Short Story – Huckleberry Rahr

January 31, 2026 Huckle Writing, Newletter, Short Story, New Release, jade stone chronicles, Aura of the Chameleon

January coming to an end

Hi Friends!

I hope you’re doing well! Please let me know what you think of the new short stories. I was hoping to hear last week, but no one said anything. Either you were shocked with the brilliance, or disappointed. I’m going to pretend it was the former!

Tonight is the last dinner out for the end of the month of birthday celebrations. I am excited for the celebrations. I do love January for the happy times, but oof, it has been cold.

School started and walking around campus has chilled me to the bone. In book 2 of Jade, she and Piper walk around UW-Whitewater campus. As they slog over a hill, Piper wondered what the hill would be like in winter. When I first started working at UW-Whitewater, I would trudge over that hill in winter, slipping and sliding. Summer, I attack it to get a bit more exercise. Well, not the hill is closed all winter to save on a bit of money and for safety.

In my last email, I mentioned the ARC, advanced reader copy, for the dystopian fantasy book coming out in just over a month. I’m not sure if anyone signed up, which is fine. I can’t track where people sign up from, but I do have a total of three people who signed up from the link, and two who have told me they want to continue from previous ARCs. If you were one of the three, thank you.

If you still are interested in getting an early copy of Aura of the Chameleon in trade for an honest review, please fill out this form. https://forms.gle/qvKxuCH1d4JC9RLE9

If you’d like to read the first chapter first, use this link: https://dl.bookfunnel.com/sqw5qcd34o

Don’t worry, the link to the sign up is at the end of the chapter!

Aura of the Chameleon as eBook in tablet, kindle, and as paperback book. — Aura of the Chameleon.

If there is a short story you’re looking for, let me know that as well!

Happy almost February? 🤣🤣🤣

Huckle

Short story #2

Totally Unprepared

Binium

“Dre, I’m scared.”

My sisters and I have two moms and two dads. We call our moms Mom and Mama, our dads, Dad and Dre, short for Padre, the Spanish word for dad. I don’t know how these names were decided, but it’s how it’s always been.

“Bini, you’re going to be great. Just like your sister and cousin. I’m just so proud of you for keeping your epsilon secret for so long.” He slid his arm around my shoulder and squeezed.

Tonight would be the first night my sister Esperanza, my cousin Soren, and I would shift to wolves and run with the pack. Before I gave the secret of the animals away a few months ago, only Mom and I knew. “I still feel bad for blurting that out in front of everyone.” I slumped. “Annie just wouldn’t stop complaining.”

Dre’s arm tightened. “No one is mad at you, Bini. You calmed your sister down, and that was really well done. And now, I have a big job for you to do.”

My stomach clenched. I wasn’t sure I was up to doing anything more. “Are you sure it’s something I can do?”

His smile warmed me to my core. Dre could always make me feel strong and important. “Of course. I would like for you to speak with Annie and Soren’s wolves, find out if they’re ready to come out and play. I’d like to get the three of you out running early.”

The idea excited and terrified me. “Okay, yeah, I can do that.”

We got up from the couch, and I ran off to find the other two. It didn’t take long to find them in the basement playing on a gaming console. I wanted to take both their hands, but they were focused on their game and said ‘no’. Annie let me take her hand first.

Her grey wolf bounced up to me, as hyper as my sister. I loved the black star on her forehead. “Sis, are you ready to run in the sun with me?” I already knew my wolf was ready; it was just about finding out about the other two.

“Oh yes, yes, yes. Can we?” Her excitement made my black wolf run in circles, leaping in joy.

“Yes, let’s just find out if our cousin is ready, too.”

Once Annie was gone, I took Soren’s hand. I noted that the game was off. Apparently, heading out to our first run was more exciting than their game. Soren’s gray wolf soon joined my mindscape and just as quickly told me he was ready to run. The three of us scampered to the backyard, yelling to Dre on the way out that we were ready to go.

It wasn’t just Dre who met us in the backyard; Uncle Owen was there as well. His joyous personality made me smile, though the extra person was worrisome. “Dre, why is Uncle Owen here?”

Uncle Owen came over and ruffled my hair. “Someone has to run with you lot. José here has to be available for everyone else, which means I get to play with all of you.”

“Who wants to shift first?” Dre smiled at us, searching each of our faces. As bold as Annie was, her eyes looked wild. Soren stepped behind his dad.

With a shrug, I stepped forward. “Me. I’ll do it.”

We headed to the center of the yard, away from the others. “Okay, son, you’re going to need to strip down. I know you know this, and it’s uncomfortable, but you’ll get used to it.”

“It helps that everyone here is close family.” Despite my words, I turned from the others, stripped, and got to my hands and knees. I wasn’t really sure about anything beyond that. Werewolf training didn’t start until we got older. The pack tried to start with us once I announced our wolves were ready, but three months really wasn’t enough time, and we had school during the days.

Dre knelt down next to me. “Okay, Bini, things are going to be uncomfortable. This first time will be the hardest, but don’t worry, once your wolf comes out, you’ll understand.” He leaned down, placed his hand on my forehead, and his voice became somehow more. “Binium Cortez-Green, welcome to the pack,” his eyes bore into me, “come out … now.”

My body cramped. Bile filled my mouth as my stomach tried to crawl up, and my shoulders shimmied down. Then pain took over, and I nearly blacked out. Things retreated, then I heard cracking, and I wished I could pass out. After what seemed like hours, anger overtook me, and I wanted to attack.

In front of me stood a man, tall with dark hair and eyes. Snarling, I leapt.

He laughed at me, wrapping his hands around my snout, denying my bite. Loud, sharp sounds came from my left, and I wanted to snap. Lower sounds pressed into my ears, and I trembled.

Then I heard words. “It’s okay, Binium, you’re doing great.”

Everything came back to me, and I dropped to my belly. I was a wolf. Gazing around, I realized not only were my sister and cousin there, clapping, but my mom, mama, and dad were there as well.

And I was a wolf.

Slinking back from Dre’s hold, I shot to my feet and howled to the sky in my elation.

January 23, 2026January 22, 2026 Huckle Aura of the Chameleon, cover reveal, Ember Savita Chronicles, huckleberry rahr, jade stone chronicles, New Book, new books, New Release, Pebble Stone Chronicles, queer books, Short Story, Writing

Surprises for YOU!! 📚🌈🎂

Hi friends! I have so many things to share with you. I was going to send my newsletter out on Saturday, but since most of the US is under a freezing cold winter advisory today (Friday), I thought I’d send this out a day early.

First of all, Aura of the Chameleon will come out in March! I know, I’m excited to. There are some options available for you. You can read the first chapter, the link is below. If you are feeling lucky, you could also just pre-order the book, I have that link available as well.

How can a person hide when their magical abilities are visible to the world? Stamped on the back of their hands by the government to ensure a life of peace and happiness?

When Ivy was barely old enough to understand the greater world, her parents were eliminated. She ends up on the streets, alone, not trusting anyone. Luckily, she has a magick that allows her to blend into her surroundings. When Petra enters her life, Ivy has to decide if she can push past her wall of solitude to let someone in or if this is another person to hold at arm’s length.

Petra’s life changed abruptly when the government labeled her mother a traitor. After taking her away and reprogramming her father to love and abide the King’s every command, she knows toeing the line is her only option. After graduation, she gets a job and meets Ivy. She recognizes right away she found someone worthy of calling a friend. Now all she has to do is convince the prickly teen she’s worthy of befriending.

Can the two of them figure out how to trust each other in a world where their secrets coveted by the leaders?

Join Ivy and Petra as they learn to work together to determine who is the enemy, when running is the right move, and if trust is worth the risk. Read Aura of the Chameleon today, book one of the Hidden Magic Series.

Read the first chapter HERE! https://dl.bookfunnel.com/sqw5qcd34o

Pre-order HERE! https://mybook.to/AuraoftheChameleon

Next piece of news. Veiled Phoenix’s cover ended up on a goodread’s list. I don’t know MUCH about goodread’s lists, but who knows. If you’d like to go and vote for my book as having a pretty cover, that would be amazing! https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/7433.Prettiest_Covers

FYI -> I know that for some of my friends that link worked, others couldn’t see the vote button. I’m not sure why. Maybe you have to be logged in? Maybe you need super special pixy powers? I’m really not entirely sure.

Last, but certainly not least, I’m going to put the first short story below. Warning, this come after all seven of the Jade Stone Chronicles. (It also come after the Pebble Stone Chronicles, but at this point, that doesn’t matter…)

Last chance to not be spoiled …

A Decade of Secrets Unraveled

Jade

“Faster! You can do it! Run!”

I beat my fist in the air, shimmying as I watched Bevin cross the finish line ahead of Owen and all the other agents. He’d been training for years, but this was his first win. His smile shone, and I knew nothing could snuff out his excitement.

Sweaty and breathing hard, he ran over to sweep me up in a hug. “I can’t believe I did it!”

On his heels, Owen, my brother, and the head of the training for this secret branch of the government that worked with werewolves, slammed into us. His vanilla scent of excitement enveloped me just as much as Bevins. “That was fantastic, boss! I knew you’d do it eventually with Jade training you.” He stepped back, an evil grin on his face. “Now all you need to do is repeat that act.” He sauntered off, laughing, as Bev’s mouth dropped open in shock.

An hour later, we pulled into Were House. We didn’t go to the SSLD – secret service lupine division, or at least that’s what we assumed it meant–often but a couple of times a month, they asked us to help out. Owen was a permanent fixture.

Inside, dinner was almost done. The scent of lasagna permeated the air, and my belly grumbled its approval. Before I could step towards the dining room, a stampede of kids descended on me and Bevin. Of the gaggle of kiddos, three were ours, the rest belonged to other pack members.

“Whoa!” I chuckled, unable to help myself as I hugged as many bodies as I could. “You’d think we’d been away for more than a day.”

Esperanza, one of the trio of demons Bevin, José, Brooke, and I called our very own, jabbed her hands onto her hips and sighed dramatically. “Mom, you worked all week, and both of you had to stay late, coming home after our bedtimes. None of us has seen you in over a week!”

Bevin pulled his look-alike daughter into a hug. She may look like him with brilliant blue eyes and light brown hair, but her attitude was all Brooke, somehow. “Very true, sweetheart. And we missed all of you terribly. Now, can we get to the table before your mom starts nibbling on all of you?”

Binium, or Bini for short, giggled and led us to our seats. With the growing size of the pack, we’d arranged the dining room to have two tables. There was a third just outside the glass doors that opened to the back patio. We often opened them wide and filled the third as well.

Owen came in after us to much less commotion. Sarah, my best friend and his wife, came from their room and gave him a hug. “The kids all tried to drown your sister and Bev when they arrived. I hid in the rooms for my own safety!”

Owen smiled wide. “That tracks.”

It didn’t take long for everyone to pile around the table. There was a kids’ table with our three, Owen and Sarah’s two, and after ten years, seven more pack kids … though the two-year-old still sat with her mom.

As we ate, we tried to monitor the kids’ conversation as much as we could. We were discussing our week, Esperanza wasn’t wrong that we hadn’t been around, and Brooke and José wanted to hear about our week, as well as we wanted to know about theirs.

From behind me, I heard the repeated argument from the kids. “But it’s not fair!” The high-pitched tone Esperanza reached tickled the back of my jaw. “Why do you get to shift into a swan and fly with Mom, and neither Bini nor I get anything?”

I sighed, debating if I needed to intervene. José rubbed my leg, telling me he thought I should let the kids handle it for now.

Calista, my doppelganger in looks and in having a shifter swan, glared at her twin. “None of us got to choose what animals we have. And according to Dad, we’re not even supposed to discuss it until we do shift.”

“So, you’re the only one who gets to know?” Esperanza just won’t let it drop.

“Only because I shifted. You’ll know when you’re older.” Calista shot back.

“Yeah, like twenty, we’re only halfway there.” She huffed, crossing her arms over her chest.

Sarah leaned in and whispered. “You know, Bevin, if you weren’t so picky about this, Jade could just tell them, like all of them.”

He rolled his eyes. “Have any of them asked her? That was the only rule I gave.”

“Annie,” Bini turned to his sister and used his nickname for her, “you, me, and Soren only have to wait until three more months for our wolves to come out.”

A stunned silence descended on the room. Though I knew Bini was an epsilon wolf, no one else did. I didn’t know he’d figured out so much.

Soren, who was used to ignoring the drama, turned to Bini. “Really? Three months?”

“Yeah, our three wolves have been playing. I think it’s because we all have two animals that our wolves will come early. I’m not really sure, though, since our second animal isn’t ready.”

Facing Bevin, he looked both pained and amused. Across from him, Sarah began to laugh.

February 17, 2025 Huckle audiobook, books, huckleberry rahr, Short Story, wolf healer, Writing, Xenagogue

A Cold Month 🥶❄️☃️

To anyone who has read Wolf Healer, you know my opinion of February. On the 14th, V-day itself, the roads were so bad, the spouse ended up not getting me anything because it was safer to just drive home. My son called me on his drive home from work, not to talk, but in case the car left the road, someone would know right away.

As for me, I was home Friday. My teaching schedule this semester is Monday through Thursday. I cooked macaron cookies and a nice dinner in (don’t ask about the diet!)

(By the way, the image above is my cat with the same opinion of February as I have!)

A friend of mine started listening to the full Jade series. On Sunday she started Battlefield and something distracted her after she finished chapter 5. I sent her this short story, linked on my website. It occurred to me that not everyone here may know about all the short stories I’ve written.

When I first wrote Wolf Healer, I had a flashback to when Jade was six, out running with Owen and her cousins. It’s the story she and Owen elude to when they discuss her knowing her future path to become the next wolf healer. The writing group I was with at the time thought it was too much for the first chapter so I took it out and added it to the website as a short story.

There are four short stories. The fist is the one about Jade when she was six. the next is when Bevin is young, coming out to the kiddos about his name. The third one is Bevin during spring break when Jade and Sarah are in Florida, and the last is the first chapter of Battlefield in Pebble’s point of view. You can find them all under the ‘mini’ menu tab on my website.

If there are any other questions you want seen fleshed out in a short story, let me know, though I may wait until after Pebble’s trilogy is out. Unless the questions are about Ember’s world.

Xenagogue is scheduled to drop on April 11th. There haven’t been many pre-orders, though I guess I don’t get many for this series in general, so I’m not too surprised. I’ve been told by my most amazing editor that it should be back to me in the next 7 to 10 days. If you want to be part of the ARC team, receive an early copy of the eBook and review it on the day it comes out, please fill out THIS FORM. (You can review it on goodreads as soon as you’re done, the only review that has to wait until April 11th is amazon)

Xenagogue - Book 1 Pebble Stone Chronicles — Xenagogue – Book 1 Pebble Stone Chronicles

I hope you are all doing well, and surviving this February!

Huckle

November 24, 2023 Huckle audiobook, Book Annoucement, book sale, books, huckleberry rahr, Short Story, TikTok, wolf healer

That’s A Wrap!

Hi my friends! Today Pack Present went live. It answers some of the questions you may have had at the end of Battlefield. I hope it answers all the lingering questions, and answers some you didn’t even know you had! It’s a short Christmas Novella, but it packs a punch.

Some fun facts about the book:

It has MORE than just Jade’s POV!! I know, this was fun for me as well. There are, I believe 3 points of view in the book. I’ll tell you Bevin is one of the other POVs, but I’m not going to tell you the last, it would be a bit of a spoiler.
The pack has cats!! Right! If you look at the cover of the book, you can see the cat. There is a cat anthology coming out in 2024 and I submitted a short story about how the pack get kittens. Well, the short story takes place BETWEEN Battlefield and Pack Present, so now the kittens are cats.
The cat’s name’s all come from the book: Wyldling Snare, by A.R. Grimes. I believe the book is either free or on sale right now. As is book 2, Wyldling Trials in the series. A fantastic series by the way.

Other fun facts. The next series, yes, I plan on writing Pebble’s story, but before that comes out, I have two books in a phoenix shifter series written: Veiled Phoenix. I’m actually collecting names for an ARC team. If you think you’d be interested, fill out the form. The main character is nonbinary. Writing a main character with they/them pronouns has been a trip. https://forms.gle/B5LYJDJfkZkHfKrt53

I have a few TikTok videos. If you go and watch and comment, you could win free audiobooks version of Wolf Healer (and beyond!). They audiobooks are amazing. Here is one of the videos: TikTok Video!!

Happy Holidays!

Huckle

March 27, 2023 Huckle book event, Book Store, books, huckleberry rahr, publishing, queer books, Short Story, Travel, Writing

Pixes and Ogres

I traveled to Sheboygan, Wisconsin with my friend, A.R. Grimes on Sunday for an author event. We taught a class on conceptualizing your book. But I get ahead of myself.

The two of us strapped onto our griffins for an exciting ride across our state. We carried our books, and a hope to share our love of writing, creating, and publishing.

When we landed, we realized before we stopped at the local book shop, we had to focus on our stomachs. We found a tavern, Sly’s Midtown Salooon, yes, I spelled that correctly, though your question was legit.

A bevy of pixes quickly got to our needs, flitting around, serving the trolls and gnomes demanding breakfast and ale. We were informed the owner, an ogre, was around keeping all in line. It took a bit of time for the cook to switch over from breakfast to lunch, but when the food came, it was delightful.

Michelle, our pixie server.

The Cook, and her pixie philosophy!

Once we fed the beasts that were our bellies, A.R. Grimes and I headed over to WordHaven BookHouse. The lead elf was out, under the weather, but she left a wonderful commander, able to watch the store as we held our class. We had five students in attendance as we discussed ways to plan out a book, resources, and our path to get works published.

In the end, we slid on our magical rainbows back home, excited about the new friends we had made on our adventure in our own state.

Huckle

June 11, 2022 Huckle Marketing, Newletter, publishing, Short Story, Writing

A Day in the Life…

So much to do….

It is June and I have a flash fiction that will be up for a few more weeks. Check it out and let your creative juices flow!

Alphas comes out on July 21st! If you aren’t signed up to my website, do so to be entered to win a free copy of the third installment of the Jade Stone Chronicles. If you are already part of the page, leave a review for Wolf Healer and/or Epsilon for a chance to win the book. Comment to let me know you’ve left a review. You could be entered three times!

You all are the first to hear of this, but I am planning on adding a short story in Bevin’s point of view to the end of Alphas. I feel it will round out the book nicely.

The cover reveal is for Alphas is coming in July! Details coming soon!

Book four of the Jade Stone Chronicles, Traitor, will come out late November or early December. It is just in its infancy of clean up, editing, beta reading, and so on. My team is busy, so if it gets pushed off later, you’ll just have to wait to see what college brings to Jade.

Again, as we hit the middle of pride month, I hope you’ve taken up the challenge of reading books either by authors in the LGBTQ+ community and/or with LGBTQ+ characters. If you want something steamier than my books, here is a book that is both by an author in the community, with LGBTQ characters. It is a romance, but the scenes are fade to black.

Mail Order Bride Mix-Up by Parker Love

In case I haven’t done this before, or you haven’t checked it out on my home page, here is my linktree. A list of links to find me!

Cheers!

Huckle

Join my website!

April 6, 2022 Huckle Flash Fiction, Newletter, publishing, Short Story, Writing

Flash Fiction!

Hi Friends!

I have something new to share with you. On my website I’ve added a section for flash fiction and short stories. Some of my short stories are in newsletters and I will be moving them over to this new menu soon.