Voren drew in a slow breath before he finally broke the heavy silence that had settled over the room.
"First of all, when I thanked you earlier, you never once asked me why."
His eyes settled on Ravyn, calm yet completely unwavering. "It was because of Sera."
Confusion spread through the gathering like a wave, but nobody interrupted him.
"You were the one who introduced me to her in the first place. From the moment we met, my entire life changed. I fell in love with her when I was sixteen years old. She was just ten."
The confession landed like a bomb in the middle of the crowd. Gasps rippled through the guests as stunned faces turned from Voren over to Seraphine.
A lot of people there had secretly believed Seraphine had somehow charmed or manipulated Voren into falling for her. Now they were realizing just how wrong that idea had been.
The truth was the complete opposite. Voren had been hopelessly in love with her long before anyone ever imagined it was possible. Without Ravyn unknowingly bringing Seraphine into his life, he never would have met the woman who became his entire world.
He had wanted to tell Ravyn the truth ever since he found out about the memory spell. Now there was nothing left to hide.
Ravyn’s fists tightened until his knuckles turned white. His voice trembled with a raw sense of betrayal that he couldn’t keep buried any longer.
"I told you all my secrets, but you kept this from me."
"Yes." Voren didn’t try to deny it for a second. "But there was a reason."
His gaze softened for only a moment before it returned to Seraphine. "At first, you were the one she loved."
He carefully left out any mention of the Moon Goddess’s involvement. Ravyn already had more than enough regrets piled on his shoulders, and there was no reason to hand him another excuse to cling to the past.
"When I secretly brought her to my pack, everything changed between us. We started spending more and more time together, and before I even realized what was happening, we couldn’t stay away from each other. I stopped coming around here, but it wasn’t because of you."
His eyes never left Seraphine as he continued. "It was always because of Sera."
Emotion flickered across his face as the old memories resurfaced one after another.
"One day, she looked at me like I was a complete stranger. She acted as though we had never even met. She said things that tore me apart inside."
His jaw tightened against the weight of those memories.
"I couldn’t understand what the hell had happened. That’s why I stayed away for so long. But when fate brought us back together and we started working side by side again, those feelings came rushing back harder than ever. That’s when I finally realized something was terribly wrong. She didn’t hate me. She lost her memories due a spell Daisy cast on her."
Silence swallowed the entire room as everyone hung on his every word. "My shaman eventually helped restore her memories."
A small smile found its way onto his face as he looked at Seraphine with pure tenderness.
"But even before she remembered everything, we had already fallen in love all over again."
His voice grew impossibly gentle as he spoke the next part. "Sera is the only woman I have ever loved."
The tenderness vanished as quickly as it had appeared. "Coco..."
He lowered his eyes briefly before finishing the thought. "Was only a substitute."
The room erupted into shocked whispers as tears streamed down Ravyn’s face, the full weight of everything hitting him.
"But you should’ve told me." His voice cracked under the crushing weight of his emotions. "We were best friends."


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