Stuck in an Island with Twelve Beautiful Women
Chapter 1601

Chapter 1601: Chapter 1601

The first rays of morning filtered through the trees like liquid gold, sliding down the bark in long fingers of warmth. Dew shimmered on the petals around them, and tiny silver-winged insects danced lazily in the air, drawn to the heat that still radiated from the lovers’ skin. Jude stirred first, his body wrapped around Lucy’s, her bare back nestled tight against his chest. Her hair was tangled with grass and blossoms, and his arm was draped possessively across her stomach, fingers still curled from the night’s rhythm.

He didn’t want to move.

But something called him.

Not sound. Not light.

A pull from deep inside the earth, the same way the tide is pulled to the moon.

Lucy shifted. "You feel it too."

Her voice was drowsy, but her eyes were open now, watching him from beneath her lashes.

He nodded. "Something’s waking again."

Emma was already sitting upright across the clearing, legs crossed, her eyes fixed on the horizon. Zoey stretched cat-like beside her, her long limbs glistening in the golden mist.

Sophie rose last, slow and regal, one hand on her belly, the other brushing over her twins where they slept, curled together like two halves of a whole.

Susan came to Jude’s side, her robe loose and forgotten, her steps silent as breath. "The ground’s warmer," she said. "It’s humming."

The others gathered one by one, drawn not by conversation but instinct. Rose arrived last, carrying a shallow bowl filled with pale blue water from the sacred pool. She set it before them in the moss and looked up.

"We changed it," she said. "And now, it’s changing us back."

Jude took a step forward. "What does that mean?"

Rose’s fingers brushed his. "The children are only the beginning."

A breeze stirred the trees, but it didn’t pass them - it circled, spiraling inward like breath drawn into lungs.

Emma tilted her head. "The island’s preparing."

"For what?" Stella asked, her voice soft with awe.

"For a visitor," Natalie said quietly, though no one had spoken to her. "Someone from before. From long before."

They all turned to her. Her skin was glowing - not like the shimmer of lovemaking or the heartstone’s kiss. This was different. Whiter. Colder. Like moonlight on snow.

Rose inhaled sharply. "It’s already in her."

Lucy stepped toward Natalie. "What’s in her?"

Jude’s hand went to Lucy’s wrist. He pulled her gently back. Natalie’s eyes weren’t hers anymore.

The blue glow deepened.

And then she spoke, her voice not hers.

"I was the first after Alara. I walked the island when it was nothing but shadow and teeth. I carried the seed to the western stone and offered it blood."

Everyone froze.

Jude’s voice was a whisper. "Who are you?"

Natalie blinked. The glow faded slightly. Her shoulders slackened, and her breath hitched like she’d been holding it underwater.

"I don’t know," she whispered. "But she’s still here. Inside me."

Zoey moved behind her, one hand sliding around Natalie’s waist. "We’ve got you."

Stella stepped forward. "If there’s another presence... then maybe it’s time we go to the western stone."

"There’s no western stone," Emma said, frowning.

"There wasn’t a heartstone either," Rose murmured. "Until we were ready to see it."

Jude looked at the sky.

No clouds.

No birds.

Just gold and silence and that endless hum beneath his feet.

"It’s waiting," he said. "For us."

Without another word, they gathered supplies - fruit, water, soft cloths for the babies. Susan and Grace swaddled them close to their breasts, Sophie wrapped her twins against her stomach, and together, they stepped into the trees.

The forest moved for them again. Trees bent. Vines unraveled.

No paths - just direction. Like the island was guiding them.

They walked for hours, the air getting cooler, sharper. The ground changed from moss to stone to something smooth and glassy.

When they reached the clearing, the world opened.

A stone - jagged, cracked, glowing from within - stood in the center of a sunken basin. It pulsed slowly, like a massive heart slowed by centuries of silence. Around it were carvings - ancient, deep, and raw. Shapes not of language, but instinct. Spirals. Thorns. Circles within circles.

Natalie walked forward without hesitation. "She’s awake now."

The others followed, forming a loose ring around the stone. Jude approached last, the children resting against his chest, his body humming with awareness.

The stone spoke.

Not in words.

Not even in sound.

But in memory.

It flooded through them all like lightning - not pain, not pleasure, but recognition. Of lives before lives. Bodies before flesh. Souls dancing through centuries of rebirth and reunion. Over and over, always circling back to this island. To this moment.

And then the wind shifted.

From the trees stepped a figure.

A woman.

Naked.

Golden.

Alara.

But not the soft presence from before. This was Alara in her power. Her eyes burned like twin suns. Her hair whipped around her like wildfire. And behind her walked four others - shadowy, beautiful, terrible. Wives. Sisters. Echoes.

Jude stepped forward.

Alara smiled. "Welcome, Seed-Bearer."

He nodded slowly. "What is this?"

"The beginning," she said. "Again."

Lucy stepped beside him. "Again?"

Alara gestured toward the stone. "Each time the island chooses. Each time it awakens. And each time, the ones it selects must decide: to remain gods here... or walk beyond the veil."

Rose’s brow furrowed. "There’s a beyond?"

"A second island," Alara said. "Where the sun never rises. Where choices take root."

Jude looked at his wives. At his children. "You want us to leave?"

"I want you to become," Alara said gently.

Zoey scoffed. "That sounds suspiciously like a riddle."

Alara smiled wider. "Of course it does. All good truths are riddles first."

Then she turned to the stone and placed her hand on it. The rock split, revealing a pool within - black and glittering, like a reflection that shimmered in two worlds.

"You may stay here," she said. "Raise your children. Love your lovers. Live forever in golden bloom."

"Or?" Emma asked, her voice trembling.

"Step through," Alara whispered. "And see what waits in the dark."

The women looked at each other.

Jude turned to Rose.

"What do you want?" he asked her.

She smiled, slow and fierce. "To burn. To bloom. To see everything."

Lucy stepped to his other side. "Wherever you go, we go."

The others nodded, silent but sure.

Sophie kissed her babies’ heads. "Even if it’s dark?"

"Especially then," Emma whispered.

And Jude stepped into the pool.

It welcomed him.

Not with warmth.

But with truth.

And the world turned black.