Stuck in an Island with Twelve Beautiful Women
Chapter 1435

Chapter 1435: Chapter 1435

Rose was awake already, of course. She appeared beside him without a sound, her reflection in the water as clear as his own. She looked radiant in the morning light, her skin kissed gold, her eyes as deep and calm as the pool itself.

"You felt it too," she said softly.

He nodded. "It was more than I imagined."

Rose crouched beside him, resting her hand on his shoulder. "The island is not a place. It’s a spirit. A memory. A desire. When we offer ourselves to it with honesty, it gives us back truth."

"And what truth did we find?" he asked.

She tilted her head. "That we were never separate. That love is not possession - it’s expansion. That ecstasy isn’t sin - it’s communion."

He looked into her eyes. "You’re not just speaking about us. You mean everything."

She smiled. "Everything."

Behind them, laughter rippled - Lucy tickling Zoey’s side, Stella pressing kisses into Grace’s neck, Emma stretching like a cat in the sun. Susan and Natalie were already bathing in the stream, their wet hair glinting like black silk. Sophie moved to join them, sliding off her dress and stepping into the water with no hesitation, like it had always been hers.

"What now?" Jude asked.

Rose looked over her shoulder, watching the women she had once called sisters, lovers, and now something more. "Now we take what we’ve become and root it."

He raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean?"

She rose to her feet, offering him her hand. "Come. There’s something the island wants to show us."

The others gathered quickly, sensing the shift in Rose’s tone. They dressed only lightly - wraps of palm and silk, translucent fabrics tied loosely around hips, chests, thighs. The air was warm enough to bare skin, and they had long shed any shame.

They followed Rose deeper into the forest, past familiar trails and into untouched thickets that seemed to part for them like a dream. Vines coiled aside. Trees leaned just enough to make space. The light dappled them in gold and shadow, and the hum in the air returned - subtle, rhythmic, like a heartbeat in the wind.

After nearly an hour, they reached it.

A valley.

Wide and hidden, the land dipped into a basin surrounded by ancient trees that seemed to rise endlessly into the sky. In the center was a structure - grown, not built. A ring of trees intertwined at the base, their trunks fused together by thick cords of living wood, forming a natural cathedral.

At its center, a pulsing stone - black and iridescent, breathing with the same rhythm as the island itself.

Rose led them to the edge and stopped.

"This is where it began," she said. "Not just our story. The first one. The first joining. The first fire. The first birth."

Jude stepped closer, his throat tight. "You’ve seen this before?"

"In dreams. In visions. And now it’s real. Because we’re ready."

The women spread around the edge, forming a ring, their eyes wide with awe. Lucy reached for his hand again, her voice low. "It’s beautiful."

"And dangerous," Sophie murmured. "I can feel it. It’s power. Raw."

"Yes," Rose said. "And it’s ours. If we choose it."

Jude felt the pull. The way the stone seemed to reach toward him. The way the trees pulsed with breath. The way the air thickened with promise.

They could stay here.

They could build something eternal.

But only if they all stepped forward together.

He looked at them - twelve women, twelve hearts bound to his.

And slowly, he stepped into the circle.

The moment Jude stepped into the circle, the hum intensified. It wasn’t louder exactly - just more present. It vibrated in his bones, made the hairs on his arms rise, made his heart beat not as a rhythm of life but as an echo of something older. The ground beneath his bare feet pulsed, like veins ran through the moss itself, like he stood upon the body of a living, breathing god.

The stone at the center glowed faintly. Soft, like embers. Like it was waiting to be stoked.

Rose followed him next, stepping beside him with her wrap fluttering around her thighs, her feet silent against the moss. One by one, the others joined. Lucy’s fingers slipped into his left hand, Emma’s into his right. Zoey came behind him, her palm resting on the small of his back. Stella and Grace knelt at the edge of the stone, heads bowed, as if listening to its pulse. Scarlet stood with arms crossed, gaze fixed on the glow like it might explode. Sophie hovered just outside the circle, hesitation drawn across her brow.

Natalie reached for her. "We’re already in this."

Sophie’s eyes flicked to Jude’s. "That’s the problem."

He stepped toward her. "Then stay close. Be my balance."

Sophie let out a breath that trembled slightly, then nodded and took his hand. The moment she entered the circle, the stone’s glow flared. The wind shifted, sudden and warm, coiling through their hair like hands brushing across skin. The trees groaned softly above them, as though drawing breath. Something ancient had awakened.

Susan was the last. She didn’t hesitate. She walked into the circle with that quiet confidence she always wore like a second skin, her chin high, her eyes clear. When her foot touched the moss, the light from the stone surged up, a silent flare that lit their skin from below.

The twelve wives and Jude stood in perfect symmetry, each face marked with something different - fear, desire, awe, peace. The island pulsed through all of it.

Rose stepped closer to the stone, kneeling before it. "This is where it roots."

"What happens now?" Lucy asked, her voice soft.

"We plant ourselves," Rose said. "In truth. In each other."

Grace turned to her. "And how do we do that?"

Rose looked back at Jude, her eyes burning like honey touched by flame. "With surrender."

Jude didn’t need her to explain.

He moved to the stone, dropped to his knees, and placed both hands against it.