Winter Guardians Novels & Stories

Before the pack's Winter Solstice festival, I was given a Moonwater Mirror, forged from the waters of the Moon Goddess Spring. But the face staring back at me wasn't my own. It was my face, but younger. The girl I was eight years ago. Her eyes were bright with a joy I hadn't felt in years. When she realized I was from her future, she practically vibrated with excitement. "Our fated mate, Alpha Owen, he confessed today! He's going to plant moonflowers around the lake cabin. He'll stay with me for every full moon. He promised to make me his one and only Luna forever!" Her voice was full of hope for the future. Her joy was a bitter reminder of what I'd lost. I listened quietly, only managing a faint smile. My reaction must have given me away. Her excited chatter died. Her gaze drifted over my shoulder, taking in the cold, empty penthouse behind me. "Wait... where's Owen?" Her smile faltered. "We're happy, right? After eight years?" I didn't say a word. I just slowly, deliberately, turned the Moonwater Mirror toward the terrace. There, my Alpha mate, Owen, had another she-wolf pinned to the railing. Their mouths were fused, their breaths mingling in the cold night air.

The Moonstone pack's Luna - Audrey Winter was dealt a devastating blow on the third anniversary of her marriage. It turned out that the coveted moonstone necklace was not prepared by her partner Arthur for her. The owner of that necklace was Victoria, Arthur's stepsister, who was also his first love. Audrey's world collapsed. For three years, she had been playing the role of the perfect Luna, believing that their partnership might bear fruit. It was also on that day that she discovered she was carrying Arthur's child, a secret that could either bind them together or tear them apart forever. "If she's so important to you, why did you mark me?" Audrey questioned Arthur after being betrayed again. His silence said it all, but his grandfather Elder William's shocking revelations about Arthur's past changed everything. The truth about his mother's cause of death and his stepmother's intentional sacrifice could potentially overturn the entire Moonstone pack. The arrival of Nathan Snowfang, a fellow student at Audrey Lycanthrope Academy, has reawakened Arthur's possessive instinct, even as he continues to prioritize Victoria's needs over his own partnership. Audrey would she sacrifice her self-esteem for love, or would she sever the relationship and choose freedom? More importantly, what will happen when Arthur discovers her secret pregnancy?

An ocean between them didn't kill what they had. It just put it on ice. The first time Mia Conti saw Elias Weston, she didn't even know his name. He was just the stranger at the airport who lifted her suitcase without a word. She never expected to see him again—until she walked into the Toronto Raiders' locker room as their new medical intern. Face-to-face with the league's most untouchable, arrogant superstar, Mia realized her "helpful stranger" was actually her biggest professional nightmare. A fiery romance ignites between them, but keeping it alive across oceans and time zones is a different game. As the Chief Sports Medicine Specialist for the Winter Olympics, Mia is busier than ever. Her absence from his games has the media convinced their relationship is dead, painting Elias as a billionaire bachelor who has long moved on. But the tabloids don't see what happens behind closed doors. When Elias arrives in Milan, the world expects a hockey captain strictly focused on gold. Yet, the second they are alone, his hand closes around her waist with a grip of steel. "Long time no see, Mia." The flashbulbs are still going off, but all she can hear is his jagged whisper. "I came back for you." Elias Weston has never been afraid of thin ice. And this time, he's ready to let it all crack just to keep her.

Harley Gibson is a strictly by-the-book homicide detective with an impressive conviction rate. She is also living a dangerous double life. In the human world, she is respected for her skill at always getting her perp. However, in her native werewolf world, she is on the run, being hunted by the Lycan king, who also happens to be her sperm donor. To Lycan Ian Steel, his only daughter is only a means to an end. Harley doesn't know, but she was destined from birth to become one of the highly sought guardians of Sauther Lake. Ian always had. He killed his mate, Harley's mother, to keep her from taking their daughter back to the lake, where she would be protected from him turning her into his assassin. With divine intervention, Harley escaped Ian's pack. For a while, she stayed under her father's radar by changing her last name and never staying in one place for too long. She became too comfortable in LA after being promoted to homicide detective at the prestigious Santa Monica Police Department. After years of searching for his wayward daughter, Ian finally finds her and pulls out his big gun. Bounty hunter Nicholas Reins is to bring her back. Ian uses his mafia ties to get Nick into the police department under the ruse that he is an FBI agent sent to help Harley solve a high-profile murder case, making national news. Only Ian doesn't know that he also has ties to the syndicate committing the string of murders his daughter is investigating. Nick may be a ruthless huntsman, but the Lycan Princess will soon show him she isn't his usual bounty. Together, they will uncover the truth about her past, their future, solve the 'Anacapa Island' murders, and take down two of the mafia's bosses.

That winter, the Silver Moon Pack holds its annual ski hunt. An avalanche strikes without warning, and the three of us are trapped in a lift pod. There's only one thermal suit left. My mate, Ryan Mercer, gives the thermal suit to me. I survive, but his childhood sweetheart, Eve Hurst, is buried forever beneath the endless white of the mountain. No body is ever found. However, he gazes at me with devotion and says, "Celine Bartlett, you are the love of my life." I soak in those words, believing them. But I have no idea this is the beginning of my nightmare. For the next five years, he speaks to me only with cruelty. "You killed Eve. You're a murderer!" He locks me in the basement and whips me with lashes soaked in wolfsbane. Then, he pretends to show pity and feeds me with a silver fork. When I refuse, he stabs me with silver nails across my legs, carving deep red lines into my skin. "This is what you owe her, and you will repay it!" When I ask for a reject, he stabs a silver dagger into my chest, dragging me into death with him. When I open my eyes, I find myself back on the day of the avalanche. This time, I hand the survival gear to Eve without hesitation. This time, I owe her nothing. And now, I want to see whether they will get their happy ending without me around.

My husband, David Wright, brought me and my three-month-old son, Leo Wright, to his parents' for the holidays. But while Leo was asleep, my niece, Lana Wright, and her classmates carried him upstairs and threw him down. My baby died right in front of me. I lost my mind. I scooped him up and tried to rush him to the hospital, but it was already too late. He was gone before we ever made it there. Because Lana was still a minor, she barely faced any consequences. The court ordered her family to pay eight hundred thousand dollars in compensation, but my sister-in-law, Ariel Whittaker, wailed and screamed, accusing me of trying to drive them to their deaths. I cried until I felt like my heart had been torn apart. All I wanted was justice. But David and my mother-in-law, Nancy Wright, only scolded me. “Lana is just a child too! Are you really going to destroy her life just because your son died?” I never got my revenge. In the end, grief and hatred hollowed me out. That winter, I died of a heart attack. When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day of the holiday gathering. This time, I immediately called my parents and asked them to take my son away. But even then, my niece still threw a baby from upstairs.

After the SAT, I come across a post online. Someone posts, "If you could make a choice all over again, which major would you choose this time?" The comments are filled with people wishing they had chosen a different major. They all have their own regrets. One response stands out from the rest. "I would choose literature. That way, he and I wouldn't have missed out on the four years we should have spent together because of that unwanted baggage." I chuckle and am about to scroll past when I suddenly notice the profile picture and username. They are identical to those of my childhood sweetheart, Winter Andersen. I click into the profile. Everything matches her current account exactly, except that the age is ten years older. My heart sinks to my stomach. This has to be her ten years in the future. No wonder I am the only one celebrating when we are admitted to the same major. No wonder she zones out for so long after seeing my best friend, Simon Brown, receive his acceptance letter from the literature department. It turns out I am the unwanted baggage responsible for so many of her regrets and disappointments. Since that is the case, I quietly press "Accept" on the admission offer written entirely in a foreign language. I shall end this mistake ten years ahead of schedule.

In the blood-soaked mountain town of Black Hollow, every full moon ends with a body and a lie. Elara Ashwood has lived her life by one rule: never trust a man who knows your scent. Raised by her grandmother after her mother vanished into the forest and her father died in a “hunting accident,” Elara knows the forest is dangerous, and the wolves hiding in plain sight are deadlier. But when strangers arrive during the winter eclipse, the forest screams with fury and people begin to disappear. Among them is Kael Draven, a cold, dangerous Alpha with silver eyes that linger too long on her skin, as if he already owns her. The night he bites her is no accident. Elara soon discovers she is not only Kael’s fated mate but also the one prophesied to destroy his bloodline. Rejected and marked, she flees into the forest, awakening a darker force within herself—an ancient wolf that feeds on fear, desire, and vengeance. The more she resists her nature, the harder it becomes to control. As enemies close in and the moon turns red, Kael hunts her—not to kill her, but because his body, his wolf, and his soul answer only to her. Every encounter is charged with hunger: claws brushing skin, breath against necks, restraint breaking slowly, painfully. Their love becomes dangerous, their desire a weapon. In Black Hollow, the true horror is not the beasts in the forest—it is the one you crave in the dark. And sometimes, giving in to that hunger is the only way to survive.

Eric Winter controls everything around him with obsessive precision: businesses, contracts, people… and most of all, his own emotions. To him, relationships have always been simple. Desire. Clear rules. No room for attachment. That’s exactly why the contracts exist. Stevan, on the other hand, has spent most of his life surviving. By day, he endures an abusive boss inside the multinational company where he works. At night, he takes jobs he never imagined he’d accept just to keep paying for his sick mother’s treatment. Quiet, insecure, and far too used to swallowing humiliation in silence, Stevan has never believed he was the kind of man someone would truly choose. But everything changes the night Eric finds him in a VIP room. What should have been just another proposition quickly turns into something dangerous. Because Stevan doesn’t respond to Eric the way other men do. And for the first time in years, Eric loses control of himself. Between lingering stares, restrained desire, and rules breaking one by one, the two of them become trapped in a relationship that was never supposed to go beyond the limits of a contract. The problem is, some feelings don’t obey clauses. And Eric realizes far too late that maybe he doesn’t just want Stevan’s body. Maybe he wants all of him.

In a werewolf country cursed to be forever cold, Evadne wished under the full moon for many years to find her mate and escape from her hell of a home where her father, Alpha Marcus of the Moonflame Pack, and Elodie, Evadne’s sister, constantly made sure her day won’t end without her being bullied or beaten by them. When she finally turned eighteen years old, Evadne find her mate, Alpha Gregor of the Fireheart Pack. She promised him that she would be the best mate and Luna for him. However, Elodie reveals he’s her fiance and boyfriend and begs the Alpha to ruthlessly reject her in front of the whole Moonflame Pack at Evadne’s very own birthday party. Evadne’s heart became even more shattered when her father banished her and ordered her to never return to their lives when she humiliated his favorite daughter, Elodie, on that same night. Alone, she was imprisoned in the dungeons of a pack that thought she was a Rogue—when it was attacked by the Alpha King’s forces since the said pack was the only remaining one who refused to bow down to him. As she tried to escape the ensuing chaos, she met him, and never had she thought that the Moon Goddess would let her second-chance mate be Alpha King Kallias himself—the cause of the eternal winter and now the most feared Alpha.