Stuck in an Island with Twelve Beautiful Women
Chapter 925

Chapter 925: Chapter 925

Then the water rippled, and a voice echoed, not aloud, but inside his bones.

"Welcome back."

Jude dropped to one knee, breath shallow. "What is this place?"

The water pulsed. The arches around the pool began to glow faintly. Mist rose from the surface.

"Your birthright. Your memory. The name you buried."

Jude stood slowly, staring into the shifting water. "I am Jude."

"You are not."

The voice was neither male nor female. Not a voice at all, really, more like a knowing that spoke. The kind of truth that makes the spine itch.

"You are Jude, and you are not. You wear the shape you were given. But you are what came before."

"What came before what?" he asked aloud.

The water shifted again. The image changed.

He saw twelve women standing at the orchard’s edge, torches in hand, watching the mountain. Grace at the front, face lifted, mouth moving in prayer. Scarlet clutching Susan’s hand. Stella’s jaw clenched, eyes wild.

They weren’t afraid.

They were waiting.

Jude stepped closer to the pool. "Who are they to me?"

"They are your anchor."

Then the arches began to sing.

The sound came from stone, not air, low and harmonic, like the hum of wind through bones. It wrapped around him, pulled at his breath, made the glyphs on his arms glow brighter. The pain returned, but he welcomed it. Because it was the same ache he’d felt every time one of the women looked at him with eyes full of faith, or touched him with reverence, or whispered his name like it was sacred.

"You are the bridge," the voice said.

"Bridge to what?"

"To the forgotten. To the broken. To the gods who once were, and to the god who must become."

The air cracked.

From the center of the pool rose a shape, tall, robed in black and white, its face hidden behind a mask of mirrored bone. It didn’t walk. It floated, trailing mist like blood. Its voice carried into Jude’s skull.

"You are the last witch of the old blood. Hidden. Sealed. Reborn into the skin of a man."

Jude’s body went still. His heartbeat slowed.

Witch.

The word tasted like iron on his tongue.

"You were scattered across time to avoid extinction. One fragment per age. You are the final shard."

"I’m not, I’m just, "

"You are not just anything. You are remembering. And when the remembering is complete, you will become."

The figure drifted forward. Its robe parted, revealing a hollow chest filled with blue light. Inside it, the shape of a tree, roots entwined with bone.

"You must climb the mountain’s heart. There, your true name waits. Speak it, and the gods will stir. Speak it, and the false world will break."

Jude reached for the figure.

But it vanished.

And the pool stilled.

Behind him, the chamber shuddered. Stones cracked. The arches split. The path back began to collapse.

He ran.

The tunnels pulsed red now, each step burning his feet. Rocks fell behind him. The path narrowed. He didn’t look back. He ran until his legs gave out, then crawled, dragging himself through the dust and heat. When he burst from the mountain’s mouth into the jungle night, the first thing he heard was the sound of someone screaming his name.

Grace.

He blinked. The orchard was still miles away. But her voice carried through the mist, urgent, trembling.

The glyphs on his arms had changed.

No longer just ink.

They pulsed like veins of light.

He stood.

And began the long walk home.

He was halfway back to the orchard when the creatures found him.

Not monsters, not exactly. But not watchers either. These things were taller, leaner, shaped like men but hollow-eyed and bone-thin. Their fingers were too long. Their mouths stitched shut. They emerged from between the trees in silence.

Jude lifted his arm.

The glyphs flared.

The creatures stopped.

Then they bowed.

He passed between them, heart steady.

When he reached the outer orchard, dawn had just begun to color the sky. The women were already up, gathered in a silent circle near the firepit. Grace turned first. Then Lucy. Then Susan, mouth dropping open.

He stepped into view.

And they saw.

The light on his arms. The slow shimmer of his breath. The knowing behind his eyes.

Laurel cried out and ran to him.

He knelt and caught her.

The others came slowly.

Susan touched his wrist. "What happened?"

"I remembered."

Emma said nothing, only brushed a hand down his cheek.

"You’re glowing," Zoey whispered.

"I think I’ve always been," he said. "You just couldn’t see it yet."

Rose kissed him. Long, trembling. Then pulled back, eyes searching. "Do we still have you?"

He smiled. "Always."

That night, they made a circle again, no torches, no rituals, just warmth and touch and truth. He lay among them, all twelve pressed against him, hands tracing the glyphs on his skin, mouths whispering their names, his name, again and again.

"I don’t care what you are," Natalie murmured. "Just don’t leave us."

"I couldn’t," he said. "Even if I tried."

Scarlet straddled him, her eyes fierce and glassy. "Then show us. Prove you’re still ours."

He did.

He moved through them like a storm that knew every crevice of the earth, every quiet hunger. They made love in the orchard, bare skin against soft moss, limbs tangled, voices muffled against each other’s necks. The island watched. The watchers hovered just beyond sight. But they did not come closer.

Only the women did.

All of them.

After, when bodies were spent and hearts slowed to quiet rhythm, Jude held them close, one by one, tracing old scars, whispering new promises.

"I will climb the mountain again," he told them. "I have to. There’s more."

Grace nodded. "We’ll prepare. We’ll go with you next time."

"No," he said gently. "The next time... you won’t need to follow. You’ll already be with me."

That night, the stars burned too bright.

And the island pulsed beneath them.

Waiting.