5. Branding

Jax leads me across the grounds to a smallish cabin and introduces me to Doctor Emmet who takes a look at my hand “No wolf?” he asks me and I shake my head. Jax explains to the Doctor that my wolf has been gone for a while and will hopefully be back now I have better living arrangements.

“I don’t understand” I look at both of them completely lost with what was going on. My wolf had showed herself when we found Daryl but I hadn’t heard from her since.

“Your wolf will help you too heal quicker, without it your healing will take nearly as long as a humans, its why your wounds never healed properly when they kept you as a slave”

The doctor looked horrified at Jax’s announcement of me being a slave and he changes the subject and warns me that resetting my thumb was going to hurt. I nod, if it was going to hurt then it would hurt, it wasn’t the first time in my life I had been hurt.

Daryl storms in yelling “Where is she, where is my mate?” and whilst my heart does a weird little skip, Jax calls out to let him know where we are too, he comes in and catches sight of my tear-stained red face “What the fuck happened?” he was furious

“Alpha she didn’t make a proper fist” Jax proceeds to show Daryl the fist I made and Daryl rolls his eyes

"Why were you fighting?"

"We weren't, i just dared her to punch the bag, I wanted to see what we were dealing with"

“Of course, you would have never trained” he sits next to me on the bed and cups my face, once again rubbing the tears away from my eyes, his scent swirling like a haze around my head. As I stare into his eyes, the doctor resets my thumb, I didn’t make a sound but the bone cracking sounds filled the room and I vomit all over the bed, Daryl pulls my hair out of my face and rubs my back whilst a nurse comes in and starts removing the bed sheets. The doctor puts my hand in a brace and then a sling and tells me to keep it still for a few days.

“Come on, lets get you changed” Daryl guides me out the hospital and towards the packhouse and up to his bedroom

He pulls out another tshirt from the drawer and a pair of joggers, moving towards me, I instinctively step back, if someone was moving this close to me it normally meant they were getting to hit me “I am not going to hurt you”. He drops to his knees and begins to untie the joggers, I don’t move, his body warmth was radiating against me and as he lowers the joggers I could feel his breath on my legs, something inside me was stirring and as I step out of the joggers, his hand grazes my leg. He doesn’t say anything as he grabs the clean pair and I hold onto his shoulder with my good hand as I step into them.

Daryl stands as he pulls them up and using the tie he jerks my body towards him and stares into my eyes as he ties them up. The stare was intense, it was like he was reaching deep into my soul, no one had ever made me feel like this.

He carefully takes the sling off and lifts the tshirt over my head, I had no bra on and my breasts bob out, one by one, his eyes don’t move down at all and he continues to stare into my eyes as he pulls another tshirt over my head, after he has threaded my arm through, he walks to his wardrobe and comes back with a zip up hoodie “You might want this, it is colder today” and he helps me put it on before refitting the sling.

He must be able to smell my arousal, I could definitely smell it, but even if he did, he made no attempt to do anything about it.

Daryl sits with me for a while with his arm draped across my shoulders whilst I am watching television, something I was never allowed to do as a slave, he was finding it amusing how I kept asking questions about the people and flicking from channel to channel. Honestly, I was just amazed how it was all working and the people seemed so happy.

After a while he stands up and tells me that it is time for training, looking at him and then my broken thumb he laughs “Not you, but you are required to watch”

I wasn’t sure what he expected me to learn about training from watching but I agreed anyway with a nod of my head and Daryl pulls me to my feet. Leading me to the kitchen once again he tells me that I need to be eating and puts some pastries on a plate in front of me.

I couldn’t lie, they were amazing but after four bites I was stuffed. Daryl looks at me frowning as I push the plate away and calls Jax in “Did she eat this morning?”

I was literally sat right in front of him, why didn’t he ask me himself, I would have told him the truth, I had no reason to lie. “Yes, but not much” I speak and Daryl frowns

“Why are you not eating properly?” he glares at me

“It hurts my stomach”

Daryl rushes around the table and lifts my hoodie and tshirt showing my concave stomach, the same stomach that had a scar branding that had not fully healed. He obviously didn’t notice it before when he pulled the tshirt over my head earlier.