My Four Wives are Beautiful Lycans: Lycan-Tamer Reborn

After Max's haunting discussion with Uncle J, he was left with a lot to consider.

Like how he was "coincidentally" attacking beast-hunter gang members his father had potential dealings with. Or beef with. Either way, he knew something and he didn't fully know how.

Worse yet, the Ram-Headed Reaper's infamy was preceding him.

Max only ever wanted to send the lupine gangs a message— to embarass them as their gods watched from the astral-cosmic. Now he was the subject of a manhunt.

Not to mention his time to process and plan was about to take a sizable break….

"Oh!! Oh!! I see it! I see Tamer's Tower!" Martha yelled and pointed ahead.

Beyond the scrapyard and labor camp littered streets of his low income hometown, a tower loomed in the near distance. It was made of spirit-glass. As blue as oceans and accented by braided woods and gold.

Lawmen riding their gigantic dinogriffs flew around its sky scraping height in defensive rotations while specialized contractors and their apish tamed beasts swung from the wooded sections at its lower levels.

"We're going into the main city!!!!" Martha cheered, "The city of Moon-Glass! Be more excited….. PLEASEEEEE!" Martha pleaded as she held his arm.

"Why would I?" Max asked, "They hate us up there." He forced his eyes away from the magical tower and instead studied the contours of his grove home.

"Why are you worried about them?!" Martha asked as she picked up a grizzly-lizard bone and threw it for the surrounding dogs to playfully chase through the scrapyard streets.

"Why wouldn't I be?" Max asked as he watched one of the larger breeds shove aside his canine kin and steal the bone. They disappeared down the alleys between the stone and wood apartments.

Martha sighed and threw her calloused hands behind her head. She looked so carefree as they headed to their most dangerous event in life to date, "You don't get it, Max. Mom says you never have. If you let everyone dictate what and where you'll go, you'll go nowhere. Even worse, you'll like nothing. You gotta shrug that shit off, bro." Martha animated her words by shrugging her massive shoulders.

Max side eyed her and smiled. He couldn't help it even with the days news dawning on him. "You're so gonna be a tank."

Martha smiled, "Hope so. Or else who's gonna protect you?"

"Myself." Max said firmly.

"Tracker's are known to have less damage resistance. And mass…" Martha eyed his lanky and thin frame.

"That's the taming-class you think I'll be? A tracker?" Max asked.

Martha nodded, "Me and mom guessed what classes you'd be every year since you were fifteen. It's always either been a tracker, prowler or descender."

"Right." Max and Martha left the bounds of their homelands in Moon-glass Grove.

Suddenly they were venturing through a thick and dry forest that split the two domains. Usually it was empty— and dangerous. But now Max could hear and smell guards within the woodland. Most lawmen. A few independent contractors.

"What?" Martha started, "It's obvious. You're observant, agile, skilled with weaponry and you tend to not work well with others. Plus you're whole nocturnal thing doesn't help."

"Yea but most of those classes are either prodigies or Neo-Noble children who's parents forced them into a rare-beast contract." Max said.

"Oh yea." Martha drawled, "Nevermind then. Since you know…. we're poor. And you only just learned how to shoot straight."

"Thanks…. dick." Max muttered the last portion.

Martha laughed and took off, "Come on, Max. I'm tired of waiting, let's run!"

She crunched loudly through the dry woodland, ignoring the lawmen and their dinogriffs that screeched at her while other classmates and co-workers ahead joined her for no reason other than their love for her extroverted nature.

Max was alone suddenly. He moved to follow but a howl split the growing silence.

He froze, paralyzed by…..

rage.

Before he could even blink, he had his bow drawn with an arrow at the ready.

It's silver tip gleamed under the shadows cast by the forest canopy.

It was deadly silent. As if all the fauna, lawmen and his neighbors back home had vanished from the forest the moment the howl shook the grounds.

He steadied his breathing, straining every sense available to find where it was.

Time drew on.

Suspense stoked the raged inside him like wood to a fire.

"C'mon….." He mumbled as sweat beads ran down his face and back.

He'd been holding his bowstring for what felt like years.

His finger began to bleed where the string dug in.

As soon as it hit the air a savage snarl came in response.

He spun around, trying to face the noise that came from behind.

"COME ON!"

Nothing.

Nothing.

He turned back ar—

Something.

In the distance.

Someone.

A woman. He figured as the winds blew through the trees, causing her dark cloak to hug her wide hips and toned legs. Not to mention the dark, purple-black thick curls of hair spilling from the hood like coils of shadow. The only thing left to split the dark were her eyes. Like cobalt diamonds.

"Who are you?" Max asked.

She didn't move. Or respond.

He pulled his bowstring further back, "Are you a Fang?" With the beast-hunter gangs fresh on his mind it was all he could think of.

The eyes. They weren't human. He felt like he was facing an animal. A wild beast. That same lack of understanding. The power visible even in their breathing. The preternatural intensity in her crystal gaze.

In the shadows he could see teeth. All white except for her overdeveloped inscisors which were pinked by blood.

He fired.

The cloaked wild-woman sidestepped, moving as a shadowy blur.

"HEY!" He gave chase, flipping over felled trees and sliding through river splits until he was where she once stood.

She was gone.

He tried to track her, but all he found in the one portion of wet woodland were paw prints.

Made by a wolf.

But that couldn't be.

"This wolf would have to be the size of a stag. There's no way…"

He looked up as he followed the prints until he found a cave atop a hill.

The trees bordered the walk up the hill almost intentionally. And on the bark of every one, he found markings.

Art.

A message.

On the tree closest to him, it was a sheep. Cowering as a pack of wolves ravaged its family.

On the next tree, the sheep had grown horns and began chasing down and killing the weakest wolves.

On the next tree, the ram was shedding its skin, revealing a deformed and monstrous wolf beneath.

On the last tree, the monstrous wolf-creature now wore the mask of a ram as it howled to the moon.

"Hey!!"

Max spun around to find a lawman facing him. Lower-rank. He didn't have an eelsword or dinogriff. Just a common blade and horse.

He looked around, "D-did you do this?"

"No." Max said hoarsely.

"Then… get the hell out of here!"

"…right." Max rushed out of the weird forested lands.

Along the way he realized the wolf prints were gone.