The Draft Day Betrayal

Chapter 1

POV: Seraphina

The chandeliers in the grand ballroom of the Plaza Hotel cast a brilliant, blinding light over the crowd, but I felt entirely invisible.

I stood near the edge of the sprawling buffet, nervously smoothing down the fabric of my black dress. I bought it from a thrift store three days ago for fifteen dollars. It hugged my curves a little too tightly, and the fabric was slightly scratchy, but it was the best I could manage. I did not belong in a room filled with designer tuxedos, silk gowns, and the heavy, expensive musk of high-society werewolves.

But I was there for Trent.

That night was the peak of everything we had laboured for. The New York pro-hockey team, heavily sponsored by the multi-billion dollar Kingston Corporation, was officially drafting him.

I took a deep breath, clutching a small, wrapped gift box in my hands. A new, engraved silver watch. It had taken me three months of double shifts to afford it.

Five years ago, I made the most terrifying decision of my life. I ran away in the dead of night, leaving my strict, controlling parents behind to escape a violent arranged marriage to an Alpha I could not stand. I gave up my family name, suppressed my scent to hide among humans, and started life afresh with absolutely nothing to my name.

Then, I met Trent Wallace.

He was a broke college boy with a blinding smile and a dream of playing pro hockey. For five years, I poured every ounce of my soul into that dream. I worked three jobs, scrubbing floors, waiting tables at a greasy diner, and picking up late-night tutoring gigs. I skipped meals so I could buy him new custom skates. I stayed awake till 3:00 AM writing every single one of his college term papers so he could rest well and be sharp for morning practice.

We were a team. We had built this future from nothing, brick by brick, and that night, he was finally going to claim it.

A waiter walked past, and I quickly asked for directions to the VIP suites. Trent had texted me earlier, saying he was resting upstairs before the official press conference, so I decided it was the perfect time to present his gift.

I hurried toward the private elevators, my heart fluttering with pure excitement. When I reached the fourth floor, the thick carpet swallowed my footsteps. I found Suite 412. The door was left slightly ajar.

I pushed it open, a massive smile on my face. "Surprise…"

The word died in my throat, the gift box slipping from my fingers and hitting the carpet with a muffled thud.

The VIP suite was massive, but my eyes went straight to the couch in the middle of the room.

Trent was there. He was completely naked, his skin drenched in sweat. But he was not resting. He was buried between the legs of a stunning, slender blonde woman. Her hands were tangled in his dark hair, and her breathy, high-pitched moans filled the quiet room.

I recognised her instantly from the sports magazines. Isabelle Kingston. The twenty-two-year-old daughter of the terrifying billionaire sponsoring Trent's new team.

The air left my lungs completely. The world tilted on its axis, a deafening ringing in my ears as five years of sacrifice crumbled to ash right in front of me.

"Trent?" My voice cracked, a pathetic, broken sound.

Trent froze instantly. He whipped his head around, his eyes going wide with panic as he scrambled backward, nearly falling off the couch. Isabelle only sighed, sitting up and lazily dragging a sheet over her perfectly flat stomach. She did not look embarrassed, only thoroughly bored, as if I had interrupted something as ordinary as breakfast.

"Seraphina," Trent stammered, frantically grabbing his suit trousers from the floor. "What are you doing here? You were not supposed to come up here!"

I waited for the tears, for the crushing, suffocating heartbreak to bring me to my knees.

But the tears refused to come.

Instead, a hot wave of pure fury ignited in my chest. It burned through my veins, incinerating my shock and leaving behind a terrifying, icy rage. I had starved for this man. I had ruined my hands scrubbing toilets for him. And here he was, doing runs with a billionaire's spoiled daughter on the biggest night of our lives together.

"Get dressed," I ordered, my voice dangerously calm.

"Seraphina, babe, listen to me…"

"I said get dressed!" I screamed, grabbing an ice bucket from the nearby table and hurling it violently at the wall behind him. Crystal shattered everywhere, making the two of them flinch.

I did not wait for his excuses. I spun on my heel and marched straight out of the suite.

"Seraphina, wait! Stop!" Trent yelled, his footsteps thudding behind me as he scrambled to catch up.

I did not stop. I walked straight out to the VIP balcony overlooking the grand ballroom. Below, hundreds of guests and dozens of sports reporters were mingling, cameras flashing as they waited for the draft picks to make their appearance.

Trent caught my arm just as we reached the railing. "Are you mad? Keep your voice down! Do you even know who that is inside there? If you spoil this for me…"

"Spoil this for you?" I let out a hysterical laugh, tearing my arm out of his grip. I leaned over the balcony and shouted down at the ballroom. "Hey! Are you people looking for your star player?"

The chatter below died instantly. Every camera, reporter, and wealthy werewolf in the room snapped their attention up to the balcony.

Trent's face drained of colour.

"Because he is up here doing runs with the sponsor's daughter!" I yelled, my voice ringing out clearly across the room. Flashbulbs erupted like a violent lightning storm.

For a split second, Trent looked terrified. But as the cameras kept flashing, his panic shifted. His jaw clenched, and his eyes darkened with a cruel, cornered look. He looked at my cheap thrift-store dress, my curvy figure, and my flushed face, then let out a loud, mocking laugh, stepping forward so the cameras could see him clearly.

"Security!" he called out smoothly, waving a dismissive hand at me. "Somebody should come and remove this mad woman. I do not even know how she entered the lobby."

My jaw dropped. "What?"

"I have told you before to stop following me up and down," he sneered, his voice loud enough for the press to hear. He looked me up and down with naked disgust. "What concern is it of yours if I am sleeping with the sponsor's daughter? She is my fiancée, or did I forget to mention that to you? Did you honestly think I would ever date a poor, fat house-girl like you? Look at yourself, Seraphina. I am a first-round draft pick for the Kingston franchise. I need a Luna who resembles a supermodel, not a plus-size charity case who smells like bleach and detergent."

The words landed like blow after blow, and the ballroom erupted into muffled laughter. He was erasing me completely, denying the five years I had used to keep him alive, painting me as a delusional stalker simply to save his own name.

"You pathetic, useless fraud. How can a person lie like this?" I breathed, my fists clenching so hard my nails broke the skin of my palms.

"Is there a problem here?" a sweet, venomous voice suddenly chimed in.

Isabelle Kingston strolled out onto the balcony, dripping in millions of dollars' worth of diamonds. She slipped her arm through Trent's, pressing her chest against his bicep, then looked at me the way one might look at a cockroach that had crawled out from under the refrigerator.

"She is only throwing a tantrum because she knows she is worthless," Isabelle purred for the cameras. She tilted her blonde head, a wicked, cruel smirk curving her lips. "But since you want attention so badly, let us play a little game."

She pointed a finger toward the massive double doors at the far end of the ballroom.

"I dare you to kiss the very next man who walks through those doors," she announced loudly. "If he actually accepts a kiss from a nobody like you, I will personally go on my knees, admit that I stole your man, and apologise to you in front of the press."

The reporters gasped, turning their lenses eagerly toward us.

"But," her eyes flashed with malicious glee, "if he rejects the kiss and pushes you away in disgust, you will wear this dress," she brought out a skimpy, size-zero dress that definitely was not my size, "and serve me drinks for the rest of the night. Let the whole world see exactly what you are."

My blood boiled. It was a humiliating, degrading trap. But looking at Trent's smug face, the very last thing I was prepared to do was back down.

What I did not know, and would not find out until the following morning, was that one of Isabelle's friends had already lifted her phone the moment the "game" began, quietly going live on social media for her own followers. Isabelle had promised the girl a cut of whatever the clip earned once it started trending, the humiliation was never meant to end in that ballroom alone. It was meant to follow me everywhere, long after that night was over.

"Fine," I snapped, my green eyes blazing with pure defiance. "Deal."

Before Trent could even process that I had agreed, a heavy, suffocating silence fell over the entire ballroom. The music cut out and the laughter died. It was as if the devil himself was approaching.

At the far end of the hall, the double doors slowly began to open.