The Winter Soldier Novel Novels & Stories

Alone. But no longer helpless. Raven Winterstar, scion of death, walks into the burning dark.

"The circle has a new configuration. Tarek holds the bay, Ezra holds the tech data, Rylan and I hold the lines. But you hold the center." I looked at the three of them. The soldier, the feral Alpha, and the lab-grown hybrid. A month ago, the empty, hollow ache in my stomach would have made me push them away. A month ago, I wanted to lock myself in the dark until the nuclear winter froze my blood. But looking out at the smoking valley, at the heavy iron gates of Haven standing tall against the snow, I realized the softness hadn't just died—it had turned into something that could survive the frost.

Before he could respond, a soft buzz came from his phone—a new message: “Merry Christmas, Volkov. This is only the beginning.” Sebastian froze. Nyra’s smirk returned, but it didn’t hide the worry in her eyes. “Looks like Christmas isn’t over yet.” Noelle stirred, mumbling in her sleep: “Superheroes… save… Snowtopia…” Sebastian glanced at her, then at Nyra, then back at the phone. “…We’ll see about that,” he muttered. The fire crackled, snow fell quietly outside, but Sebastian Volkov knew one thing: this Christmas, chaos wasn’t just coming—it had already arrived.

Five seconds ago, I was whining about the sweltering heat in the RV, begging Hudson to use his extremely precious powers just to make me a damn popsicle. Then the memories flooded in. I was nothing but a piece of arm candy in a sweet romance novel, clinging to others to survive. Hudson was the overpowered male lead. Before the world ended, I had chased him relentlessly until he caved. After the apocalypse, I hadn't changed a bit—I was a total brat.

“Like I said before, it's very important that I meet Winter. We are really friends and we spoke on the phone three days ago. We planned this visit. But I haven't been able to reach her since this morning. Her number is not going through.” The soldier laughed again. “If you are really friends, then you would have known that Winter went missing more than a week ago. You are a liar!” “What!” I exclaimed. Winter went missing? How? Did she run away? But how come? Was it due to Alaric’s help? Had he rescued her like he said he would? “You are a suspect now.” The soldier’s face turned murderous. Turning to his colleagues, he ordered, “Seize her!” The two other soldiers immediately matched forward.

He snapped his fingers and his wind Leopard freed his captives who were shocked and short of words. "What is your name?" Athena asked but Winter ignored her, she continued, "You did not just fight them, you took some of their powers. You are truly ruthless." "That's my name." His cold voice sent shivers down the spine of everyone. Winter had died the night his mother was gone and Ruthless was born.

Then they went back to Snow and pricked his tiny finger; he whined instead of crying from pain. The blood from all three of us mixed together in the bowl, and the most amazing thing happened because the bowl actually changed color, shifting from silver to gold and glowing softly. A smile bloomed across the faces of the elders, and I saw Marcus and Elena both smiling too. The elders raised Snow up high above their heads so that everyone in the entire arena could see him clearly. "His name shall be Zane Snow Winter," the head elder announced in a voice that carried across the entire arena, "the son of Jude Winter and Rosie Elsa Winter, the fifty-fourth young alpha of Winter's pack!"

“I’m not going to, little wolf. It’s what I wanted from the beginning. I knew something was wrong. This is our way to not only fix what our family has broken, to punish what our family has done, but to protect our family now. Caspian feels the same. We are the only ones who should be giving out that punishment besides you. We will not have you kill anyone, unless it’s protecting the pack as Luna. Until then, we will be the one to step up.” I buried my face back into his chest. This was all wrong. How did it come to this? How did it come to no one being able to win? That suddenly the lines got blurred and the war no longer made sense. “Winter, I was running from being Alpha. I made excuses to

Winter. Lying in the small bed facing a brown-colored ceiling, I felt sweat dripping from my body with each passing minute. My heart rate increased so fast that I could hear how loud it beat against my ribcage. My chest heaved up and down in rhythm as the heat spread all over my body. “Fuck my life,” I cursed, moving restlessly to ease the pain. ‘Fuck you, Winter.’ Snow snarled at me. She was beyond angry right now and knowing how tortured she was, I couldn’t even refute her.

The tension in the room dissolved instantly, as if the explosive confrontation moments ago had been nothing more than a brief interruption. Only I, floating in mid-air, felt a bone-chilling cold as I watched the moving red dot. That wasn't me climbing, but rather a wolf. Before I lost consciousness, I heard the howl of a wolf. The sound was very close, just behind the rocks. The hungry wolf must've been dragging my corpse across the snow, leaving a long trail of blood. It had clamped its jaws around my leg, pulling me back to its den as its Christmas feast. Every flicker of that red dot was another jolt to my broken body.