Stuck in an Island with Twelve Beautiful Women
Chapter 1691 - 1689.2

Chapter 1691: Chapter 1689.2

Sophie turned toward the trees, toward the river, toward the heart of the island. "The island always shows us how when we’re ready."

Jude took a breath, then stood. The others followed one by one, reluctant but eager, scared but willing. They walked in silence, the golden moss glowing faintly beneath their feet, guiding them not back to the heartstone - but past it.

Beyond it.

To a part of the forest they had never seen before.

The trees grew taller here, almost impossibly so. Their trunks were wide enough to house entire rooms, their branches intertwined like the fingers of giants. And in the center of the clearing they came upon, the air shimmered - not light, not mist, but something in between. It looked like a veil woven from starlight and breath.

Emma reached out first. Her fingers passed through the shimmer and vanished. She gasped but didn’t pull back. "It’s soft," she said. "Warm."

"Alive," Grace added, stepping beside her.

Jude looked to Lucy, who stood beside him, her face lit with awe. "Are you ready?"

She nodded. "With you? Always."

One by one, they stepped forward. Rose. Zoey. Sophie. Stella. Grace. Emma. Natalie. Susan. Scarlet. Even the cautious ones moved without fear now. The shimmer accepted them, rippling like silk in water.

Jude passed through last.

On the other side, the world was different.

Not empty.

But waiting.

It looked like the island - but cleaner, newer. The trees were young. The moss was white, not gold. The sky above them swirled with slow motion clouds of violet and pale blue. And in the distance, they could see structures - soft shapes built from crystal and vine, growing out of the land itself.

"It’s the other island," Lucy whispered.

"The reflection," Zoey said, taking her hand.

"But it’s not just a mirror," Jude said. "It’s a beginning."

They walked forward together, their bare feet silent on the glowing moss. No birdsong, no river, no wind - just the hum of presence, of potential. As they reached the edge of the first crystalline structure, it shimmered at their approach and then opened, petal-like, revealing a chamber inside.

The chamber pulsed with light.

And in the center of it sat another heartstone - this one clear as diamond, but alive with flickers of color, like sunlight through water.

Rose stepped inside, reaching back for Jude’s hand. "It’s waiting for you."

He entered the chamber, the others following closely. They circled the heartstone just as they had before on their own island.

Jude stepped forward, breath held, and laid his hand against it.

The response was instant.

The stone flared with light.

The room filled with warmth.

And then they heard it - an actual voice, gentle and vast, neither male nor female but deeply familiar.

"You have come."

Jude swallowed. "What are we?"

"You are the pulse. The echo. The chosen and the choosing."

"Is this place real?"

"It is what you make it."

"Why us?"

"Because you loved. Because you surrendered. Because you opened."

The voice faded, but the warmth remained.

And as the others touched the stone one by one, the chamber transformed. The walls unfolded, revealing layers of crystalline panels that shifted and formed into new spaces. Beds. Pools. Arches. It built for them. It became theirs.

Rose turned to Jude and smiled. "We’re home."

"No," Lucy said, stepping beside him, her fingers lacing with his. "We’re beginning."

And all around them, the light pulsed brighter - alive, waiting, singing their names.

The chamber breathed.

Not metaphorically - truly, with a slow inhale that rustled the crystalline arches above their heads, like the lungs of the island itself were drawing them in closer, wrapping them in something intimate and infinite. Jude stood still, his fingers entwined with Lucy’s, the rest of the women forming a loose circle around the central heartstone. The air hummed between their bare skin, vibrating with potential, soft heat threading between their ribs like a memory that hadn’t happened yet.

Emma’s voice was barely a whisper. "It’s learning us."

Jude turned to her. "Or we’re learning it."

Rose stepped into the center of the chamber, her body haloed in shifting color - gold, amber, rose. "There’s no difference anymore."

The heartstone pulsed, and this time it wasn’t just light - it was sensation. It crawled up Jude’s spine, down his thighs, into his fingertips. He gasped as he felt it spill into his chest, crackling through him like an orgasm of thought, of memory, of body and soul breaking open. The others cried out softly too - Lucy clutched tighter to him, her head falling against his shoulder as her breath stuttered.

"Do you feel it?" she whispered.

He could barely speak. "Yes."

"What is it?" Stella asked, her voice trembling with something between fear and awe.

Natalie moved forward, her hand brushing across the heartstone. It shimmered under her touch, projecting a faint glow that wrapped around her wrist like a ribbon. "It’s showing me... a garden. A spiral of silver vines... a sky with two suns..."

"I see it too," Grace murmured. "I’m in it. I’m walking barefoot through it, and the ground is singing to me."

Zoey clutched her head. "It’s too much. I can’t hold all of this."

Jude turned toward her and reached out. "Don’t hold it. Let it pass through you."

When he touched her shoulder, the energy jumped between them like a jolt of electricity. Zoey gasped - and then laughed. Her body relaxed instantly, her lips parted as if in climax. "Oh. That’s better. It’s not pain. It’s just... power."

Scarlet and Susan held each other, both blinking as images danced behind their eyes - phantoms of possibilities, futures unfolding. The chamber seemed to swell in response, its crystalline walls rippling like skin responding to touch. The bed-like shapes molded themselves softer. Pools thickened with glowing water. Archways melted into open sky.

"It’s shaping itself from our desires," Rose said, her hand outstretched toward Jude. "But not just flesh. Thought. Memory. Dream. Love."

He took her hand and pulled her into him.