The Luna Trials by Marissa Gilbert Read Online
Bonus Chapter 3. (Aspen + Brigit)
Aspen dug his canines into the bear’s flesh and enjoyed the warmth of his blood trickling down his canines and fur.
Two down, three to go.
Five in total.
Five bears who hurt him the most when he was a prisoner in Bjorn’s castle. Five bears who were going to die by his hand.
Well, three now since two were already off the list.
And boy, did Aspen enjoy k*il*ling them. Such scum did not deserve to live.
The Northern Lycan Kingdom wasn’t just a country. People here had honour. They had rules they’d followed for generations.
No one, absolutely no one, was to harm a man who was already down and couldn’t defend himself. No one was to humiliate prisoners of war. No one was to take another Northerner’s dignity. What was done to him was done for fun, and he swore that everyone who participated in his t*ortur*e would pay.
Not only that, but those five bears made a spectacle out of him, torturing him for days while laughing about the death of Aspen’s king and family. They laughed at what Bjorn was going to do with his queen as well. Then they mocked him about his mate, promising to f*uc*k her on his behalf since she preferred bears anyway.
No, he couldn’t find it in himself to forgive them.
Maybe it made him a bad man, but he had no regrets.
The one whose life Aspen took just now broke his knees every hour as if he was on a clock, knowing that it was the only way to permanently injure a lycan. His friend, who carved insults on his chest with a silver knife and laughed as he watched them heal, was also already dead. Aspen left his body in the woods, where he deserved to stay and rot. The same destiny would follow this one.
Aspen unclenched his jaws and let the wolf fall to his feet, a pool of blood gathering around him, soaking the gra*s*s.
He lifted his head to look at the moon, and at the same time, the familiar sweet scent hit his nostrils.
She was here. Brigit was here.
Just like the last time, she didn’t do anything to stop him. And it was annoying! After all, what kind of queen lets her men get slaughtered by an amba*s*sador of another king?
He wanted her to get angry. He wanted her to confront him about her men.
His wolf pleaded with him, telling him their ex-mate wanted to get together. That this was her way to gain his forgiveness. Only that it wasn’t enough. It would never be enough.
Some part of him would always love her, but he knew they were over. He would never be able to trust Brigit. He would never be able to call her his.
They were perfect mates that never happened.
This was all they were now.
Aspen sensed her leaving. At first, he did not want to follow. She did the same when he challenged the first white bear. Although fights like this were frowned upon, it wasn’t necessarily illegal. Shifters fought each other all the time and died as a result. As long as it was a fair fight, it was fine. Fair being the key word.
Aspen always gave them a chance to stand up for themselves.
However, at the last minute, something inside him snapped as Brigit’s intoxicating scent enveloped him until he couldn’t breathe properly anymore, and Aspen decided to go after his ex.
It was annoying, and she had to stop this. This… whatever this was!
Brigit sensed him following her and sped up, only fuelling his desire to catch up with her more. At least in his wolf form, he could still do it.
However, his tormenter was cruel. They left the woods in a few minutes, and she rushed into the night city. It was surprisingly busy now, and Aspen had no choice but to shift into his human form and get the clothes he had hidden nearby for this exact kind of situation.
Although they were technically allies with the bears now, he still had to stay careful. Not all the bears were “reformed”. And only a few of his warriors were around at this time to back him up. So, he had to choose the safer way.
Brigit managed to disappear as if she wasn’t the one who stalked him in the first place.
The thought alone annoyed Aspen. He never looked at her at official events. And she never allowed him to see her outside of those. At least, not alone.
But she followed him both times he was hunting his enemies. Which led him to believe she knew everything about his little revenge quest. And also… she knew where the remaining three bears were. She had to.
She must have hidden them because he couldn’t find anything about their whereabouts. Not even from their “friends” he fought and k*il*led. The three bears disappeared one by one, and no one ever saw them again.
There couldn’t be any other explanation. Brigit had to be hiding them somewhere, protecting them from his wrath.
And today, he was going to confront her about it.
Enough was enough. She was going to give him… answers!
Aspen knew very well where the Bear Queen of Nova Oberon would go. There was only one place she could hide from him. It wasn’t her bedroom. It wasn’t her office. He could reach those because his room was in the same wing. Brigit wouldn’t go there now that she tried to avoid him.
The Throne Room.
This was where he couldn’t go because it was always heavily guarded. This was where she would be hiding from him now.
Little did she know that he had a surprise for her.
***
Brigit passed her guards with a stern, disinterested look as she strolled into her throne room. Sadly, this was the only safe place she could think of.
She breathed out as she closed the ma*s*sive doors behind her back and leaned against them, unbuttoning her fur coat, letting it fall to her feet. It was obstructing her from breathing. She was always a mess after she saw her ex-mate this close.
Today she was certain that Aspen noticed her. Her little good deed did not go unpunished, and she bit her lip until the familiar metallic taste of blood touched her tongue.
Why was it still so painful after all these months?
They mutually rejected each other. Shouldn’t the pain have subsided by now?
“It took you a while to get here!” The familiar voice made her flinch and snap her head in the direction where it came from. Her throne.
Brigit swallowed the lump in her throat, taking a few steps forward. Surely, it wasn’t possible.
Even if Aspen shifted, he couldn’t possibly have gotten here faster than her.
His eyes gleamed in the darkness with familiar warm light, and a part of her felt as if she was home for the first time.
However, Brigit had to wipe that feeling from her heart and soul. She wasn’t home. Not with him. Her home would never be with him. Not after what she had done to him.
“Surprised?” Aspen’s lips curled into a cruel smile as he angled his head at her, his face lazily leaning over his fist, elbow resting on the throne’s armrest. Right now, he was the one who looked like a royal. And she looked like the fraud she was.
“Wh-what are you doing here?” she mumbled, hating the weakness in her voice. She did not want him to see her like this.
“Waiting for my–” He started saying, and her heart skipped a beat. Was he going to acknowledge that they were mates once? “Queen,” Aspen finished coldly, breaking her hopes to myriads of tiny pieces.
Brigit regained herself and straightened her back. “Well, I am here now. What do you want?”
He stood up from the throne he was sitting on and slowly descended the stairs. His cane wasn’t with him, and it took him a while as he was still limping after the injuries obtained during his imprisonment.
Brigit did not dare rush him or be impatient. Instead, she watched him with the respect he deserved and didn’t let a single muscle on her face show how sorry she was.
At least he was here. At least he was alive. She couldn’t forget how it felt to lose him, Savannah’s words echoing in her memory. She would never forget.
At least her sister was now serving the Northern Lycan Queen. That life would be safer, better. She wished there was a different way to obtain it, but it was what it was.
Before Brigit could do or say anything, Aspen’s hand closed around her neck, and he pushed her against the door, making her gasp from the shock.
“Aspen!” she breathed out, realising it was just a scare tactic. He wasn’t hurting her even though she deserved it. She deserved whatever he was going to do with her, and she was surprised he didn’t do it earlier.
“Where are they?” he demanded, and she instantly knew who he was asking about.
The three missing bears. Brigit figured he was looking for them.
“I don’t know!” she lied, and he growled menacingly, tightening his grip. It felt so good, though. Finally, she had some kind of physical contact with him, something she had been craving for a while. Even if it was like this. So, she decided to add fuel to his fire. “I don’t know what you are talking about!”
“Liar!” he hissed, his canines dangerously close to her neck, hot breath prickling her skin in this cold, dark hall.
“What do you want from me, Aspen?” she dared him, meeting his glare. He was so handsome, her ex-mate. The one she lost…
“Where. Are. They?” He repeated with a growl, and everything inside her exploded with the desire to have him closer.
“Who?” she taunted further, their breaths tangling in a fight for dominance as his thumb brushed over her lower lips. Something he did not intend to do but ended up doing anyway.
She was breathtaking tonight in her thin silver gown.
“The three bears who–” Aspen’s voice broke to his own surprise. Just remembering how they beat him into a pulp in between the hourly knee-breakings made his blood boil. He hated showing weakness in front of her.
Maybe… Maybe that was why Brigit didn’t choose him… because she did not deem him strong enough for her?
The treacherous thought crawled back into his mind, and he let go of her. All this wasn’t the best of ideas, and he distanced himself from her, wishing to leave and forget it all ever happened.
Aspen’s hand was on the handle when Brigit broke her silence.
“They are dead!” she said, voice confident. “All three of them.”
His fingers clenched tighter around the doorknob.
“You are lying,” he muttered without sparing her a single glance.
“I am not!” Brigit insisted. “I– I k*il*led them.”
He needed a moment to process that.
“What,” he chuckled darkly, “they ate your porridge and sat on your chair?”
“They hurt my mate!” the Bear Queen confessed, tears stinging her eyes as she tried to blink them away vigorously.
“We already weren’t mates back then,” Aspen scoffed, piercing her heart with the sharpest dagger.
Only that she did not care anymore.
“You will always be my mate for me.” The words hang in the air between them. Heavy. Unbreakable. True.
She expected him to laugh at her or to say something hurtful. Gods knew she deserved it, and he had his right to it.
But Aspen stayed silent.
“How did you k*il*l them?” his voice rasped, and she stepped closer, feeling brave with him for the first time in a while. He needed to know this. She knew very well why he was searching for them.
“The two I took care of- It was the same as you k*il*led the others ,” she admitted, “just a different place. I took them to the top of the icy bear cliff and challenged them one by one. Then, when I won, I dropped their bodies to the Northern Sea to feed the fish and be useful for once.”
Aspen looked at her for the first time and tried to a*s*sess how serious she was about this. Not a muscle on her face flinched.
“What about the third one… the last one?”
“He wasn’t last,” Brigit shook her head, making her white shiny locks fall forward onto her chest. “He was the first. I found him on the battlefield right after I was blessed. I knew him too well to miss him. Bjorn’s minion! He always had the dirtiest tricks up his sleeve. Your knees… I found out that it was his idea.”
“Why would you care?” he stormed at her, turning to face her, just inches away from her warm body.
“I will always care!” she retorted, tears finally streaming freely down her cheeks. “You can hate me all your life, but you can’t prohibit me from caring! I love you, Aspen! Okay? I–”
She froze, realising what she had just done, what she had confessed.
Brigit didn’t know if she stood like that before him for eternity or if it were mere seconds, but she was afraid to move, afraid to scare him away.
“Why?” Aspen breathed out, and she understood that it was a rhetorical question. Why didn’t she come to him? Why couldn’t they both have been smarter? Why was life so unfair to them? Why did the gods pair them up as mates? And why couldn’t they stop loving each other even after their rejection?
“I don’t–” Brigit didn’t get to finish her response as Aspen grasped her neck again and pulled her closer, slamming his lips into hers. His tongue immediately pressed for entrance which she granted, because she was going to take everything he was going to give her. While she could…
Fingers lost in each other’s hair, breaths joined as one, Brigit ripped his shirt off, greedy to feel his hot skin. It was just as she remembered, smooth and rough at the same time.
He roughly pulled the top of her dress, ripping the silver fabric to release her flesh underneath it and groaned in delight when her perky b*reas*ts bounced free.
Aspen pinned her to the doors and leaned down to capture one of her n*pples with his mouth, rolling it with his tongue while tugging the other one in between his fingers while his beard prickled her sensitive skin.
A loud m*oa*n escaped Brigit, her whole body shuddered in his arms. It felt so good, so right… She did not expect to ever feel this way again, so she wanted to use this moment to remember this. Remember him…
Her fingers found his zipper and in no time she was working his length slowly up and down, eliciting a growl from him. The sound brought her more joy than him teasing her.
“I can f*uc*k you against this door right now for all your guards to hear,” he told her, and she licked her lips, which made him bare her canines at her. She wouldn’t mind that either.
“Do it then!” Brigit said, hoping that she didn’t sound too desperate. She was afraid to repulse him with her eagerness.
“Don’t tempt me, my Queen,” he slid his hand in the slit of her dress and cupped her warm s.ex, making her whimper.
“I am not your Queen.” She couldn’t stop herself from saying that. She wasn’t his queen, he had to stop calling her that. She would literally give a kingdom for him to say her name.
“Not my Queen,” he stopped touching her and she was afraid she just ruined it all. “But mine.”
Her lips parted. He didn’t just say that.
Aspen grabbed her roughly and scooped her up, her legs wrapping around his waist, their chests pressed together.
Brigit was worried if it was painful for him but when she heard his next words, her eyes widened.
“I’d rather f*uc*k you on your throne!”
He couldn’t be serious about this. It was a whole flight of stairs, and he was holding her. He had no cane, no support. Just his Northern pride.
However, when his arms closed around her and their eyes met, the world around them spun and in the next second they found themselves next to the throne.
“H-how did you– What?” Brigit couldn’t find the right words.
“I don’t walk so much anymore,” Aspen smirked, taking a seat and shifting her on his lap so her back was against his chest. “I skip.”
“Skip?” she gasped as he parted her legs and ripped her lacy underwear off her, throwing it far away. The thought of one of her advisors finding her torn p*an*tie*s tomorrow distracted her from the shock.
“Through space,” Aspen’s tongue traced the curve of her neck. His hardness pressed against her back and his fingers dipped between her thighs before bringing them to his lips, tasting her w*etness.
“Through–” she panted, “–space?”
That explained how he got in here first. That explained why King Kai wasn’t afraid to send his injured best friend to the bear kingdom. Aspen was one of the changed ones! He was limping and yet he was able to transport himself to any destination in a blink of an eye.
Somehow deep inside… it made Brigit feel a bit better.
His fingers caressed her sensitive bundle of nerves as she arched her back, leaning into his chest. If anyone walked in right now, they would witness the show of their lives. A queen ravished on her throne.
Aspen was kneading one of her b*reas*ts as he kept teasing her over and over and over again until she couldn’t hold back the m*oa*ns. It was too unreal to have him this close, and when his canines grazed over the spot where lycans marked their mates, she was ready to beg him to do it. However, her rele*se came first, strong waves of immense ple@sure rippling through her as she let out a low grunt, turning her face to hide it in Aspen’s neck, grazing her lips over it as she came undone.
Brigit returned to her senses, noting that Aspen’s hands were still fondling her body, that his hardness was still pulsing and pressed into her flesh. She chose not to waste a single moment and turned to face him, straddling him properly this time, their gazes locked.
Aspen’s hand moved to her cheek, and her whole body shuddered, not knowing what to expect. He could push her away now that he’d had his fun. Instead, he simply feathered his fingers over her skin, making her breathing ragged as she enjoyed the closeness.
Tears burned her eyes, and she was afraid to open them and give herself away. She didn’t want him to be annoyed with her. Or worse. She didn’t want him to feel pity. Anything but that. She’d rather take his hate.
“Brigit–” He noticed a treacherous tear rolling down her face and caught it with his thumb, wiping it away.
“No, please,” she tried not to sob. “You– hate me.”
Aspen was silent for a while. The silence served as her answer until he broke it.
“I– try.”
A jolt of pain went through her, but at the same time, a tiny spark of hope ignited.
Try. He said try.
Was she wrong to cling to that word as if her life depended on it?
“Aspen,” she whispered, but it echoed through the walls in this spacious empty hall.
He did not respond, and she found his face in the darkness. She wanted to confess to him everything she had held back for so long, but when she cupped his cheek, she felt how damp it was.
“Aspen,” she repeated his name but with a different tone this time.
Without saying anything, he placed his hands on her hips and moved her to the top of his hardness, sliding into her, inch by inch.
“Brigit,” his voice rumbled through the room, “I try hating you, but I don’t always succeed.”
She rocked, and they both m*oa*ned in unison, Aspen wrapping his arms around her, bringing her closer.
“I am not going to lie and say that I am sorry to hear this,” she moved, and he guided her with his hands on her hips, enjoying the sight of her riding him.
Then at some point, he grasped her waist more firmly and started thrusting roughly into her.
Again, again, again.
Faster, harder, louder.
Until they both snarled at each other, until he swept Brigit’s silver hair to her back, swirling his tongue around one n*pple , followed by the other.
“I am sorry,” she muttered as she lost herself in the overwhelming emotion. “I am sorry, I am sorry, I am sorry–”
Aspen’s grip on her tightened, one of his hands slid to her neck, and his fingers closed around it at once.
“You are mine whether you are sorry or not!” he growled, and she nodded, ready to agree to anything as long as she could be with him. Even if it was temporary.
“Tell me you understand me!” Aspen demanded as he stopped moving, and she had to blink a few times to come back to her senses.
“I understand,” she muttered, hope flourishing inside her once again. She didn’t even try to suppress it this time.
“Tell me, Brigit, do you enjoy being a queen?” Aspen’s eyes gleamed.
“I hate it,” she did not hesitate to confess.
“Why do you do it then?”
“Because the men who did it before me were terrible at it. I wasn’t left with a choice, remember?” And because she had nothing else left.
“What if you had it now? What if someone worthy of the Bear Throne was found?” Aspen asked, his voice betraying no emotion.
“What then?” She was afraid to move. She was afraid to breathe…
“If there was someone worthy to take over for you, would you– leave all this and go with me?”
“Yes,” she replied without delay, and his heart started beating faster.
“I didn’t even tell you where we would go,” he pointed out
“Aspen, with you– If you agree to have me again, I will go anywhere,” she acknowledged and, for the first time since so long ago, she leaned in to kiss him herself.
Tongues clashing, bodies crashing against each other, Aspen pounded into her, keeping her close.
However much he tried to hate her, it wasn’t working. He would always care about her. She was the one for him. The only one.
And he would never take another mate.
His canines elongated and traced them over her marking spot.
“May I?” he asked, stopping just so that she could hear him clearly. Brigit was breathing heavily, but the deeper he probed her skin, the more evident she felt it.
The tingles.
“Only if you promise to never regret this,” she whispered, still afraid he would change his mind.
“I will not,” he replied firmly, wrapping his arms around her tighter.
“Do you forgive me?” her voice was barely a whisper.
“Birigit,” Aspen placed a soft kiss on the spot where he was about to mark her, “I forgave you when I died for you.”
His canines pierced her skin, and pure e*cstasy rippled through her in waves, one after the other, growing in strength and intensity.
Aspen resumed the pounding, their bodies uniting as one. Brigit screamed her rel*ase, her head falling to his shoulder as she clenched him hard in her arms, feeling him climax inside her.
“I love you,” she whispered and felt him kiss her hair.
“I love you,” Aspen said, his words a promise he could never break.