Chapter 7 A Trap on Stage
Selene’s POV
The moment I stepped out, I knew trouble was waiting for me.
Lucian had already finished his speech. His voice no longer echoed through the hall, but his presence still did. He stood among several senior Betas of Moonveil Pack, speaking with quiet authority, his posture straight, his expression unreadable, his every move perfectly suited to this world of power and polished appearances.
Everything about him fit here.
Everything about me, at that moment, did not.
I had no desire to walk over and stand beside him like some decoration meant to complete the picture. So I didn’t. I stayed off to the side instead, holding a glass of wine in my hand, sipping slowly while watching the room with detached boredom.
This place felt suffocating.
Every smile looked fake. Every word felt rehearsed. Every person seemed to be performing a role.
And I was tired of performing mine.
I was already regretting coming when Elena spotted me.
She saw me almost instantly, and the way she changed direction made my shoulders tense. She came toward me quickly, sharply, like a predator locking onto easy prey. Her eyes dropped first to the wine in my hand, then rose to my face with open disapproval.
“Selene,” she said in a low warning voice, “don’t wander off. Stay where you belong.”
Her gaze swept over me again.
“And don’t embarrass Moonveil Pack.”
I stared at her face and felt immediate regret for attending this celebration out of boredom.
I wanted to answer her. I wanted to say something sharp enough to cut through that superior expression she always wore around me. But before I could speak, another voice entered the moment.
Bright.
Sweet.
Perfectly timed.
Winnie Ashford.
She approached with a few proud-looking female wolves gathered around her like a circle of admirers. She moved with effortless elegance, smiling as if the earlier meeting in the restroom had never happened. As if she had not just offered me money to disappear from Lucian’s life.
She came straight to Elena and gave her a smile so polished it almost glittered.
“Mrs. Elena,” she said warmly.
Then she turned to me, her eyes glowing with false friendliness.
“And this must be Lucian’s fiancée. Ms. Nightshade, it’s a pleasure to meet you.”
I nearly laughed.
No, that wasn’t true.
I almost gagged.
If pretending to be pure, sweet, and harmless was an art, Winnie had reached perfection. She was wearing innocence like expensive perfume, and everyone around her seemed willing to believe it.
Elena shot me a hard look before turning back to Winnie with much more warmth than she had ever shown me.
“Winnie, don’t trouble yourself with her,” Elena said dismissively. “She’s just an Omega from Firstband. No manners. No refinement.”
Her words were blunt and insulting.
But hardly surprising.
Winnie didn’t object. She only smiled wider, like Elena’s insult had made everything easier for her.
“It’s alright, Mrs. Elena,” she said gently. Then her gaze moved back to me, and the sweetness in her expression turned sharp. “Actually, I heard Ms. Nightshade is very talented. There’s a piano on stage. Why don’t we have a little friendly competition?”
There it was.
The real reason she came over.
Her words sounded innocent enough. Even playful. But her eyes gave her away.
This wasn’t a suggestion.
It was a trap.
The entire night, the room had been alive with whispers about me. An Omega from Firstband. A rural nobody. A woman unfit to stand near Lucian Frostbane. So where exactly had Winnie heard that I was “talented”?
She hadn’t.
She was setting me up.
She wanted to humiliate me in front of everyone.
And before I could reject the idea, she turned away and made her way toward the piano on the stage with perfect confidence, as if the result had already been decided and she had already won.
The room responded immediately.
Heads turned.
Conversations slowed.
Curiosity sharpened.
Winnie sat before the piano as she belonged there. She looked around once with a graceful smile, then lowered her hands and let the music begin.
The melody was smooth, polished, and elegant.
Her fingers moved across the keys with confidence. She wasn’t pretending. She really did know how to play. She had practiced for years, that much was obvious. The piece flowed beautifully enough to impress the room, and when she finished, the applause came quickly.
Satisfied.
Admiring.
Loud.
Winnie rose with a smile and turned back toward me, carrying herself like a woman certain she had already forced me into a corner.
“It seems I didn’t perform well, Ms. Nightshade,” she said modestly. “It’s your turn now.”
The wolves around her immediately began speaking louder, their voices carefully raised so others could hear.
“Winnie, that was incredible!”
“But come on, Ms. Nightshade, are you really just going to stand there?”
“Don’t tell me you can’t play.”
“Can you imagine the rumors if Mr. Frostbane’s fiancée can’t even play a simple tune?”
Their voices spread through the room exactly as planned. They wanted the crowd involved. They wanted attention. They wanted me humiliated, not just challenged.
Elena’s expression darkened, but not because they were trying to embarrass me.
Because I was the one being embarrassed.
To her, that was my fault.
Moonveil Pack’s future Luna was being mocked in public, and instead of being angry at Winnie’s little performance, Elena looked at me with disgust, as if I had caused the entire thing simply by existing.
I smiled at them.
Slowly.
Calmly.
Without a trace of panic.
“I just think playing piano at a banquet feels a lot like performing for tips,” I said lightly.
A few people nearby stiffened.
Winnie’s smile trembled for the briefest second.
“But since you all seem so eager to hear it…”
I set my wine glass down.
“I’ll give it a try.”
Then I walked toward the stage.
Every step was steady.
Every breath is calm.
I could feel eyes on me from every direction, but none of them mattered. I sat down at the piano, placed my fingers gently on the keys, and looked at the room.
“Since Ms. Ashford wants a competition,” I said evenly, “I’ll play the same piece.”
For one quiet moment, nothing moved.
Then I began.
The first note fell softly into the air.
Then the next.
Then the next.
And within seconds, the melody opened fully beneath my hands, richer than before, deeper, fuller, carrying not just skill but feeling. It wasn’t just music. It was breath, memory, pulse, and control poured into sound.
The entire room went silent.
No whispers.
No mocking laughter.
No shifting feet.
Just the piano.
People on the dance floor slowed as if caught in the current of it. Then they began moving again, but now their steps matched the rhythm coming from my hands. The energy in the hall changed completely. The atmosphere rose higher and higher, until the entire room felt suspended inside the music.
Winnie had played beautifully.
I would give her that.
But this was different.
This was beyond practice. Beyond polish. Beyond elegant performance.
I didn’t need to look at her to know she understood it too.
The difference was obvious.
And brutal.
I had passed grade ten in piano at ten years old. After becoming Alpha, every one of my senses had sharpened. My precision had improved. My control had deepened. What I could already do well had become effortless.
No one in the werewolf continent had ever seen me fail at anything.
And I wasn’t about to start tonight.
When the final note faded, it hung in the air for one breathless second before the applause broke out.
Loud.
Sudden.
Overwhelming.
The sound swallowed the room.
I stood, offered the crowd a small, composed smile, then stepped away from the piano and returned to where Winnie stood.
She had gone pale.
Her beautiful, perfect calm had cracked. Her smile was still there, but it was tight now, strained, and her eyes held something much uglier than defeat.
Humiliation.
I didn’t need to say anything.
Her humiliation was already complete.
“Ms. Nightshade,” she said with effort, “your talent truly outshines mine. I’m humbled.”
“Ms. Ashford,” I replied evenly, “you played well too.”
Nothing more.
Nothing cruel.
I didn’t need cruelty. The truth had already done enough damage.
Then I sensed someone approaching.
I turned slightly.
And froze.
That face—
I knew it instantly.
Frank Seely.
The butler of Bloodfang Pack.
My heart lurched.
What was he doing here?
No.
No, this was bad.
Very bad.
I had worked too hard to maintain this identity. I had buried my Alpha aura. I had played the role of a lowly Omega so carefully, so perfectly.
Was everything about to collapse?
But Frank didn’t stop in front of me.
He didn’t look at me.
He walked past me as if I were nothing more than another guest and headed straight toward Lucian and Elena.
A little relief reached me.
But not enough.
Not nearly enough.
“Mr. Lucian, Mrs. Frostbane,” he said with a respectful bow, “good evening. I am Frank Seely, butler of Bloodfang Pack. I apologize for my Alpha, Mr. Alaric, being unable to attend. He is ill, so I am here to represent him.”
Elena stepped forward quickly, her tone instantly warm and polite.
“Mr. Seely, welcome. Please, make yourself comfortable,” she said. “How is Mr. Alaric’s health?”