The dreams intensified as Aiden approached his twentieth birthday.
Always the same: storm-gray eyes, ancient and sad and full of love that spanned lifetimes. Sometimes there were glimpses of a face—sharp jawline, dark hair. Sometimes just feelings: protection, devotion, loss so profound it was crushing.
"You should see someone," his mother suggested when she found him awake at 3 AM again, sketching eyes he couldn't get out of his head.
"A therapist?"
"Or a sleep specialist. These dreams are affecting you, honey."
But Aiden knew therapy wouldn't help. This wasn't a psychological issue. This was... something else. Something deeper than conscious thought.
He started researching. Past lives. Reincarnation. Soul bonds. Concepts that should have seemed ridiculous to a young man raised in Manhattan's elite circles.
But they felt right.
"Do you believe in soulmates?" he asked James one night.
"Like, one person you're destined to be with? Nah, that's fairy tale stuff."
"But what if it's not? What if souls really do connect across time?"
"Then I'd say you've been reading too much romantic poetry." James studied his friend. "This is about your dreams, isn't it? Those gray eyes you keep sketching?"
Aiden looked at his sketch pad—pages and pages of the same eyes, drawn from memory that shouldn't exist. "What if I've met them before? In another life?"
"Then I'd say you should focus on meeting someone in this life. You're twenty years old, Aiden. Stop waiting for a dream and start living."
But how could he explain that living felt like waiting? That every party, every social event, every introduction to eligible young people felt like going through motions?
He was waiting. His heart knew it even if his mind didn't understand why.
Somewhere, someone existed who would make everything make sense.
And he had to find them.