A Memory - Year 1024
"I want to show you something," Kieran said to Aiden one quiet evening, a hundred years after their marriage.
"What?"
"A memory. Our first meeting. The monastery in 1024." Kieran took his hand. "Marcus developed a spell—it lets bonded mates share memories completely. You remember it intellectually, but I want you to feel it. To experience it as I did."
"You want to take me back to the beginning."
"I want you to understand why I waited. Why you were worth a thousand years."
The spell was complex, but Marcus cast it perfectly. And suddenly, Aiden was there.
Not as himself, but as Kieran—young Kieran, human Kieran, twenty-five years old in the year 1024.
He felt Kieran's emotions as his younger self saw Adrian for the first time. The jolt of recognition. The soul-deep knowing that this person mattered in ways Kieran couldn't articulate.
He felt their first conversation, clumsy and sweet. Felt their first kiss, desperate and perfect. Felt the joy of those few months together before Adrian fell ill.
Felt the devastation of watching Adrian die, unable to save him. Felt the curse take hold—the nightly pain, the soul-bond warning that his mate was gone but would return.
"I will find you," young Kieran vowed over Adrian's grave. "In the next life, and the one after that, and every life after. I will find you. I will love you. I will wait as long as it takes."
The memory ended, and Aiden was back in the present, tears streaming down his face.
"You kept that promise," he whispered. "For a thousand years, you kept that promise."
"I would have kept it for ten thousand," Kieran replied. "You were always worth the wait."
They held each other, present selves connected to past selves, the eternal cycle of their love finally complete.
From beginning to forever.
From longing to belonging.
From curse to blessing.
This was their story. A thousand years of longing, transformed into eternity of love.
And it would never end.