Marcus arrived within the hour, carrying supplies and looking both excited and terrified.
"You're sure about this?" he asked Aiden for the third time.
"I'm sure."
They'd prepared one of the bedrooms—comfortable, private, with blackout curtains in case the turning took longer than expected. Kieran had explained the process in clinical detail, making sure Aiden understood every step.
"First, I'll drain you almost to the point of death. You'll feel cold, weak, probably terrified. Then I'll give you my blood—a lot of it. Your body will start the transformation. It's... not pleasant."
"How not pleasant?"
"Imagine every cell in your body dying and being reborn. Your bones breaking and reforming. Your organs shutting down and restarting as something new." Kieran's expression was grim. "You'll be in agony for hours, maybe days. And there's nothing I can do except be there with you."
"Will I remember this conversation? After I turn?"
"Eventually. The first few days after turning, you'll be confused, driven by bloodlust. But your memories will return. You'll still be you, just... enhanced."
"And the soul bond? Will I remember our past lives?"
"Possibly. Sometimes the turning triggers past life memories. Sometimes it doesn't. But the bond will be there, stronger than ever."
Aiden lay down on the bed, and Kieran settled beside him. "Last chance to change your mind."
"I'm not changing my mind. Do it."
Kieran leaned down, positioned his mouth over Aiden's neck. "I love you," he whispered. "In this life and all the others. Remember that, no matter what happens next."
"I love you too."
Then Kieran bit down.
The sensation was strange—pain, yes, but also intimacy. Aiden could feel his blood flowing out, his life force draining away. Kieran's arms held him steady, gentle even as he drank deeply.
The world started to gray at the edges. Aiden's heartbeat slowed. His body grew cold.
This was dying. Really, truly dying.
And as consciousness started to slip away, Aiden felt something strange: memories that weren't his flooding through his mind.
A monastery in 1024. Kieran's face, younger, more human, looking at him with love and sorrow.
A battlefield in 1156. Dying in Kieran's arms, blood on both of them.
A merchant's house in 1347. Kieran watching from shadows as Aiden died of plague.
An artist's studio in 1523. Their hands intertwined as Aiden took his last breath.
Lifetime after lifetime after lifetime. Different faces, different names, but always the same souls finding each other and losing each other.
And then the last life. Adrian Chen. Being turned, those three perfect weeks of vampiric love, and then the weapon, the pain, dying as Kieran screamed his name.
All of it. A thousand years of love and loss, flooding back in the moment between death and rebirth.
Kieran pulled away, bit his own wrist, pressed it to Aiden's lips. "Drink. Come back to me."
Aiden drank. And the transformation began.
His body convulsed. Every nerve ending caught fire. His bones shattered and reformed. His heart stopped, then restarted, beating with a new, slower rhythm.
He screamed.
Through it all, Kieran held him, murmuring words of comfort and love. Marcus monitored the transformation with magic, making sure nothing went wrong.
Hours passed in agony.
Then, finally, the pain began to recede.
Aiden opened his eyes—new eyes, vampire eyes—and saw Kieran's face above him.
"Adrian?" Kieran whispered, hope and fear mixing in his voice. "Do you remember?"
And Aiden—who had been Adrian, had been Marcus, had been Thomas, had been countless names across countless lifetimes—smiled.
"I remember," he said, voice rough but certain. "I remember everything. Every life, every death, every moment of loving you. I remember."
Kieran's face crumpled with joy and relief. "You came back. After nine hundred and twenty years, you really came back."
"I told you I would." Aiden pulled him down into a kiss that tasted like blood and rebirth and promises finally kept. "I promised forever, didn't I? In our last life. Three weeks of forever got interrupted, but now..." He smiled, fangs showing for the first time. "Now we really do have forever."
"Forever," Kieran agreed, holding his mate—his eternal love, his soulbond, finally returned and immortal—as tightly as he dared. "And this time, nothing is taking you from me."
"Nothing," Aiden confirmed. "We've waited a thousand years. We've earned this."
Outside the window, the sun began to rise—a sunrise neither of them could see but both could feel. The start of a new day, a new existence, a new chapter in a love story that had spanned lifetimes.
They'd had a thousand years of longing.
Now, finally, they had eternity of love.
And it was worth every moment of waiting.