Stuck in an Island with Twelve Beautiful Women

"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."

She walked to his side, slipping her fingers into his. "Then we answer."

One by one, the others emerged from the sanctuary, drawn by instinct more than sound. Rose stood last, barefoot and radiant, watching the light above them slowly descend like a slow-moving serpent of starlight.

Sophie's voice was quiet. "Is it another ritual?"

"No," Rose whispered. "This is an invitation."

They followed the light. It moved slowly, undulating just ahead of them like a path carved from memory. The forest opened, as it always did, but now it felt less like it was yielding and more like it was guiding. Flowers turned toward them. Trees pulsed with faint light, as if acknowledging their steps.

The path led them to a new clearing.

And at its center stood an arch.

It was massive, woven from living wood and bone and something crystalline, humming low enough to stir the bones. Runes marked every curve of it, and within the arch was not a doorway - but a shimmer, like heat rising from sand.

The portal.

Jude stepped closer, the others fanning around him in a half-circle.

"What's on the other side?" Natalie whispered.

"Another island?" Emma guessed.

"Another world," Rose said softly.

Jude turned toward her. "Are we supposed to go through?"

Rose looked at him, then past him, toward the shimmer. "No. Not yet."

"Then why show it to us?" Grace asked.

Zoey stepped forward, touching the arch's edge. "To remind us. We're not alone."

The shimmer pulsed.

And then the portal flashed once - briefly, brilliantly - and showed a glimpse of what lay beyond.

A city.

Tall and ancient, alive and glowing, with towers shaped like trees and bridges spun from silk and light. There were people - figures dancing in the air, some with wings, some wreathed in fire, others made of stone or mist. It lasted only a heartbeat. Then the shimmer fell back into silence.

Stella blinked. "Was that… real?"

Rose's smile was soft. "Another realm. Another path. Not ours. Not yet."

"But it will be," Jude said, his chest tightening with knowing. "Someday."

They turned away from the arch, the memory of it burning behind their eyes. And when they returned to the sanctuary, the moss at their feet glowed brighter. The walls of the sanctuary had shifted subtly - expanding, pulsing, as if breathing with them now.

That night, they didn't make love in a ritual.

They didn't need to.

Instead, they touched each other like artists with brushes, mapping each curve, each freckle, each sigh. Jude kissed Lucy beneath the warm branches, slow and reverent, while Zoey lay between Grace and Susan, murmuring quiet encouragements. Emma and Sophie found each other's hands, lying side by side as if daring to share silence for once. Rose watched them all, her legs draped across Natalie's lap, her head resting on Stella's shoulder, her smile one of fierce serenity.

No desperation.

No frenzy.

Just closeness.

As the night deepened, Jude whispered to each of them, not as a leader, not as a lover - but as theirs. And they answered in kind, eyes glowing, limbs twining, mouths tasting.

The stars overhead didn't just watch.

They echoed.

By morning, the sanctuary had changed again.

Vines threaded the walls in elegant spirals. Pools of soft light glowed in the corners. Small blossoms bloomed wherever bare feet had touched. And in the center of the floor, where Jude had lain with them all, a symbol had etched itself into the moss - a sun encircled by twelve stars.

Their mark.

Their bond.

Forever carved into the island's skin.

Sophie stood at the edge of it, hands on her hips, hair loose and wild. "We're part of it now."

"We always were," Rose murmured.

Scarlet moved to the symbol and knelt, her fingers tracing the lines. "It's us."

Jude stepped behind her and rested a hand on her shoulder. "And it's only the beginning."

The others gathered again, forming their circle once more, not because they had to - but because they wanted to. Because it was right.

Rose's voice floated into the stillness. "The island is giving us pieces. Of memory. Of power. Of each other."

"We're not just lovers," Grace said. "We're… links."

Natalie looked up. "To what?"

"To the next world," Lucy said. "To the world that's coming."

And as they stood there, together, the shimmer from the archway flared once more in the distance.

Waiting. Watching.

The future calling softly from just beyond the trees.

The shimmer from the archway remained faint but steady in the distance, a distant heartbeat pulsing against the edge of their awareness. Jude stared toward it long after the others had drifted into movement again - some returning to the sanctuary, others stretching beneath the tree's glowing canopy, their bodies painted with the golden kisses of dawn. He could feel it in his spine now, that quiet beckoning. Not urgent. Not forceful. But persistent. The same kind of pull he had felt the day he first touched the heartstone. The kind of invitation that changed everything.

Lucy came to his side without a word, her bare shoulder brushing his, her fingers slipping between his. She followed his gaze. "You're thinking about going through."

"Eventually," he said. "But I don't think it's time yet."

She nodded. "We're not done here. Not with each other."

"No," he said quietly. "Not even close."

Behind them, laughter bubbled from the sanctuary - Grace and Zoey chasing Scarlet, who had apparently stolen a piece of mango from Grace's breakfast tray. Sophie and Emma were crouched beside the heartstone, sketching its new glowing markings onto bark with sharpened bone, documenting its changes with almost scholarly devotion. Susan leaned against the wall, watching the group with a smile that was finally, truly relaxed.

Rose stood at the far edge, her eyes also locked on the archway.