The Coldest Winter Book

My father bought twin brothers from the black market to serve as bodyguards for me and my sister. My sister chose the tall, strong older brother, leaving me with the frail, mute younger one. Feeling sorry for him, I kept him close, seeking doctors for his silence and maintaining distance to respect his apparent OCD. I thought trauma had shaped him that way. But when our father's enemies kidnapped us, he abandoned me without hesitation, choosing to die shielding my sister. In his final moments, he spoke for the first time. "You finally see me." To me, he said, "In the next life, please don't choose me." I realized then that he was neither mute nor afflicted with OCD. His silence and aversion were directed solely at me. When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day we chose the bodyguards. This time, I'd grant his wish.

On the day before New Year's Eve, I didn't shut the window all the way, and my little sister sneezed. My parents kicked me out and ordered me to collect firewood in the dark. Inside, the family crowded around her, laughing as they handed her presents. I didn't cry or make a scene. Instead, I slung the basket onto my back before heading into the mountains through the wind and snow. I didn't find any firewood. I found a man instead. His leg was wedged in a crack between rocks, bloody enough to scare me. When he saw me, he said in a hoarse voice, "Get me out of here, girl. I can give you whatever you want." I looked up at him, my eyes finally focusing. "Really? Then I want you to be my dad."

My dad is a fan of tough love parenting. When I was a kid, there was a time when I obtained full marks on two subjects. But he told me, "Your grades don't mean anything in life. If you were a true man, you'd leap down five floors without batting an eyelash." Some time later, I was awarded for my act of bravery. But Dad scoffed in my face. "Not even a hair is harmed on your head. Why should you be awarded anyway?" I thought Dad wanted me to go through more training in life. On Christmas Eve, he ditched me on a snowy mountain under the guise of wanting me to go through more training. He didn't give me a tent or a lighter. Later on, Dad even brags about his parenting method to his relatives and friends. "A real man should survive and thrive in a desperate situation! I told Julian that he can forget about being my son if he can't even make his way back to the summit!" But the red dot on the GPS tracker installed in his phone hasn't moved for the past three hours. The truth is, I've already frozen to death in the mountains. Trapped in my fist is a scrap of paper detailing the SOS number that Dad had torn apart earlier. Meanwhile, my soul is currently floating above the dining table while watching Dad brag about his tough love parenting.

With his hair as white as snow, blue eyes carrying weight as deep as the ocean and porcelain skin that looks almost translucent under the sun, Gavin has become his pack's subject of ridicule and abuse. At first it was just because of his appearance, and then he presented as an omega, the lowest of ranks, and it just only became worse. On top of that, he’s the only one who couldn’t even shift, a disgrace of a shifter who cannot even embrace their wolf. Living his whole life like this, he has come to accept it, and acknowledged that maybe this is really just his fate.A news of a pack visiting to look for their pack alpha’s son’s mate spreads like wild fire and soon after, everyone in his pack prepared of it. Everyone waited with bated breaths only for them to be beyond disappointed when the alpha’s eyes landed on Gavin, eyes glinting gold. With both packs unhappy with the turn of events, how would Gavin’s life turn out now? If only they knew who he really is, if only he knew, would he have allowed them to look down on him like this?In between disapproving looks and attempts to get rid of him, Gavin finds love whom he had ever only heard of before, the kind of love that people wrote and sang about, cried for, and died for.“Has anyone ever told you that you resemble snow? Your voice reminds me of it, gentle, almost crooning, but still cold. Even your scent, cinnamon and a bit like molasses. You greatly remind me of winter.”“Really? That’s lovely to hear. I love winter.”He smiles.“So do I.”

I came here on a scholarship. No parents. No safety net. Just brains, bruises, and a shot at a better life. Now they want me on the hockey team? I’ve never even touched a stick. And if I say no—I lose everything. The only thing colder than the rink is how they look at me. The rich girls with their designer skates and perfect smiles. The coach who’d rather pretend I don’t exist. And him—Jaxon Reid, the team’s golden boy, who skates like sin and speaks with his eyes more than his mouth. He thinks I’m a joke. They all do. But I’ve fought for every inch of my life, and I’m not about to back down now. Not when college is the only thing standing between me and going back to nothing. So I’ll lace up. I’ll fall, I’ll bruise, I’ll bleed if I have to. And maybe—just maybe—I’ll learn how to play their game better than they do. Because survival isn’t about being the best. It’s about refusing to lose.

“I'm not a tool to satisfy your sexual cravings!" I yelled. But the moment I spilled those word as it stirred up something in him. “You are mine! Mine to keep, to rule. Your body, your soul, everything about you belongs to me!" He growled, pinning me against the wall. His hands traced every inch of my skin and I shiver at the thought of things he could do to me. ★★★ On the night of her 20th birthday, everything changed. In a bid to get out of her miserable life, Jasmine decides to run away from her abusive family into the arms of her mate/boyfriend, justin. The man she had trusted, the man she had given everything. He betrayed her in the most brutal way. Drugged, violated, and sold like property, she woke up in a dimly lit room, hands and feet bound. She wasn’t alone. Other women sat in silence, some sobbing, others too broken and hurt to react. It was only when she was dragged into a grand hall that the horrifying truth became clear. She was being auctioned and bought by a mysterious bidder. Alpha Jemah was everything the rumors said that he was, cold, calculating, and dangerously controlling. At the auction, the moment he set his eyes on Jasmine, he knew there was something special about her and immediately bought her. His rules were simple, a contract relationship in exchange for freedom. No feelings attached, No bridging of contract. With tension rising and chains breaking forbidden desires pull them closer but dark hidden secrets threaten to sever their bond.

Morrigan is the adopted daughter of the Fae King and Queen, Leonard and Raya. She was found on the doorstep of their castle on the night of the Winter Solstice only hours after her birth. It is unknown to them as to what Morrigan is; they don't sense magic and they don't sense any shifter blood. So what exactly is she? On her twentieth birthday, Morrigan finds her mate, the Supreme Alpha Rian O'Connor and shifts for the first time under the Solstice moon. It is only after her shift does her family and mate realize that she isn't an ordinary wolf, she's a tribrid. In the dark recesses of the spell caster kingdom and Fae kingdom the dark Fae and spell caster's have plans for an uprising, to bring their kind back into power and into the light. Their success hinges on Morrigan NOT harnessing her powers or finding her mate, but what happens when that comes to fruition? Will their uprising see success in bringing the darkness back or will it be all for nothing, to be defeated by Morrigan and her Alpha?

Bloom, a 25 year-old single mom, loses her low paying job and must find a way to not just get herself a new job to cater for her 5 year-old son, but also landing one that pays much better than the one she was practically kicked out of. Plain, shy and antisocial Bloom Santiago is forced by her big brother to take up a job interview at W.M Companies to fill in the position of the C.E.O's secretary. But this shy 'Fluffy Little Rabbit' is lured and caught up in a whole new dangerous world that threatens the peace and tranquility of her little innocent world when she unfortunately attracts the desolate eyes of the Ice King, Hayes Warren. He's cold-hearted, introvertive and always seems to walk around bearing an ominous aura that reflects the void of his soul. Lost in the looming narrow corridors of his past, he chases after a woman he only met once. But what is this? Why does this little fluffy rabbit intrigue him so much? "You're hired" After his encounter with her, this little Rabbit successfully begins to hole her way into his heart with a relentless force he's never experienced before. Will the emotions the Ice King decisively buried away into the deepest abyss of his soul, ever be revived again? And will Bloom be able to survive in his resplendent, desolate abyss and save him from himself?

Following the success of her two novels, Cela receives an offer for the TV adaptation of her stories but a third story has to be written soon to complete a three-story special. She is not in to the project until she rediscovers the paper bearing the address of the meeting place of her supposed first date with Nate. Now that her mother is no longer around to interfere, she becomes inspired to reunite with him after many years and hopefully write the third novel based on their new story. Unfortunately, he is now about to get married in two months. Disappointed with the turn of events, she decides not to meet him again. She visits their old meeting place and finds it a good place to write but unexpectedly meets him there. They agree not to talk to each other if they meet there again but fate leads them to meet again under different circumstances leaving them no choice but to speak to each other. Suddenly, Nate’s fiancée starts acting weird and suggests that he spend the weekend with Cela while she is away. Although it confuses him, he figures that it is her way of helping him get closure. The two spend one Sunday reminiscing the past expecting a closure in the end but the wonderful moment they share this time only makes it harder to achieve that closure so Cela has to put a stop to it saying, “Please don't think even for a second that there is still something left or something new to explore after everything that happened or did not happen. This is not a novel. This is reality. We don't get sequels or spin-offs in real life. We just continue. We move forward and that's how we get to the ending."

On the night of my wedding, my best friend's younger brother wiped the sweat from his forehead and asked me, “It’s a little big. Can you handle it?” I stared at his perfectly defined abs, my mind going completely blank. “What?” He repeated, “Can you handle it?” My voice jumped an octave from my panic. “Aren't we supposed to take things slow? Isn’t this way too fast?” That night, the sound-activated lights in the house flickered on and off until dawn. Meanwhile, my ex-husband was squatting downstairs. His eyes were swollen red from crying, but I did not even spare him a thought. Back then, when I agreed to let him proceed with a fake wedding with his childhood sweetheart, Miles Carter thought our cold war was over. When he explained things to me, he said, “Vivian and I will only be married on paper. The ceremony is just to satisfy my mom. I swear, when this is over, we’ll live as a real couple.” I remained silent. I just stared at the countdown on my phone, counting the days until I could finally leave. He did not know that the moment he tricked me into signing the divorce papers, our marriage had already ceased to exist.