Stuck in an Island with Twelve Beautiful Women

They reached a cliffside clearing where the land fell away to open sky. Far below, the first island slumbered, its rivers like silver veins, its forests dark and shimmering with unknown dreams. Jude stood at the edge, the wind tousling his hair, and felt the fullness of it - the life he'd found, the women who walked beside him, the strange, sacred bond between them and this living world.

Rose stepped beside him. "This is what we were chosen for."

"Chosen?" Sophie echoed. "Or created?"

"No difference," Rose said softly. "We are what this island needed."

Behind them, Grace gasped.

They turned.

At the base of a tall tree, partially hidden by thick hanging vines, a door had formed. Not carved - not placed - but grown. A spiral of bark that pulsed faintly, its grain forming ancient runes like those on the heartstone.

Stella stepped forward and touched it.

The door opened.

A whisper of warm air escaped, sweet and damp like earth after rain. The passage beyond was dim but not dark, lit by veins of golden crystal running through the walls. They moved without words, one after another, down into the tree's heart.

The staircase was narrow and wound down in slow spirals, the silence almost holy. Jude's breath grew shallow as they descended, not from fear, but from anticipation. Something was waiting.

At the base, the tunnel opened into a vast chamber.

And in the center floated a sphere.

It was made of the same crystal as the heartstone, but smaller - about the size of a human head - and it hovered inches above a stone pedestal shaped like two hands cupped together. Inside the sphere was light. Swirling. Pulsing. Breathing.

Rose knelt before it. "This is the soul of the island."

Emma moved forward, her fingers trembling as she reached toward it. "I feel... everything."

The moment her fingers brushed the sphere, visions flared - brief and electric. Faces. Memories. Storms. Laughter. Pain. Sex. Birth. Death. Cycles.

Each wife approached, touching it in turn.

Each saw something different.

And when Jude placed both palms on either side of the sphere, the chamber shook.

The light within the crystal flared, growing until it enveloped him, swallowing his senses. He floated again - no longer in the chamber, no longer in flesh.

He saw stars falling like rain.

He saw the island being born - ripped from the sea by lovers who bled their souls into the soil.

He saw twelve figures, naked and crowned in light, circling a man at the center of it all.

He saw himself.

He saw them.

He understood.

And then the vision broke.

He gasped, the sphere dimming again.

Zoey caught him as he stumbled. "You okay?"

He nodded, pressing a kiss to her temple. "We're not just here to live. We're here to remember."

Sophie tilted her head. "Remember what?"

"That we've done this before," he whispered.

Rose smiled, slow and knowing. "And this time, we'll get it right."

As they left the chamber, the vines resealed behind them, the runes dimming until they looked like nothing more than natural growth. Back in the light, the wind carried a new scent - sweet, like ripe fruit and hot skin. The sky darkened slightly, not stormy, but intimate. As though twilight had come early to blanket them in shadow and silence.

They returned to the sanctuary.

And that night, the bond deepened again.

Not with fire.

But with devotion.

Jude lay in the great bed, the others curling around him one by one, not out of need - but because there was nowhere else in the world they'd rather be. His hand rested on Lucy's thigh. Grace lay across his chest, humming something wordless. Zoey pressed her mouth to his shoulder, breathing him in.

And as he drifted, Sophie whispered softly in the dark, "Do you think there are others like us?"

He didn't open his eyes. "I think there were. I think there will be."

"Will we meet them?" she asked.

"I don't know."

"Do you want to?"

He thought for a moment, then smiled. "Only if they want what we have."

Because in that moment - in that bed, on that floating island, beneath a sky that sang - they had everything.

Jude awoke to the scent of ripe fruit and warm skin, the low sound of wind rustling through glowing leaves outside the sanctuary. The others were still nestled around him in soft disarray, limbs entwined, lips parted in sleep. Lucy's leg was draped over his hip, her breath soft against his collarbone. Zoey was tucked against his back, one arm lazily across his waist, and somewhere below, Grace murmured something in a dream. There was no urgency in the moment, no call to rise. But there was something stirring within him - something subtle but insistent, like the gentle tug of a tide just beginning to turn.

He slipped free carefully, brushing soft kisses on each shoulder, each brow, as he moved. He walked barefoot through the sanctuary, past Emma curled up in the moss beside Stella, past Susan and Scarlet still linked in sleep. The sanctuary was dim, the crystal light pulsing low and warm, but outside the sky had changed.

Not just in hue.

In shape.

Where yesterday the canopy had shimmered with golden clouds and distant visions, now there was a formation of soft blue light hovering far beyond the treetops, like a constellation too close to belong to the sky. He stepped out into the clearing, hair tousled, skin still gleaming faintly with yesterday's glow. And the moment his feet touched the moss, the light overhead shifted - one tendril drifting down toward him like a ribbon of moonlight.

Jude reached up.

It wrapped around his fingers, not solid, not smoke - something in between.

And the instant it touched his palm, he knew.

The island had more to show him.

"Where does it lead?" Lucy's voice came behind him, husky with sleep. She'd followed him out, her hair tangled and eyes half-lidded with dreams.

"I don't know," he said. "But it's asking."