My Four Wives are Beautiful Lycans: Lycan-Tamer Reborn

Max started his morning as usual, despite the sudden change in plans. Since he wasn't a Neo-Noble or even above the poverty-line, he didn't have special ceremonial gear or trinkets to take to the Tamer's Day event.

Like his younger sister, all he had was his patchwork sewn jeans, a brown cotton t-shirt and black-whool cloak. The shoulders were accented by the sewn in placement of blade-wing feathers. They allowed him to run faster since the feathers had the unique ability to cut up the wind, lessening the resistant drag of air when he ran.

It was only a slight speed increase— the blade-wing falcon wasnt any higher than silver ranked. If it was, he would've been the one with portions of himself adorning its body.

He tied down his leather boots once he was fully clothed, looking past the endless layers of dried blood that turned the black fabric to a weird off color. As he stood, he felt the imbalance of where the left heel of his boot was permanently smashed an inch inward.

"Max!" Martha called up the stairs to him.

"What?" Max yelled back.

"There's a Lawman here for you!" Martha said.

Max's insides shriveled at the mention of the hard-nosed enforcers of the law. He knew them well. Avoided them even better. Even with them all being equipped with eel-swords and magically mutated eagles called dinogriffs.

They used the beasts like cars and breacher rounds from an old-Terra cannon. The fact that he hadn't heard his front door being blown in with concussive shrieks and magic blasts was either great news or terrible news.

"If this is the end, that's gonna be so ironic. Dying right before I finally decide to enter the Tamer's Trial. I think Martha would find a Astromancer and have them bring me back just to strangle me for being an unreliable brother. Haha…." Max thought briefly.

Immediately after, he adopted quicker movements. He ran over to the other side of his room where a giant chest loomed at the back corner made of rare braided woods and stone accents. He took off his necklace where the key once dangled at his chest and fit it into the padlock.

The chest popped open. His fathers things sat inside. A hunters bow made of darkwood and a leather quiver. Two sheathed daggers and another two hatchets made of pure silver. The floor of the chest was centered by a handle.

He reached inside to grab the handle and pulled.

As if some optical illusion was underway, the chest floor rose, giving way to a shelf that expanded out of the chest, standing as tall as Max.

At the bottom, a porcelain white mask with ram horns sat alone. Blood splattered the surface. He reached for the mask—

"Max, hurry up!" Martha was moving up the stairs.

Max shoved everything but the bow and hatchets back into the chest and pushed the shelves down.

She came in just as he shut the chest.

"Why can't you knock?"

"Because you hear me coming." Martha said, "Now come on."

Max got up and left the room, sparring one final glance back at the chest before leaving to start his day.

He followed his younger sisters wide frame down the thin hallways covered with family photos and children's art projects. It all blurred as he picked up the pace with the rise of his adrenaline. He could smell the steel toed boots and freshly ironed uniform of the Lawman down the stairs.

He almost didn't want to go. Martha seemed to pick up on it and grabbed his hand, pulling him down the stairs with her.

"Stop being shy, you shut-in!" Martha said, looking back with a playful smile as they hit the bottom steps in shadow.

Max came down the stairs with a hand on the hatchet he purposefully didn't sheathe at his waist. The livingroom of his home was the same as always.

Packed and messy. It was too small for all the couches and chairs surrounding the fire beside the front window and the table behind it all next to the kitchen was too large. For some reason the labor camps always had their meetings at his mothers place. It was likely because they found her attractive. Like everyone did.

But that didn't matter.

There was a lawman standing at their Backdoor beside the kitchen. He didn't have his weapons or horrifying tamed beasts. He wasn't even armored.

Casual. Off shift.

"Tah-dahhh….." Martha said as if Max had just made it to his surprise party.

"Fuck."

"Maximus? Long time no see, young man. You wear your weapons well." The Lawmen said from where he stood.

"It's Max." Max replied. Only his father called him by his full name and he intended for it to stay that way. Especially with the man in his home.

Martha pinched the bridge of her nose and walked outside through the front door.

"Max! That's no way to greet your uncle!" His mother started as she turned from the kitchen counter where she was cutting and cleaning gutter-kraken limbs for lunch.

The lawman held up a hand, "It's quite alright, Red."

"Yea. It is alright." Max thought, "Especially since you and my father hated eachother."

He held the lawman's gaze.

The old enforcer didn't look much like Max's father. Or the memory of him. Which made sense. Max's father, Lucien, was adopted.

His father was tall and lanky in memory. He was actually the tallest man Max had ever seen. Over seven feet with hands like flying-rat wrangler gloves. He was also pale like moonlight and had abnormally light brown eyes.

His father's brother— the lawman standing across from him, known in their home once as Uncle J, was the polar opposite.

He wasn't tall. To Max's surprise, he was taller than his uncle now. But with it came a density and squat frame that spoke to his devestating physical power. He was wide and veiny and round with old justice fueled muscle.

His uncle must've just finished a tough shift because his dark brown skin was covered in sweat stains and grime.

The awkward silence was only split by his mothers handiwork in the kitchen.

"Max, have a seat." She said.

"Mom, I have to—"

"Sit down."

"Yes, ma'am." Max came and took a seat at the Unfittingly large table beside the kitchen. It was made of polished Oakwood and had steel accents he could literally smell between the sauce and ale stains.

Uncle J pulled up a seat across from him.

"Any drinks, boys?" His mother asked.

"No."

"Yes."

He and his uncle said the opposite answer at the same time.

"What do you want, Jules?" Red asked.

"Water, please."

"Our reservoir got contaminated by burrow-vipers."

"I like a little kick in my drinks anyway." Jules joked.

Red gave him freshly squeezed wild berry juice in a glass.

"Thank you." He said before returning his attention to Max.

"Man. It's like time travel." Uncle J said.

"What is?" Max asked.

"Seeing you. Grown up. You look exactly like he did. You're a spitting image of Lucien."

Max bit back what he was feeling.

"You looked more like your mom when you were younger. Your nose was rounder. Your hair was lighter. Your skin was more tan. Now I almost can't see the relation."

Max nodded, "Yea…."

Uncle J downed his entire glass of berry juice in one sitting. As he set the glass down, he sighed and looked at Max, "Small talk didn't work with your father either. Especially with people he didn't neccesarily like. Like me."

"Jules." Max's mother started.

"It's fine." Jules said. "He was old enough to remember the fights. I wish he wasn't but it's the truth. I didn't like your father. He didn't like me."

"Why?" Max never remembered the details. Not enough to fill in the blanks that made up their relationship.

"A million reasons. But it all boils down to us not agreeing with the paths we chose. Your father thought I could've done more as something other than a lawman…. which never made much sense to me. I thought he was wasting his potential as an explorer."

Being an explorer was extremely frowned upon by most people making an honest living. The job had a stigma around it. Most explorers were failed tamers that traveled the wilds of Therioterra looking for rare items and undiscovered beasts to make their big break.

Not to mention many were suspected to have connections with beast-hunters.

"Well he wasn't wasting his potential. He put food on the table, didn't he?" Max said defensively.

Jules held up a hand, "I— I know that. I'm learning that now. I'm understanding his side. Perhaps I can do more working outside the usual perameters of a lawman. Which is why I'm here."

"Ok…?" Max was lost. And hungry. His mother must've picked up on it and threw him an apple. He caught it without breaking eye contact with Uncle J.

"You're aware of the Ram-Headed Reaper, correct?" Uncle J asked.

Max nodded, "The vigilante."

Uncle J shook his head, "Despite what the news says, he's no vigilante. He's a criminal. Last night the psycho stomped a hunter-gang members head in so bad they'll be eating through a straw probably for the foreseeable future."

"Don't lawmen do the same thing?" Max asked as he bit into his Apple. It was old and spotted.

Uncle J shook his head, "Not without due process and only in the name of self defense. Not to mention it's our job. This guy goes in charging anyone and anything. He's an amateur and he's angry. But that's good."

"Why?"

"Because that tells me it's personal." Uncle J slid a file across the table.

Max hesitated before opening it.

After opening it, he wished he waited longer.

The file was full of pictures of his father talking and shaking hands with beast-hunter gangs. All lupine affiliation— which was natural for Moon-Glass Grove.

"I'm sorry, Max." Uncle J said. "Your father worked around the law from time to time. But I don't think he was all in. I mean, he was murdered by wolves, but here he is working with men who worshiped them—"

"Jules." Red said firmly, "Ease up, will ya?"

Uncle J relaxed, "I know that's a lot to take in, but there's more. There's this." He threw Max another file.

Now with pictures of dead men. Broken men. Beast-hunters with their hybrid forms and inhuman genetic enhancements and attachments.

"If you haven't noticed yet, many of the men your father was seen interacting with are on the Ram-headed Reaper's hit list." Uncle J explained.

"So what?" Max's mouth went dry.

"So, they're connected. I mean look at it narratively, what is a Ram?" Uncle J asked.

"A sheep."

"A sheep that can kill a wolf." Uncle J said firmly. "This is all for a reason. This Ram-Headed maniac was made to feel like a sheep by these wolfish men…. somehow. Made to feel like prey. So he took the form of prey that can kill the predator. He's attacking these gangs wearing the face of what they're designed to hunt. He's brutalizing them— shaming them in the most primal way possible. This is deep hatred. And it's for the men your father knew. It could be for the men who harmed your father. You always said he was murdered not by wolves. Just murdered."

"What are you trying to say?" Max asked. His heart was rising up his windpipe in heavy pulsing waves.

"I'm saying, maybe you were right. Maybe it wasn't just wolves that took your fathers life. Maybe they were the weapon, guided by human hands or at least hands that used to be human." Uncle J said. "Maybe this Ram-Headed Reaper knows that."

Max crushed the apple in his hands.

His mother slammed her knife on the table beside the freshly cut meat. She spun around to face them from the kitchen off to the side.

"Jules Kinguard, that is enough!" When she was mad, her curly red hair looked like a halo of fire and her beauty immediately became burning rage given human form.

Uncle J held up his thick fingered hand apologetically in that way he always did.

"You said you wanted to talk to my son— not question him about his dead father!" Red roared so loud the house shook.

"But questioning is talking, Red." Uncle J said.

Red took a deep breath, "Alright, smartass. If you decide to disappear for another decade and then randomly show up and once again talk to my son and passively insinuate his involvement—"

"I would never." Uncle J interrupted, "Red, I'm here because nobody knew Lucien like Max did. The two were damn near inseparable. I'm here because I need help." Uncle J explained.

Max had to bite back the sigh of relief he wanted to let loose.

"How would I help?" Max asked.

"Keep that file. Get back to me by the end of the week and tell me if any of those faces or names seem familiar." Uncle J explained.

"I could tell you right now nearly all of them are familiar since I saw one yesterday— I broke my shoe on his head…. and the other the day before that…. And the other…. And so on and god dammit I can't explain any of this." Max thought internally.

"They're all in lawman custody except three. And if you see the pictures you'll see that those three are heavy hitters." Uncle J added.

Max knew that. He knew that because they were next. Hed been combing through beast-hunter gangs like it was an addiction for the past eight months.

The lesser gangs like Garmo's Guardians and Skoll's Suneaters were completely wiped out for the most part.

But the ones higher up on the food chain— the beast-hunter's that were barely human and superpowered by devestating amounts of cosmana flow were still out and about. He'd only just gained the confidence to raid their camps.

All three members on the list were top earners of the beast-hunter gang known as The Fangs of Fenaris.

"Ok." Max suddenly said, "I'll get back to you in a week."

Uncle J smiled. "Good."

"Now I need to—"

Martha burst in from the front door. She wore crappy poor fitting leather armor and a poncho with a sword and shield at her back. "Max! It's time for us to go! We can't be late to the Tamer's Day Trial Run or else we'll lose first pick on the strong beasts."

Max stood up— suddenly grateful for Martha's brash nature.

Uncle J and Red looked over at Max in surprise.

"You're participating, Max?" His mother asked. Suddenly aware of his cloak, bow and axes.

Max nodded, "Yea."

In his mind he thought, "I've never needed an alibi so bad. If I keep being a nocturnal shut-in, Uncle J with his new investigation will find out I'm the Ram-Headed Reaper. So, I guess I have to do this. I have to become a beast-tamer so I can keep crushing these beast-hunter gangs in my spare time. Even more so, now I need to figure just how I knew to attack the beast-hunters my dad knew. That can't be coincidence.."

Max left with Martha.

The day had just started and already, he felt sick.

Martha repeated her previous words as they headed down their lawn cluttered with logs, birds and scrapyard junk.

"Today's gonna be amazing!"