Stuck in an Island with Twelve Beautiful Women
Chapter 1637

Chapter 1637: Chapter 1637

Natalie was still asleep, her head resting on Susan’s stomach, both of them snoring lightly. Rose opened her eyes slowly, and the first thing she looked at was Jude.

"Today?" she asked, propping herself up on one elbow.

"Not yet," he said.

"But soon," Sophie added.

Lucy stirred beside them, sleep-drenched and beautiful. "We just got here," she mumbled.

"We’re not leaving," Jude said, brushing her cheek with the back of his fingers. "We’re evolving."

She smiled faintly. "We always are."

By midday, they had expanded the valley further. Jude and Stella shaped a water channel that ran gently through the center, shallow enough to bathe in, deep enough to drink from. Rose and Grace guided the growing trees into natural canopies, shading the fruit groves from the rising shimmer of the sky. Zoey discovered a new type of vine - stretchy, silken, glowing pale pink - and used it to create hammocks and slings they lounged in together, often naked, sometimes not.

Emma and Sophie sat in a circle of low stones near the altar, murmuring softly, occasionally laughing, occasionally kissing, their conversation half verbal, half shared thought. They were planning something, Jude could tell - but it wasn’t secretive. It was sacred.

Natalie spent most of the afternoon beneath a canopy of blossoms with Susan, their laughter drifting through the air as they experimented with the fruits and herbs they’d gathered. Every now and then, Susan would steal a kiss, and Natalie would giggle and slap her thigh with mock outrage.

And Jude - Jude moved through all of it like a current. Each touch he gave was met with one in return. Each glance was mirrored. He was the root, as Alara had said. Not the center of the island, but the pulse that held the unity between them. Not their master - just their rhythm.

Later, as twilight crept back in, casting the sky in molten rose, Rose found him alone at the water’s edge, his feet soaking in the warm flow. She walked up behind him and wrapped her arms around his waist, her naked body molding against his back.

"You feel it, don’t you?" she whispered.

He nodded. "The pull. It’s stronger now."

"It’s because we’re ready," she said, kissing the spot beneath his ear. "The island won’t ask until we can answer."

He turned in her arms, kissed her deeply, slowly, his hands caressing the curve of her waist, the slope of her spine. "Then let’s answer it. Tomorrow."

Rose’s smile was slow and knowing. "Together?"

"Always."

That night, they gathered again around the starlight ember. It pulsed stronger now, golden threads rising from it like fireflies. The moment Sophie stepped near it, those threads bent toward her, drawn like metal to magnet.

She stood at its edge, barefoot, nude, radiant.

"I dreamed again," she said. "Of a river that flows upward. Of hands made of light. Of breath that becomes stars."

Zoey let out a low whistle. "Trippy."

"Real," Sophie said firmly. "We’re not finished. The source... it’s waiting. And it’s not just below. It’s within."

Jude stepped beside her and looked to the others. "We’ll go. Tomorrow. But only if we go together."

Lucy stood first. "Then count me in."

Stella joined her. "Me too."

Emma took Jude’s hand. "Always."

Grace, Zoey, Natalie, Susan, Scarlet - each one rose, each one stepped forward, each one took a place in the circle.

When it was complete, when the thirteen of them were joined again by choice, by rhythm, by breath, the starlight ember rose from the moss without a sound.

It hovered above their heads, pulsing faster.

The moss beneath their feet glowed brighter.

And from the edge of the valley, the Spiral Tree bloomed a fourth time.

Its blossoms drifted toward them, slow as falling snow, warm as skin.

One landed on Sophie’s chest.

Another on Jude’s shoulder.

Then one for each of them.

And when the last petal fell, a line of golden light traced itself across the moss, leading beyond the valley - toward a place they had not seen, could not imagine, but now felt in their bones.

The path to the source had opened.

And this time, they were ready to walk it.

They rose with the dawn, not as individuals but as a single body broken into thirteen pieces, moving with a shared breath, a shared rhythm. The golden path stretched before them now, winding like a river of light through the forest’s awakening green. It wasn’t a trail they had forged - no feet had worn it into being - but a living thing that responded to them. Moss curled toward their steps. Vines leaned in to watch. Even the trees above shifted, their branches forming a loose canopy of flowers and light, as if the forest itself wished to witness what would come.

They walked without words, barefoot, nude, glowing. The starlight ember floated ahead, guiding them, pulsing in time with their footsteps. Jude walked in the center, his hands touching those beside him - Sophie on his left, Lucy on his right. Their fingers laced with his, warm and certain. Each woman walked differently. Rose led with graceful command, hips swaying like she already belonged to the next world. Emma moved with deep focus, watching everything, every flicker of light, every shimmer of moss. Zoey strutted like this was the beginning of an adventure she’d waited her whole life for.

The path began to descend. Subtle at first, a gentle slope that pulled them forward. But the deeper they walked, the more the world around them began to change. The trees became older - taller, gnarled with age and memory. The air thickened, not with humidity, but sensation. The kind of pressure one feels in dreams just before waking. The golden light shifted too, deepening into amber, then honey, then something redder, warmer, like the color of fire at dusk.

Natalie touched Susan’s hand and whispered, "I feel it in my blood."

Susan nodded. "It’s like we’re walking into ourselves."

They came to a clearing.