Page 6 of Brutal Mate

The moment he silently turned away and stalked toward the door, she lifted her gaze.

Everything about him screamed danger. And yet, she felt the urge to look into those charcoal eyes again.

Chapter 3 - Kane

Leaving the hardware store feeling more than a little awkward, Kane stood on the sidewalk and breathed deeply in an attempt to decompress.

From the second he had walked in there, he had felt the tension in the air. He'd noticed the way the Peterses had looked at him with a mixture of suspicion and hope. They clearly hadn’t taken well to his coming to question them, and yet they had still looked at him like some prized pig when he had announced his working for the mayor.

Though he had tried hard not to think on what he had overheard of their meeting with Jack that morning, it was next to impossible with how they looked at him—not to mention the fact he had sensed their daughter watching him from the aisle the second he entered the store.

The heat he had felt at her gaze on his back had been like nothing he had ever experienced before, and though he was a huge, muscular military veteran, he had felt the oddest urge to turn and run.

When he had laid eyes on the woman—their poor daughter—he hadn't been able to stop from thinking, if she is forced to marry, he'll be a lucky man indeed.

Though clearly young and mistreated, she was quite a sight to behold. Kane wasn't sure he had seen natural hair so vibrant red, nor eyes so green, eyes that pierced him the second he looked into them. Another reason he had wanted to run.

Never in his life had looking at someone made him quite so uncomfortable. And yet, as he stood outside the store, attempting to pick up Hanson's scent to meet up with him, he felt the urge to head back inside.

He told himself it was because the Peterses knew more than they were letting on. He had sensed that much. But something in his gut wouldn't quite allow him to accept that as reason enough.

No, something else was tugging him back inside.

He gritted his teeth and clenched his hands into fists, fighting the urge when he picked up Hanson's scent on the breeze and started in its direction.

Hopefully his packmate had been having more luck than he had so far. The Peterses weren’t the first he had questioned. He had already been to the grocery store and the florist, and it was abundantly clear that many of their new packmates weren't entirely trusting of their new alpha or his men. Very little had been offered up to him, and though it was increasingly frustrating, he knew that anger and violence would not help matters.

He could only hope that Hanson had better luck, having been a part of the pack since birth.

He had just stopped outside the tattoo parlor, where Hanson's scent trail had stopped, when he sensed someone sneaking behind him.

His hackles rose, his jaw clenched, and he whipped around just in time to see the Peters girl slip out from the alley beside her father's store.

She looked this way and that several times as she appeared before hurrying toward him, practically on tiptoes.

The way she crept unsettled Kane, not because it was creepy—in fact, it was kind of cute—but because she felt the need to do so at all in her own town.

Whether it was the other townsfolk or her own parents that caused her to do so, Kane wasn’t sure, but either way, he didn't like it.

As she approached, he slipped into an alcove between the tattoo parlor and the shop next door to hide himself from view of the hardware store. And when she slipped in after him, she actually looked relieved.

“Are you alright, Miss Peters?” Kane asked, keeping his distance when he felt her discomfort.

She glanced back over her shoulder once more before answering, “My name is Miley. Please, don't call me Miss Peters.”

Kane bit back a scoff. It didn't take much to understand why she didn't want to be associated with such a name.

“Are you alright, Miley?” Kane corrected himself. Even her name is pretty, he thought silently, his cheeks heating at the adolescence of it. He straightened his back and clenched his jaw, hardening once more. “Did you remember something?”

Miley glanced back again. Her anxiety was abundantly clear. The bruises that poked out beneath the neck of her t-shirt were no surprise, and they left Kane fighting back sympathy.

He knew all too well what it was like to have abusive parents. It was the very thing that had led to his being turned in the first place. Maybe if his parents hadn't been beating him black and blue, he wouldn't have run away that night, the night he was attacked in the park and left for dead, only to wake naked and alone with no recollection of what had happened in the three days after that.

“I…umm…” Miley stammered, her head lowered as if she couldn't bring herself to look him in the eye. Then, finally, she did. “My parents would kill me just for sneaking out back. If they knew I was talking to you, they'd—”

Kane cut her off with a hand on her forearm.

He shouldn't have touched her. He knew that. Not only because he'd leave his scent all over her, but because she was little more than a teenager, not to mention the fact he didn't know her. But it was instinctual, and the second his palm touched her warm flesh, he couldn't bring himself to pull back.

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