Heir of The Werewolf Blood

Chapter 6 Evidence of the past

"Arthur, wait!" Harry yelled, running to catch up with his new mentor. His voice was too loud, too wild. He clutched the folded note tightly in his left hand.

Arthur stopped abruptly on the busy street corner, without turning around. He let out a long sigh before finally turning slowly, his expression now flat with exhaustion.

"What are you holding, Harry?" Arthur asked, his eyes focused on Harry's hand, not his face.

Harry hesitated. He held the paper with both hands now, pulling it away from Arthur. "You dropped this. On the bench earlier."

Arthur moved closer, his gaze hardening. "I didn't drop anything. That's not mine. I also know someone's been watching us."

"There's a message inside," Harry insisted, feeling his wolf instincts urge him not to trust anyone except his Alpha. It read... "'Watch the boy. He's not yours.'"

The air around Arthur seemed to thin. The older man quickly scanned left and right, watching the passing crowd, then pulled Harry into the shadows of a closed storefront.

"We have to get out of here. Now," Arthur hissed, his voice turning cold, a stark contrast to the mentor's warmth from moments earlier. "Give me the note, Harry."

Harry took a step back, his survival instincts screaming. Arthur was asking for the evidence, which Harry believed he had found as a crucial clue.

"No," Harry refused. "Who sent this? What does 'he's not yours' mean?"

"You're an idiot!" Arthur almost shouted, but quickly forced his voice down into a menacing whisper. "It's a warning, Kid! A warning aimed at me because I'm close to you! This isn't some toy from the forest!"

Before Harry could respond, two large figures emerged from the alley they had just left. They were heavily built men wearing dark leather jackets, moving with a clear purpose; they weren't just looking for loose change.

"Arthur," one of the men grinned, his voice thick and coarse. "The boss said we need to take back what we lost. And this weird new kid is drawing too much attention."

Arthur went pale. "Go, Harry. Get out of here now!"

Harry didn't move. The warning note, combined with the appearance of these men, triggered an immediate response. They were threatening Arthur, the closest thing Harry had to family.

"Who are you?" Harry asked, his voice now reverting to a hoarse, heavy, wolf-like timbre.

The first man laughed cynically. "We're just the cleanup crew. And you two saw too much." The man extended a large hand to grab Arthur's arm.

It was their biggest mistake.

The moment that rough hand made contact with Arthur, something ignited within Harry. All his weariness with his current state, his frustration at having to pretend to be human, and his fear of this new world evaporated, replaced by uncontrollable fury.

*He's not yours.* They had no claim on Arthur. They had no claim on him.

Harry moved instinctively. It was an explosion of strength he had suppressed since leaving the forest. He didn't jump to the side like he had when avoiding the bus; he lunged forward with a speed achievable only by a savage predator.

In a fraction of a second, Harry was between Arthur and the first thug. The man hadn't even had time to blink. Harry was fast.

He didn't use his fists; that was too slow, too human. He used his incredible momentum. He drove his chest forward at full speed. The shove was a full-force explosion of his wolf instinct's fury.

The thug was thrown backward as if hit by a small truck. He struck the opposite wall of the alley with a wet thud, then slid to the ground, motionless.

Arthur recoiled, covering his mouth with both hands, his eyes wide with disbelief as he stared at Harry.

The second man, slower to react, pulled his switchblade. "You... you monster!" he roared, stabbing wildly at Harry. "Were... wolf!!!"

Harry felt the movement, but he didn't need to see it. He smelled the cold steel, sensed the blade moving through the air as it approached. He moved aside, twisting his hips, but this time, he let his strength flow out a little more.

As the knife passed, Harry caught the man's wrist with lightning speed. His grip was impossibly strong. Harry twisted. He didn't intend to kill, but he meant to incapacitate. He twisted with full force, and a painful *snap* sounded from the man's elbow joint. Broken. The man screamed, dropped the knife, and fell to his knees, clutching his mangled arm.

The speed and strength were far greater than what he had shown when escaping the club. This was pure savagery, controlled by a newfound focus: protecting his ally.

It all happened in less than four seconds.

Harry stood tall between the two men, who were now groaning in pain on the dirty alley floor. He was gasping for air, but not from physical exhaustion. He was gasping from shock.

He stared at his hands. Hands that had just dismantled two grown men so easily. He felt that strength still coursing through his veins, a familiar hot energy, but now wrapped in human urgency.

"God help us, Harry," Arthur whispered from the shadows. His voice trembled heavily, not from fear of the thugs, but from fear of Harry.

Harry turned toward Arthur. He saw a look of pure fear in the older man's eyes, a fear he hadn't seen when Harry jumped off the bus, nor when he ate the kebab. This was fear of Harry's *power*.

"I... I was just protecting us," Harry said, trying to sound normal, but his voice felt strange in his own ears. He realized he had just used his wolf strength openly in front of other humans—and not just one, but two witnesses.

Harry glanced at the sprawled thugs. They weren't dead, but they'd certainly suffer for weeks. He hadn't killed them, but he had come close.

"Look at yourself," Arthur said, emerging from the shadows, walking carefully toward Harry as if approaching a wild animal just released from its cage. Arthur didn't look at the thugs; he only stared at Harry.

"You have to be more careful, Kid. You can't do this here," Arthur motioned around the dark alley. "In the forest, you were king. Here, you're an anomaly. You just showed the world—or at least, these two people—that you're not just some homeless kid. You're something dangerous."

Harry felt cold, even as the energy still swirled within his body.

"They'll come back," Harry said, noticing Arthur staring at his phone, as if checking if anyone had recorded them. "Or others will come instead."

Arthur nodded grimly. "Of course they'll return. Or worse, they'll send someone more organized. You're too strong, Harry. Power like that in the wrong place will attract the wrong attention. They won't send thugs again now that they know what you're capable of."

Arthur tossed the warning note into a puddle of foul water, then grabbed Harry's arm, which was still trembling from the adrenaline high.

"We have to move. Now. Find a deeper spot, Harry. We can't stay here if you have power that frightens people just by looking at you."

Harry let himself be pulled away from the two collapsed men. He had just received clear confirmation: his strength was a blessing in the forest, but in this city, it was a magnet for problems far bigger than street thugs. He had stained himself with violence in front of Arthur, and now, he had to face the consequences of having put his mentor in grave danger.

As they hurried out of the alley toward the anonymity offered by the main street crowd, Harry felt a cold gaze from behind a window of a nearby high-rise building—a gaze that didn't feel like curiosity, but cold calculation.

He did

n't know who sent the note, but he knew he had attracted Victor Thorne's unwanted attention.