Grumpy Bear

All part of the long-term plan! I knew that Siku would become a main character in a future story when I was just starting to write Arctic Roots, and he didn't even have a name at that point yet. When the ex-dababbi Max bonded with polar bear Erik as his Papa, I knew immediately that the other polar bear in the village was going to feel left out and a bit of a third-wheel. I fleshed out Siku's character a little better in Serpent Mound, and now it's time for him to shine!

Photo by Maija Kovari on Unsplash

The werebear village of Atikokan was a beehive of activity. Axel and Adam had discovered another isolated werebear enclave in the far north of Canada on an island in the Nunavut Territory a year earlier while tracking down a lead on another bear ancient. After many months of negotiations, the two communities had agreed to an exchange program of sorts. There were several mated bear couples as well as Papa and Cub pairs who felt that Atikokan had grown too large and congested for their pref

Siku the polar werebear leaves his home in Canada and embarks on a journey of self-discovery, hoping to find his Mate. What the massive bear finds will surprise him, and bring two very different worlds crashing together with unforeseen consequences. Can he fight centuries of tradition and bigotry to claim the Mate that Fate has destined for him?

You'll have to wait just a little bit longer for that part of the saga, but the wait will be wort it, I promise! The next book is going to change gears a little bit and follow our lonely hero Siku on his journey to find a Cub or Mate. Along the way, he will discover a new enemy that makes the Tuath De look like playground bullies... an overbearing Mother-In-Law!

Bill and Joe stood facing Bernie on a bright, clear Friday afternoon on the baseball field just beyond the parade grounds. It was early fall, and nobody would be playing ball here for the next six months or so, making this field with its own fence the ideal location for Bernie’s special training during the fall and winter. “Okay, Bernie,” Bill said. He was shirtless and shoeless, wearing just his Marine silkies shorts. Joe paced back and forth with anticipation a few feet away, also wear

Come back tomorrow for an Epilogue with an extra surprise!

Axel emerged from his tent at sunrise, nude once again. The wolves and his mate were in no hurry to get up after having spent most of the night engaged in nocturnal calisthenics. He pulled on his favorite pair of gray cotton shorts and strolled down to the camp’s mess area for a cup of morning coffee. The only other creature stirring at this hour was Colonel Banshee, on her cell phone, arguing with whatever unlucky soul was on the other end. “I swear to Zeus,” Susie said, “If you’re

Actually @astone2292, I've already 90% decided that this will be the subject of Book 5, and I have a general idea of who Siku's mate is going to be. It will blow your collective minds! All I need to do now is weave a plot around these characters to bring them their happily ever after.

@seakinklets Thank you for the honest feedback! I can assure you that Bernie's character, while he may be revisited from time-to-time, will not become the central figure of the series. He was merely the culmination of a slow-build over the course of the first three books, subtly interweaving the history of the werebears with that of Norse Mythology. I'd been wanting to write a book involving a serpent effigy mound, similar to the one in Peebles, Ohio, but in my story it was hiding an actual serpent creature that was worshipped by a group of isolated villagers. As I thought of how to weave this into the werebear & Norse mythology that I had been creating, it seemed like a good idea to have the boy selected for sacrifice to actually be both werebear and demigod, and to bring that mythology to life for the bears. As I concepted this one, I knew that I wanted to make Gary and Bill central characters in this story. I also knew that they would be running an Academy for at-risk boys. From there it pieced together that as a small child, the boy was supposed to be a sacrifice to the beasts within the mounds, but had escaped and eventually ended up at Gary and Bill's Academy. I knew from the start that Bernie was going to be the one to ultimately defeat the Serpent, and that he was going to be a human descendent of one of the Norse Gods, tying together the various mythologies that I had already explored in the previous books into a pinnacle moment. But, that being said, Bernie isn't going to be forming a new Avengers. The Lycan Council will be heavily invested in making sure that he is kept secret from the human world, and remains a sort of secret weapon in the lycans' proverbial back-pocket. There will still be plenty of non-demigod adventures to come! Axel and Adam have more ancients to find! Siku needs to find a mate! The bears need to track down evidence of the avian lycans in Japan! I know that the Thor reveal in this story has been met with a mixed-bag of reactions, but fear not, there will be more moments like the daring drag-queen rescue from Trophy Cub to come! We may even see Susie and Apollo take on the ultimate adventure of parenting a teenage wolf-girl! Time will tell! -- 💙 Grumpy

As the frenzy of the battle faded away, Susie made a quick assessment of their next actions. It had grown dark, and except for the pine trees still burning on top of the mountain, it would soon be too dark to see without transformed lycan eyes. But if the Serpent’s fire was seen by any humans, it may mean a firefighting team from the Forest Service could be on their way. “All right people!” Susie called to take command of the situation. “Prepare to move out! We have a ten-mile hike back

It was mentioned in an earlier chapter that Odin had visited Karhu during his time incarcerated within the cave and told him about Bernie. In Norse mythology, Thor was able to summon Mjölnir to his hand, and as Thor's heir, Bernie is able to do the same, bringing forth the demigod within him. Karhu will share more secrets of Bernie's ancestry and powers as revealed to him by Odin in the next chapter!

Well, Bernie is a Marvel fan after all. 😉 Next chapter, Karhu will help explain the Bernie-Thor connection a little better as told to him by Odin when he was in the cave.

“Yes, Rieka,” Rodney said as he strolled through the village, observing The People as they made the final preparations for the sacrifice, “I feel it in my bones. This is going to be a good day for The People and the Tuath Dé.” The frail-looking wolf with the red hair streaked with gray followed behind the big bear. “Yes, Rodney,” Rieka agreed. “You know what is best for The People.” “I’m so pleased that you have come around to my way of thinking,” Rodney said, looking down at her

Matthias confirmed this when he made his first speech to the Lycan Council as well. He said, "In Japan, Amaterasu created the birds of prey, the crane, eagle and osprey." So, it wouldn't be too off-topic for some of the bears to take a trip to Japan in search of these avian lycans in the future...

Siku = A seven-foot-tall Anthony Varrecchia. I suppose I could work him in to some future stories! 😉

Apollo and Susie sat around the fire in the center of the base camp with the eight bears, reviewing their current intel and planning the next day’s strategy. They had taken the Humvees and Axel’s truck as far as the parking area intersecting with the Appalachian Trail and had hiked about a mile toward the target area before finding a suitable flat area far enough off of the trail to set up camp and remain hidden from any hikers. “All the data shows that Rodney and Marcus are still about 10

Karhu sat in the big wooden tub in the village bathhouse. The six female wolves had removed his ragged clothing to be burned and guided him to the warm waters of the tub. A kettle bubbled away on a stove in the center of the bathhouse, and the females used it from time to time to warm up the water in the tub. They scrubbed the filthy bear from head to toe, lathering his hair and beard, rinsing him off and lathering him up again. When they were satisfied that a decade’s worth of filth had

That would be a definite "No" The protective instinct was instilled within the werebears by Odin at their creation. It is a part of their purpose for being. The bear-god may have the appearance of the bear but it is not of Odin, it is a minor deity within the realm of Celtic Animism. It has no protective instinct for anyone else but itself!

Hey @SnowBear! That's actually an idea that I've had rolling around in my brain since I decided to make Trophy Cub the first in a series, but like you said, I'm working on how to get the timelines to match up, since it has been established that werebears came to be alongside pagan humans. I'm thinking that maybe in a future story, we find an Ancient so old, he makes Matthias look like a cub, and he can say that HIS papa was a Cave Bear, or Arctotherium angustidens. Still noodling the idea around!

It was nearing mid-afternoon the following day when the wolf guard entered the bears’ cabin. “Rieka has ordered a feast in celebration of the return of the lost sacrifice, and the restoration of balance within The People. You three bears are to be the guests of honor.” He noticed that Bill was untied from the bed and sitting with Marcus on the couch. “Has this one been persuaded to join us?” the wolf asked Marcus. “Yes,” Marcus replied, “He may still be a skeptic, but he wil

Then, you got the point. While the chapter wasn't intended to be political, it should leave you feeling mad, as the bear-god is using the same kinds of mental manipulation on poor Rodney as we see in political ads all the time!

Please note that the words spoken by Rieka during the funeral for the boars are paraphrased from the actual Druid "Sacred Rite of Passing" as written by Chief of the British Druid Order, Philip Shallcrass.

Rodney lay on the fluffy bed in the cabin’s bedroom, unconscious, writhing from the pain of the wound to his abdomen. Bill was partially correct about his injury. He had been poisoned, but not by bearsbane or any other known herb. He had been infected by the wights. At the Academy, the wights had seized upon the opportunity to invade his open wound, and once inside his body, they set to work, festering and inflaming it, preventing him from healing properly. As they occupied his body

Marcus woke up in a soft bed in a darkened room laying next to Rodney. He was nude, and after a brief scan of the room, he saw his clothing folded neatly on a chair, along with Rodney’s. He looked at the sleeping Rodney, who was also nude. There was a large patch of gauze covering the wound on his belly from the fight with the boars, and blood had partially soaked through the bandage. He got out of the bed and padded across the floor. They seemed to be in a rustic but well-kept cabi