Stuck in an Island with Twelve Beautiful Women
Chapter 1248

Chapter 1248: Chapter 1248

Then -

It vanished.

All of them did.

Gone in a blink.

The forest grew silent again.

The stone arch still hummed.

Rose dropped to one knee. "They weren’t here to fight."

Layla knelt beside her. "They were... testing us."

Jude lowered his axe. "And next time?"

Emma answered. "Next time, they won’t ask."

They all stared at the archway.

And something - someone - watched from the other side.

The light within the stone arch pulsed once - soft and slow, like the beat of a hidden heart. The space inside the twisted columns shimmered faintly, though nothing moved within it. Still, they felt it. The presence. Someone - or something - watching from the other side, like a reflection in murky water, just beneath the surface of perception.

No one spoke at first. Not even Rose. The entire group remained frozen, standing around the stone arch as if stepping too close would activate something they couldn’t stop. Jude felt his fingers twitch around the haft of his axe, his knuckles tight. Every instinct told him to back away. But deeper than that was something more primal, more intimate - curiosity.

"What is it?" Lucy whispered, her voice barely more than breath.

Sophie stepped closer, but not too close. "It’s a doorway."

"We’ve seen doorways before," Natalie said, glancing at the roots and symbols that wound around the arch’s edges. "But nothing like this."

Rose stood slowly, brushing leaves off her knees. "It’s not a portal. Not in the way we’ve known. It doesn’t go somewhere. It calls."

"Calls who?" Grace asked.

Jude’s voice was steady. "Us."

The others looked at him. He wasn’t guessing. He felt it, deep in his chest, like a thread being tugged softly toward the arch. He walked toward it slowly, not with fear but with focus. Layla moved to follow, her steps silent beside his. Zoey and Emma exchanged glances, then followed too. One by one, they drew closer.

Jude stood before the arch, less than a foot from the opening. The shimmer inside moved, swirling like heat off stone. He reached out slowly, letting his fingertips hover just before the surface. It didn’t feel like air. It didn’t feel like anything. But it pulled at him - gently, insistently.

"Careful," Sophie said softly.

He didn’t touch it. Not yet.

Rose came to stand on his other side. "I saw this once. In the dream, before I fell into the river."

"You never told us," Layla said.

"I didn’t understand what I saw," Rose murmured. "But I remembered the feeling. It was like standing on the edge of something that was both alive and hollow."

Lucy stepped closer. "Can we destroy it?"

Sophie answered before Rose could. "No. If we try, it’ll react. And if we’re right - if it’s not just a thing but a being - it won’t let us."

Emma exhaled sharply. "Then we don’t touch it."

Jude nodded. "We observe. We learn."

They set up camp a few dozen meters from the arch, far enough to feel safe but close enough to watch. No one wanted to sleep in the treehouses that night - not while something waited in the woods, not while the doorway pulsed with unseen life.

As the fire crackled between them, the wives sat in a quiet ring around it. Conversation came slow, broken by silence and glances toward the clearing.

But still, the island made room for intimacy.

Zoey leaned her head on Lucy’s shoulder, their fingers laced. Natalie curled against Susan, whispering stories about the first days on the beach when they didn’t know how to make fire. Grace braided Stella’s hair in the firelight. And Jude lay with Layla across his lap, her head on his thigh, while Rose nestled on his other side, tracing circles into his palm.

He glanced toward Sophie, who sat slightly apart, her knees drawn up. She wasn’t distant - just thoughtful. Watching.

"She’s always thinking," Layla whispered.

"She always has to," Jude replied softly.

"We all lean on her too much."

"Because she holds us together."

Layla turned her face into his thigh and kissed his skin. "Then tonight, let’s hold her."

Jude’s fingers curled around Rose’s. He looked across the fire. "Sophie."

She looked up.

"Come here."

She smiled gently, knowing. She moved across the circle and slipped into Jude’s embrace. Layla reached up and pulled her down between them. Rose curled her body around Sophie’s back. Together, they rested, the warmth of touch like armor against the strange cold emanating from the arch.

Hours passed. They took turns watching. Emma and Zoey stayed up first, sitting shoulder to shoulder with knives resting across their thighs. Nothing changed. The shimmer inside the arch faded slightly by dawn, growing pale like the color was draining from it.

But something had changed.

By morning, Natalie was gone.

Not a trace of struggle. No broken twigs. No scream in the night. She had simply vanished from beside Susan.

Panic struck like a wave.

They searched for hours - calling her name, scouring every path and trail she might have taken. Lucy found one of her earrings beside the river, pressed into the mud. It was dry.

"She didn’t fall in," Lucy said. "She left it behind."

"She was taken," Susan snapped. "She wouldn’t just go off."

Rose stared into the trees. "Or she was called."

Everyone turned toward the arch.

It looked the same.

But it felt different.

Heavier.

Darker.

Rose’s eyes narrowed. "It’s feeding off us."

Sophie nodded slowly. "It lures one. Then waits. And the more it takes, the stronger it gets."

"We’re not letting it take anyone else," Jude said firmly.

They reinforced their sleeping arrangements. No one slept alone now. When night came, they slept in a circle around the fire. Jude kept his arms wrapped around Layla and Sophie, while Lucy curled against his back and Rose rested her head on his chest. It should’ve been peaceful. It wasn’t.

The next day, Stella woke up smiling.

But it wasn’t her smile.

It was wrong.

Tilted too wide.