Stuck in an Island with Twelve Beautiful Women
Chapter 1346

Chapter 1346: Chapter 1346

Emma took his hand.

Grace took the other.

And the rest followed.

Barefoot, glowing, silent and powerful.

As they passed through the valley, the wind picked up. It wasn’t cold. It was warm. A welcome. The trees beyond the cliffs bowed as they passed, their leaves shimmering faint gold.

They returned to the temple just before midnight.

The fire was still burning.

And the ground beneath it... was flowering.

Tiny white buds pushing through the soil.

Susan knelt to touch them. "She’s spreading."

Layla smiled. "And she’ll spread through us."

Lucy kissed Jude’s cheek. "We’re not wives anymore."

He looked at her, uncertain. "Then what are we?"

She leaned close, her breath sweet against his mouth. "We’re keepers. Vessels. Lovers of the island and of each other."

Sophie curled into his side. "We’re something the world has never seen before."

Grace whispered, "We’re becoming the dream."

That night, they lay tangled in the center of the temple, limbs braided, hearts open. There were no lines between bodies. No names in the dark. Just gasps, kisses, the brushing of fingers across sacred skin, mouths finding mouths, heat rising and falling like tides.

They didn’t make love once.

They made love endlessly.

As if their bodies were temples. As if their mouths carried prayers. As if every moan was a new scripture.

And above them, the stars pulsed brighter.

Watching.

Approving.

Waiting for the next bloom.

They awoke in a tangle of limbs and breath, dew-kissed and sun-warmed, the early morning light slipping through the canopy in wide golden shafts that turned their skin to honey and shadow. Jude stirred first, but he didn’t move right away. Lucy lay draped over his chest, her fingers curled gently at his side, her thigh resting across his. Her lips moved slightly in her sleep, whispering fragments of dreams he couldn’t hear but somehow understood.

All around them, the others were still asleep, though some were beginning to shift - Emma’s arm stretched over Susan’s waist, Natalie’s bare back rising and falling steadily as she spooned against Zoey, who blinked once, sleep-hazed, then closed her eyes again and sighed. Stella lay at the edge, hair fanned out like seaweed across the moss, while Rose curled protectively around Grace in the center, the two of them breathing in perfect unison.

Jude turned his head slightly and saw Sophie sitting up at the edge of the platform, staring out into the jungle. She looked still, peaceful, but her jaw was tense, her hands clasped between her knees like she was anchoring herself.

Quietly, so as not to wake the others, he slid out from beneath Lucy and moved toward her. The air felt heavy with the scent of blossoms and something deeper - like sap and musk, something ancient and intoxicating.

"Couldn’t sleep?" he murmured as he sat beside her.

Sophie didn’t look at him right away. Her gaze remained on the tree line.

"It’s not sleep anymore," she whispered. "It’s something else. It feels like... remembering."

"Remembering what?"

She finally turned to him, and her eyes were different now. Not glowing - not quite - but deeper. As though something inside her had expanded during the night. "I don’t know yet. But I can feel it at the edges. Like something’s inside me, just out of reach."

He brushed her hair back gently. "Is it her?"

"No," Sophie said. "It’s me. It’s us. She didn’t take us. She’s showing us... what we already are."

They were both quiet after that. The jungle murmured around them - the soft call of birds, the rustle of leaves, the rhythmic hush of distant water. Jude didn’t need to say anything more. Sophie’s hand found his, and they sat like that until the others began to wake one by one.

Lucy was first, stretching like a cat and crawling into Jude’s lap with a sleepy grin.

"I dreamed you had wings," she murmured into his neck. "Huge ones. Dark. Beautiful."

Jude chuckled. "You’ve always liked wings."

"I do," she sighed, nuzzling him. "Especially when you wrap them around me."

Soon, the temple came alive with low voices, lazy movements, kisses passed like secrets. Susan kissed Stella’s back while Grace fed Emma a piece of fruit from the offering bowl. Natalie wandered barefoot toward the edge of the trees, fingers trailing along vines like she was listening for something. Zoey and Layla stood close together at the fire, their bodies swaying in a slow dance, hips brushing, lips meeting occasionally with feather-light affection.

But Rose watched Jude.

Always watching.

She moved toward him now, her eyes unreadable, her steps silent despite the forest floor beneath her feet.

"We have to go back," she said softly.

"To the flower?" he asked.

"No," she said. "Farther. Deeper."

The others were listening now. The hum began again - soft, low, inside them. Not external. Not from the trees or the ground. This time, it was in their bones.

"There’s a third temple," Rose said. "I saw it in my sleep. Not a pool. Not a valley. A mouth. A deep, endless cavern. Covered in roots. It breathes."

Emma paled slightly. "You want us to go into that?"

Rose smiled faintly. "We don’t have to. But it’s waiting. And if we go... we’ll meet what came before her."

Lucy looked at Jude. "Before the flower?"

He nodded slowly. "Before the goddess."

Natalie returned from the tree line, her expression solemn. "It’s already opening. I saw the ground shift. There’s a hollow in the west hills, past the cliffs. Something is waiting for us there."

Zoey looked at the others. "Then we go together."

Rose nodded once. "Tonight."

They spent the rest of the day in a trance of preparation.

But it wasn’t fear. It was devotion.

They bathed each other in the river, washed one another’s hair with oils from wild nuts and petals, kissed tenderly between strokes and touches, dressed each other in new wraps - longer, darker, embroidered with strands of glowing root Jude hadn’t seen before. They braided each other’s hair in matching loops, touched each other slowly, reverently.