CHAPTER 4

Torin POV

Torin tossed the mock assignment papers onto his narrow bunk, rubbing the bridge of his nose as the stark reality of his new posting settled over him.

"You really think you can survive eight months babysitting an elite pack princess without ripping her head off?" Wesley asked, leaning against the doorway of their cramped quarters with a smirk.

"I don't have a choice," Torin muttered, grabbing his duffel bag and tossing his civilian-grade hoodies inside. "If I want my pick of the front-line enforcer units when this is over, I have to make this mission stick."

Wesley shook his head, offering a sympathetic clap on the shoulder before stepping back into the hallway. "Just remember to duck when she starts throwing furniture at your head. I'll miss you, Westlake."

Torin watched his partner leave, feeling a strange hollow ache in his chest. Growing up in foster care after losing his parents at a young age meant he had never really known brotherhood until he met Wesley at the academy. Now, he was heading straight into the lion's den alone. He picked up the heavy Ashbourne dossier once more, flipping past the medical reports to the psychological evaluation.

The details of Bexley’s captivity under Dashiell Blackthorn painted a sickening picture. For over ten months, the rogue alpha had kept her locked away in a damp, secluded cell, treating her like a captured trophy while beating her mind and body into submission. Her initial despair had driven her to attempt suicide by slitting her wrists within weeks of her abduction. When rescue enforcers finally raided the compound during a drug sweep, Bexley had been found curled in a dark cupboard, bruised, half-starved, and completely mute for weeks until her first desperate plea to a pack healer begged for death.

Torin swallowed hard, his wolf letting out a low, distressed rumble in the back of his mind. The photographs in the file were even worse. A teenage she-wolf with wide, haunted dark eyes, her skin mapped with fading bruises and fractured bone reports that detailed broken ribs, a shattered collarbone, and a fractured wrist. It was a miracle she had survived at all.

Three years later, that broken girl had hardened into an impenetrable wall of razor wire. She trusted no one, shunned pack gatherings, and cut herself off from any semblance of normal pack life. She channeled every ounce of her trauma into brutal martial arts training and lethal self-defense drills.

Torin turned to the final page detailing his undercover brief. He was required to pose as Bexley's pretend mate while they attended Silverpine Pack Academy together. He would shave two years off his actual age, dropping down to nineteen to match hers, and share a two-bedroom apartment right on campus. The arrangement was designed to keep her under constant surveillance without triggering her explosive territorial aggression. Another senior guard named Lachlan Redford would handle exterior perimeter security, while Torin remained locked to her side twenty-four hours a day.

He slid the file into his bag, turned off the bedside lamp, and collapsed onto the mattress. Sleep refused to come easily. Every time he closed his eyes, the image of Bexley’s hollow, traumatized face flashed behind his eyelids, followed by the terrifying sound of her former mate falling from the club balcony.

The morning flight to the Ashbourne territory was smooth, though Torin spent most of the two hours staring blankly out the reinforced window of the private aircraft. When the plane finally touched down on a private tarmac nestled deep within the pine-forested mountains, a sleek military-grade helicopter waited on standby to carry him the rest of the way.

A tall man in a crisp dark suit stepped forward to greet him as he ducked beneath the whipping rotor wash.

"Torin Westlake?" the man asked, holding out a large, calloused hand. "I am Lachlan Redford, your senior perimeter guard."

Torin shook his hand firmly, taking in the older enforcer's weathered features and sharp brown eyes. "Good to meet you, Lachlan. I take it you are the one keeping watch while I play boyfriend?"

Lachlan gave a dry, humorless chuckle, leading him toward the open cabin of the helicopter. "Boyfriend, babysitter, target dummy. Call it whatever you like. Just be prepared for the fight of your life."

They climbed inside, slapped their noise-canceling headsets over their ears, and lifted off into the crisp morning air. Below them, endless acres of dense pine forest stretched across the landscape like a green ocean.

"So, what's the real deal with Bexley Ashbourne?" Torin shouted over the roar of the engine, turning his gaze toward the veteran enforcer. "The file paints a picture of a total loose cannon."

Lachlan sighed, rubbing his jaw with a gloved hand. "The file doesn't even cover half of it, Westlake. She is stubborn, volatile, and possesses a zero-tolerance policy for guards. She has burned through twenty-three protective details in the last three years alone. The longest any enforcer managed to stick by her side was three months before resigning out of sheer frustration."

Torin raised an eyebrow, a competitive spark flaring in his chest. "Twenty-three guards? Did they get fired, or did they quit?"

"They quit, man," Lachlan shouted back, shaking his head. "She makes it her personal mission to torment every single one of them until they pack their bags and beg for a transfer. Her record low is four days."

A knot tightened in Torin's stomach. "Four days? Is she actively trying to get herself killed?"

"She doesn't want protection, and she certainly doesn't want anyone pretending to be her mate," Lachlan explained, raising his voice above the cabin noise. "She tolerates me only because I maintain my distance and stay out of her personal space. But you? You are going to be breathing the same air she breathes twenty-four hours a day. Good luck surviving the first week."

Torin stared out the window without answering. He hadn't fought his way to the top of the Silverpine academy just to fail a protective detail because some stubborn she-wolf wanted to play tough. If Dashiell Blackthorn's rogues were truly circling the pack borders waiting for a chance to finish what they started, Bexley needed a wall standing between her and execution. Whether she liked him or not was completely irrelevant.

Thirty minutes later, the helicopter descended toward a sprawling stone estate situated directly on the glassy edge of Moonwater Lake Retreat. The grand manor was an architectural masterpiece of heavy timber and polished stone, blending seamlessly into the wild mountain wilderness.

Torin grabbed his duffel bag and followed Lachlan down the metal steps as the rotor blades slowed to a whining halt. The heavy oak front doors of the estate swung open before they even reached the stone porch, revealing an opulent foyer lined with priceless artwork and polished hardwood floors.

Lachlan led him down a long corridor past several closed doors until they reached a spacious administrative office near the back of the north wing. A woman in her mid-fifties with kind eyes and silver-streaked hair sat behind a heavy oak desk, sorting through a stack of security manifests.

"Ah, you must be the new enforcer," the woman said warmly, looking up from her papers with a polite smile. "I am Georgina Ashbourne."