Forever Passion

De: Darlene Zagata

Narrado por: Virtual Voice

Venice, 1823

The canals ran red that night, though no one would ever know it but the stars.

Sienna's breath came shallow as Darius pulled her deeper into the shadows beneath the Ponte dei Sospiri—the Bridge of Sighs. Her white gown, stained crimson at the cuffs, clung to her skin like a second heartbeat. Behind them, the sounds of the city's revelry echoed distantly, masked balls and midnight celebrations oblivious to the eternal tragedy unfolding in the dark.

"I'm sorry," Darius whispered, his forehead pressed against hers. His eyes—those terrible, beautiful eyes—burned with an intensity that transcended human longing. "I'm so sorry, my love."

"Don't be," she breathed, though fear and ecstasy mingled in her trembling voice. "If this is the cost of forever with you, I would choose it a thousand times over."

The bells of the Basilica tolled midnight as his fangs descended—no longer hidden, no longer pretended away. This was the moment. This was the threshold between their mortal lives and the eternal curse that would bind them together for all eternity. Liora had made her ultimatum clear: break the covenant, and they would both burn. Accept it, and they would become something neither human nor truly alive—immortal prisoners in a gilded cage.

Darius hesitated. In that moment of hesitation lay all the love he'd ever felt, crystallized into a single, agonizing decision.

"Take me with you," Sienna whispered. "Into whatever comes next. I can't live knowing we'll age, decay, and die while you remain unchanged. I can't bear the thought of watching you mourn me as you've mourned countless others. If immortality is the price, then I pay it gladly."

He kissed her then—a kiss that tasted of copper and desperation, of promises and curse words bound together in the darkness. When his fangs pierced her neck, Sienna gasped not in pain, but in recognition. She was coming home to something ancient within her own blood, something that had been sleeping, waiting, calling across the centuries.

The fire came next—searing, transformative, absolute. Her body convulsed as the venom spread through her veins like liquid starlight. She saw flashes: a thousand masquerades, a thousand deaths, a thousand desperate embraces with a man whose face she recognized even though she'd never truly known him.

And then—nothing.