Chapter 4

Layla's POV 

I trembled even in his presence. My hands were shaky as I placed it in his. I felt the strength he possessed as he dragged me off the ground, making me stand balanced before him.

My eyes were glued to his, staring deep into his eyes before I caught the consciousness of who stood before me and lowered my head to the ground. 

"I'm sorry..." I whispered the words as I looked down. 

"I haven't seen you before..." He said with a calm tone to me. 

"I'm new here" I answered. I struggled with fighting back the tears that tried to roll down my eyes, maintaining my charisma before him. But I felt his fingers on my chin, lifting my face up and causing me to peer into his eyes before he asked me again, "What is your name?"

"Layla" I responded with a shaky tone, trying to redirect my eyes to something else. 

"Layla Caldwell" I said with a low tone. 

He smiled at me, and he released my hand from his hand, turned to his men and signalled them with the move of his eyebrows to follow after him. He wore a wide smile on his face as he patted me on the shoulders as he walked away, speaking to his men. 

I could sense that all eyes were fixated on me. I didn't need to turn around to sense the disgust in people's hearts. But that wasn't the case scenario there. 

This was the first time I set eyes on the alpha of the Moonstone pack, and I had to confess, he was more handsome than I even imagined. He was a firm specimen of a man, transitioning from the conventional "handsome young man" to having being called beautiful.

And his beauty just wasn't in his facial expression alone, but also in his heart. I was more than baffled at the way he rushed towards me at the sound of my mistress' whip against my back. 

Unlike the other packs, where I was regarded as the lowest of slaves, he made me feel like a human being again, as though there was something special about me that even I could not fathom early.

With the way he aided me off the ground in the presence of my mistress and the other slaves, I already concluded that his heart was surely too pure, his attitude a contrast of what people said about him.

I smiled at the thoughts of all these, bent my knees as I continued with the job assigned to me. I had the first information about him, which I doubted would impress Alpha Alex. I needed more. 

And just like that, it seemed as though I was his most favorite person in the pack, except that was just what my mind pictured to make me feel better. 

With each passing day, when he came around with his men to inspect the pack, he always wore a smile, and would wave his hands at me, of which those little gestures would make my cheek burn in blush and cause butterflies in my belly. 

"Who does she think she is, huh? What makes her so special that that alpha always smiles at her?" I heard one of the slaves speak with so much repugnance in her tone, and yet, for the first time since my existence, I felt so good about something that another's disdainful words didn't seem to throw me off my balance and happiness. 

This had continued for days, and days turned into weeks. He was afar, yet felt so close to me. On one of the days, white I held on to a pile of clothes and headed out to another location of the pack, I bumped into him, and the clothes dropped from my hands into the ground. 

"I'm sorry!" I said with my head lowered to the ground. I never bothered to look upwards at whom I must have obstructed, but from the side of my eyes, I could tell that he also lowered himself to the ground and aided me to pick up the fallen clothes. 

As it happened, his hands touched mine, grabbing it before I was forced to look up. My eyes were widened at the reality of who was before me. It was Alpha Louis, the same man who had made me feel so special in the pack. How could I not discern the nice treatment even in my mistakes? 

His hands were warm, and very soft, and his eyes were radiant with an expression I could not describe. We were stuck there for seconds, staring at each other, both of us, dumbfounded and lost of words. 

"Hello, Layla" he greeted. He remembered my name, and again, I blushed at the way he called out my name. It sounded so demure and sweetening to my ears. 

I could feel a strong connection between the both of us. It felt as though there was just more to what was happening between us. I could hear whispers inside of me, a being within me whispering the words, "Mate!"

I shook my head in denial. It couldn't be true. How could I, a slave since I came to understand life, be mated to a powerful alpha, the very one I came to spy on and give the necessary information to Alpha Alex? 

Yet, I could see it in his eyes. The way he stared at me, it felt as though he too had realized the same thing which I tried to deny. 

I stood from the ground with the clothes in my hands, and I took a step backwards away from him with my head lowered down as I said to him, "I'm sorry."

Before I could hear him utter another word in response to what I had said, I walked out of the scene immediately, trying to avoid being entangled with my alpha's enemy, with the one I was meant to spy on. The future was just too bright for me

to lose with the mistake of falling in love with him.