Stuck in an Island with Twelve Beautiful Women
Chapter 955

Chapter 955: Chapter 955

Night had long since blanketed the orchard in velvet darkness, stars blinking between the gaps in cloud cover as the firelight danced across the assembled faces. The embers hissed softly, casting long shadows behind each of them, yet the mood remained warm, intimate, touched with something sacred.

Jude sat at the center, his arms resting across his knees, eyes flicking from one wife to the next. Grace lay curled beside him, her head on his thigh, humming faintly under her breath, some lullaby she half-remembered, one she used to hum when Laurel was a baby.

The others clustered around the fire in quiet companionship, leaning on one another, the silence filled only with the occasional spark from the logs or the deep inhale of someone drawing the comfort of smoke into their lungs.

It had been three days since the watchers first accepted their offerings, since the mist retreated with what seemed like acknowledgment. Since then, the edges of their world felt different, less like boundaries, more like walls gently thinning. Jude had not yet crossed into the deeper forest, nor led any expeditions closer to the mountain, but something unspoken had shifted. The watchers no longer felt like quiet predators lurking in the brush, but like cautious neighbors testing the perimeter of an invisible fence.

Tonight, though, the air smelled of change again.

Susan stirred first, brushing hair behind her ear and leaning toward the flames. Her dark eyes caught Jude’s. "Tomorrow," she murmured, "I want to go with you. Beyond the old deer path. I want to see what the land is like past where the humming stones end."

Jude nodded, reaching over to rest a hand on hers. "We’ll go together. But only in pairs. I don’t want to provoke anything. Just observe."

Zoey shifted to lean into Natalie’s side, whispering, "You think the watchers live out there? I mean really live?"

"I think," Natalie answered slowly, "they’re part of this island like blood is part of a body. Not separate. Not living in it, but as it."

Jude let the words settle, feeling the resonance of them. The wives had always had their own way of understanding, of touching truth without needing to name it in full. The women around him had survived years beside him, had helped build this strange sanctuary from chaos. And now, one by one, they were drawing him forward again, into the deeper unknown.

He stood slowly, the hush that followed his movement absolute. "We rest for now," he said. "Tomorrow at first light, we take the next step. One pair to the west edge. One to the stream beyond the second ridge. The rest stay to keep the orchard grounded. We need a presence here always. Something rooted."

Scarlet raised a hand. "Let me go west. With Serena."

Serena blinked, surprised, but she nodded. "Alright."

Layla shifted from Stella’s lap and asked, "Can I go to the stream with you?"

Jude gave a small smile. "You sure? Might be quiet. No excitement."

Layla’s lips curved. "I like quiet. And your company."

That night, the fire burned low but not out. Jude kissed each of his wives goodnight, a ritual as steady as breath, touching forehead to forehead, holding fingers to lips, tracing collarbones with reverence. He found Lucy beside the herb bed, weaving leaves into a braid. She looked up at him with a private smile.

"Couldn’t sleep?" he asked, settling beside her.

She shook her head. "Too much in my chest. Like... a pulse, not mine. Something’s moving beneath the orchard. I felt it earlier when I knelt by the fig saplings. The soil... it felt like it was listening."

He placed his hand over hers, grounding her. "Maybe it was."

Her breath hitched. "It didn’t feel bad. Just awake."

They sat together until her eyes grew heavy, and he carried her inside, laying her beside Zoey and Rose. When he finally laid down between Grace and Layla, the warmth of their bodies curled around him like home, he let himself drift into dreams, shapes of watchers moving not as mist but as light, patterns in the dirt forming words he couldn’t understand. A whisper through branches: Come deeper. Come true.

At first light, the orchard came alive with soft rustling, the sound of pots clinking and cloth swaying as the group prepared for their short expeditions. Serena tied her long black hair back into a tight loop, strapping a dagger to her hip. Scarlet painted a red slash across her cheek, a mark of clarity. Layla simply took Jude’s hand and kissed his wrist, silent and smiling.

Each pair was given a pouch of offerings: small flatcakes, painted stones, woven ribbons, and crushed petals. Symbols of peace. Reminders of memory.

Jude and Layla followed the narrow stream, winding deeper through dense brambles and thick-rooted trees. The air here was heavier, fragrant with old bark and wild blossoms. Sunlight filtered through layers of green, catching Layla’s gold-brown hair as she moved beside him like a shadow made of grace.

"You know," she murmured as they passed beneath a low arch of branches, "sometimes I think this place is dream-shaped. Like we’re walking through the inside of someone’s memory."

Jude glanced at her. "You think the island’s alive?"

She smiled without answering.

They walked in silence after that. Every so often they’d pause, setting down a ribbon on a stone or tucking petals into a tree hollow. There were no watchers in sight, but the sense of being seen was constant. The stream eventually split into two, forming a shallow basin. There, Jude saw something that made him pause: a perfect circle of stones, each the size of a fist, laid in the clearing like a hearth or altar.

Layla knelt. "This wasn’t here before."

"No," Jude agreed.

He moved closer, careful not to disturb the formation. In the center was a flat slate covered in a new glyph, sharp angles meeting curves. It looked like a symbol for listening.