Grumpy Bear

Adam got back to the apartment he shared with Axel at six in the morning, sliding into bed behind his big Papa and kissing him on the back of his neck. “Wha? Cub?” Axel mumbled, waking up. “What time is it?” “It’s six o’clock, Papa. Sorry I stayed out all night.” “I assume you spent the night with lover-boy.” Axel said turning around and sniffing his cub. “Whoo! You smell like wolf and sex! Go get in the shower before you stink up the mattress so badly I have to burn it!”

The bears woke to the noise of a soft knocking on their apartment door. They grabbed two big, fluffy, white robes embroidered with the Lycan Council emblem from the closet and went to see who could be knocking at this hour. Axel opened the door to find the council’s timid tailor, standing in the hallway with a wheeled rack of garment bags and boxes of shoes. “Good morning, sirs,” he said with a slight bow of his head. “I’m just here to deliver Beta… I’m mean Cub Adam’s meeting wardrob

No, I haven't really given many of the rest of the Atikokan bears or the ex-dababbi cubs flesh-out identities beyond being background characters yet. Maybe in a future installment...

Adam and the rest of the cubs finished their education of the first two decades of the twenty-first century just in time for the spring thaws. To ensure that they were entirely acclimated to modern life, Jacob took the six oldest cubs through lessons in using laptop computers and introduced them to the Internet. “Now you have all of the resources of the world at your fingertips,” Jacob told them after he was confident that they understood the basics. “You are free to continue to learn and

Adam's chance to really shine is just around the corner!

The next day, the cubs’ history lessons of the 2000’s were put on hold as there was North American Lycan Council business to attend to. Axel, Ezekiel and Joel were all Councilmembers representing the North American werebear population. The Council consisted of one Supreme Alpha, a post traditionally held by a wolf lycan, eight wolf lycan Alphas holding Councilmember positions, and five werebears also holding Councilmember positions. The werebear positions were new, having been granted to

The next day in the Common Building over meals, the other bears attempted to get Adam to spill more information about Axel’s mysterious past, but he politely refused, letting them know that some tales were meant to be shared just between Papa and Cub. When they arrived at their cozy home again after dinner, Axel rewarded his cub by snuggling with him under a blanket next to the fire and telling him the next chapter of his story. “Where did I leave off, Cub?” Axel asked. “You were

The group of new cubs studied hard, and the four youngest tackled the history of the 1980s, AIDS, Reagan, escalating nuclear proliferation, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the rapid decline of Communism. The fifth cub who was assaulted by Christopher and changed into a monster in 1992 was added, and they covered the 1990s, the fall of the Soviet Union, the first mass school shooting in the US and the increasing gun control debate, the continuing AIDS crisis and the first drug advancements that

Loved it! This reminded me of the time my brother and I were driving back to Ohio in mid-February after visiting our parents who had moved a few years earlier to the Florida Keys. We left their house at 9:00 in the evening, and drove through the night. By morning, we were in North Florida, and stopped at a Shoney's for their breakfast buffet. When we walked in, the place was packed full of people all wearing NASCAR gear, but the whole restaurant was completely silent. All those normally rowdy NASCAR fans sat still, nobody saying a word, as they all ate their breakfast in complete silence. We hadn't yet been seated, and I turned to my brother, and said, maybe a bit too loud, "Whoa, who died?" Immediately, a hundred heads whipped around to stare at me with fierce anger and pure hatred in their eyes. We slowly backed out of the Shoney's and left, deciding to get breakfast at the Waffle House instead. Getting back in my brother's car and turning on the radio, we caught the news. It seemed that the day before was the Daytona 500, and during the final lap, Dale Earnhardt had hit the wall and died on impact. I was lucky they didn't rip me apart!

The days following Adam’s first change were a whirlwind of activity. He was thrilled to have a built-in fur coat, and spent much of his time outdoors, romping in the snow and foraging for wintertime edibles. Axel did his best to entice Adam with the natural benefits of hibernation during the winter months, but he was much too excited about his new body, both human and bear, to spend all day sleeping. In between the outdoor playtimes, Adam showed off his new forms to the other seven cubs w

Gunnar, Thomas and their cubs will make an appearance within the first half of this tale, but the main focus of that first half will be Axel's previously unknown backstory. I've had to spend the last week doing extensive historical research to put together Axel's pre-werebear timeline, so its has been slow going, but now that I have the first few chapters written, I think the rest of the first half is ready to flow from my brain through the keyboard and onto the screen quite nicely!

Axel woke to a ray of sun streaking through a gap in the window shades and shining directly on his face, but the thing that woke him up was the frantic shaking of the mattress coming from his cub’s side of the bed. “Adam, I told you that we’d fuck again this morning before breakfast,” Axel growled, turning his head away from the sunbeam. “If you’re over there beating off waiting for me to wake up, I swear I’m going to rip you a new asshole.” “I’m not beating off Papa!” Adam cried, “I

Axel the Kodiak werebear has finally found happiness with his home in Atikokan and his new cub Adam, but Adam's curiosity in his mysterious Papa's history has Axel bringing up memories that he has kept buried for centuries and will lead the pair on a 3,500 mile trek to Alaska to track down Axel's own Papa!

Axel has certainly taken the lead! I was expecting everyone to lean more toward a Gary/Bill story, but I think an Axel/Adam story has promise. The gears are already working. I'm picturing Axel wanting to take his new Cub on a trip to revisit his past, and track down his own ancient Papa in the wilds of Alaska!

Hey Gang, I just posted a poll over in the Forum. Let me know which characters from the first two stories you would like to see as the main characters in Book 3! I'll let the poll run a few days and then I'll get started writing!

I really appreciate how much the readers of the first two books in my Werebears in America series (Trophy Cub & Savage Beasts) have connected with and care about the fates of the characters. While the first story was primarily about establishing the relationship between Gunnar & Mike, the second story introduced many new characters and couples. Before I get started on Book 3, a quick poll to see which characters the readers of the series would most like to see featured as the main focus of the third story. Thanks, 💙 Grumpy Bear

Six years later… Gary sat in the reception hall of the Allegheny Mountaineer Academy. He hoped with everything that had happened in Bill’s life since graduating at the top of his class five years prior that he remembered his promise to his old instructor to come back to the reunion. Several of the young men from Bill’s class had already arrived and begun to mingle. They all eagerly wanted to talk to Gary about their lives since attending the Academy, and to thank him for all that he

I'm pretty sure for Johnny, the "Supreme Alpha of the Lycan Council" comment went over like this:

This is the piece of jewelry that served as inspiration for the necklace Gunnar gave to Mike:

Hi Everyone! I know - I ended this story with a very sappy cliché... a wedding... but it was the right thing to do at this stage in Gunnar and Mike's relationship. Gunnar had made a comment back in Trophy Cub that his biggest regret was that Nils had died before they could have been legally married. I don't think he wanted to let the opportunity pass him by with Mike.

Gunnar and Mike caravanned with Thomas and Sam from Duluth to Eau Claire where they stopped for a late lunch and to say goodbye until the next time they were called to Calgary for Lycan Council business. Following their meal, Gunnar and Mike headed east to Green Bay, while Thomas and Sam headed south to Madison and Chicago before turning east toward West Virginia and their little cabin in the mountains. Sam had not had a chance to start the restoration project on his Papa’s ’55 Thunderbird

I envisioned it as a slow learning process. There were probably many in-between that did not survive, or were perhaps born "too aggressive" to be allowed to live. It really wasn't until his final two that he seemed to have mastered the right type of human to target for changing into one of his creatures. He started in the 1930's and wasn't able to get his first one to survive until 1952, so trial-and-error was most likely a huge factor all the way through his process of building the army.

The bears remained in Calgary for another three days to be sworn-in, move into and furnish their assigned office spaces and councilmember apartments, and attend the remainder of the special session meetings for the week. The Council’s timid tailor had an entire new wardrobe of suits prepared for the five Council bears and their cubs to keep in their apartments for full-Council meeting days. Per Axel’s request, his set of suits were made from soft black and brown leather, and the white linen sh

The wheels of progress turn slowly! But, the bears are the protectors of all, so if we encounter any were-felines in the future, they're more likely now to have an ally on the Council.

“Just a few more days, sweetie,” Gunnar said into his cell phone speaking to Vera as he straightened his tie in the mirror of their suite. “If you and your daughter and Johnny are worn out, go ahead and close for a couple of days. The middle-of-the-week business is usually slow anyway.” “Yes, the important thing is that we’re both still alive. There’s just some more… bear business that we have to take care of in the aftermath.” “I can’t really talk about it over the phone, but w