Today,” Kael said, “the flame ceases to wander.”
His voice carried easily, not loud but absolute.
“Today, she takes her place as the soul of our order. The breath of our cause. The fire to seal our future.”
No one cheered. They didn’t need to. Their silence was reverence. Their stillness, surrender.
He turned to me, gaze unreadable.
“Jiselle,” he said, “step forward.”
I did.
Because part of me still hoped I could choose how I stood-even if I had no say in where.
The runes flared beneath my feet, brighter with each step. A spiral of flame rose from the floor, licking around my ankles, then higher, tracing the curve of my body without burning.
Magic wrapped me.
Not gently.
Hungrily.
I clenched my fists to keep from shaking.
Kael raised both arms and began the chant.
Old words. Forgotten ones. I didn’t recognize the language, but the meaning crawled into my skin anyway. The leyline stirred beneath the stone, answering him, a deep thrum of power awakening like an ancient creature stretching in its lair.
Then he spoke my name.
And everything changed.
My magic, always coiled tight just under my surface, flared outward, struck like lightning. My chest tightene caught. The flame inside me trembled-not in fear, but in defiance.
And that’s when I saw him.
Nathaniel.
Not a memory. Not a ghost.
Through the fire.
Wounded.
Kneeling.
Calling my name. breath
The vision cut through the heat like a scream in a cathedral. He wasn’t near the sanctuary I knew that. But the bore scar of it-reacted. Split wide and raw, reaching for something I couldn’t name.
“Nathaniel,” I breathed.
Kael’s chant faltered.
I heard wolves gasp.
My body jerked as the leyline surged into me-too fast, too sharp. Magic poured in like a flood with no dam. The symbols around the room flared blindingly white, and the flame spiraling around me snappoose from its rhythm
I screamed.
Not from pain.
From everything.
The chamber convulsed. Columns cracked. The wolves near the edge stumbled back, shielding their faces. The spiral of flame turned jagged, wild, wrapping around me not like a crown-but a cage.
Kael moved toward me.
“Jiselle!”
I dropped to my knees.
Power surged from me in every direction, a shockwave of heat that splintered the floor beneath my palms. I felt the ground fracture. Felt stone groan beneath fire older than language.
Some of the rogue wolves ran.
I heard their feet.
Heard their fear.
Others fell to their knees, eyes wide, whispering a word I could barely register through the roar in my ears:
True.
“She’s the true flame.”
“Not a Sovereign-she’s the spark itself.”
Kael didn’t flinch.
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