They ca hard and fast, then slower the second ti, and slower still the third - until she was breathless, limp, but smiling like soone who had seen God and winked at Him.
"I needed that," she whispered. "You have no idea."
"I think I do," he murmured, brushing her hair back.
A tree grew near them, its trunk twisted like her laughter, flowers red as her lips.
She kissed his mouth one more ti, slow and deep, then waved him off.
"Go, hero," she said. "We’ll et again."
He walked next toward Zoey’s path.
Even before he reached her, he felt the heat.
Not from fire - but from her. That wild, chaotic joy that pulsed through the trees like electricity. He found her straddling a rock, legs spread wide, sharpening a blade she’d found in the volcanic cave.
"You’re late," she grinned.
"You would’ve started without ."
"Damn right."
She didn’t wait. She grabbed him by the sash and pulled him forward, their mouths crashing together. Her kiss was all tongue and teeth, her hands already working beneath his wrap.
When he lifted her off the rock and carried her to the ground, she laughed against his mouth.
"I knew you’d do that."
"I’m predictable?"
"No. You’re mine ."
She flipped him beneath her, straddled him with wild abandon, and took him inside her like it was a dare. Her hips slamd down with rhythmic power, her body grinding against his like fire over oil.
Jude surrendered to it.
To her.
They moved with violence and joy, with hunger and need. She ca like a storm - loud, wild, her fingers digging into his shoulders as she scread his na into the sky.
He followed her over, bucking beneath her, gasping as she milked every drop of him with wicked precision.
She collapsed on him afterward, panting, grinning, feral and sated.
"You’ll never break ," she whispered.
"I’d never try."
"You just love exactly as I am."
"Every wild piece."
She kissed him once - just once - and then rolled off him, smiling at the sky.
"I’ll be here when you co back."
He left her in the shade of lava flowers.
And turned toward Scarlet next.
Her thread was the most elusive.
It led him to a place that didn’t pulse or shine but humd - a place between light and dark, where ti slowed and sound faded.
She was waiting in silence, sitting in a hollow where mushrooms glowed blue.
Her eyes lifted when he entered, and she reached for him without a word.
He ca to her on his knees.
And in silence, they kissed.
And in silence, they loved.
And in silence, a new tree grew.
And sowhere deep inside, Jude knew:
He was becoming more.
He had seen them.
Touched them.
Loved them.
And when they all returned...
Sothing greater would awaken.
When Jude rose from Scarlet’s arms, the forest did not part for him this ti - it breathed. It inhaled as he stepped forward, and exhaled as he left her behind, bathed in the blue glow of her quiet sanctuary. His legs felt stronger now, not from rest, but from the grounding she had given him. Each encounter left a different imprint on his soul: Lucy’s light, Emma’s precision, Grace’s warmth, Stella’s fire, Zoey’s chaos, and Scarlet’s silence. They didn’t just love him - they gave him pieces of themselves, and now those pieces pulsed inside him like stars.
He turned toward the south, where he could feel Natalie’s presence winding like a river. Her thread shimred in his mind like laughter, and he followed it through a valley of tall golden grass. The sun here was hotter, the wind still. Every step pulled him deeper into the place where the wild things slept.
He found her at the edge of a spring.
Her skin was slick with water, her body half-subrged, curls dark and wet, eyes glowing as she watched him with a slow, knowing smile.
"Took you long enough," she said, water beading on her collarbone.
"I wanted to be ready."
"Oh, you are," she murmured, her voice sliding over him like silk. "You’ve never not been."
He walked into the spring without hesitation, the water warm and slick against his skin, his arms reaching for her as she ca to him. She wrapped around him instantly, her legs hooking around his waist beneath the surface. Their kiss was underwater and desperate, mouths tasting, tongues tangling, her laugh bubbling up like champagne.
They moved with the rhythm of water - undulating, swaying, rising. She sank onto him with a moan, her fingers slipping through his wet hair, her thighs tightening as he thrust into her. The water made every movent slow and sensual, every gasp an echo of waves against stone.
She clung to him, rocked with him, whispered things against his jaw - mories, dreams, heat.
And when they ca, it was like a wave crashing through them both, the surface of the spring breaking in perfect stillness as their bodies convulsed together, their breath stolen, their hearts syncopated.
He held her in the aftermath, their foreheads pressed, her laughter lting into the wind.
"Promise you’ll co back," she whispered.
"Always."
She smiled, and a lily blood in the center of the spring, golden and full.
Jude kissed her once more and stepped from the water.
He didn’t dry himself.
The island did it for him.
The sun ward his skin and whispered where to go next - Susan.
He followed her thread into a place darker than the rest.
Not malevolent, but hidden.
Shy.
He passed under thick canopy, vines weaving like fingers above him, shadows dappling the forest floor. The scent here was softer - lavender and crushed leaves. He found her sitting at the base of a tree, arms around her knees, her hair falling over her face.
She didn’t look up when he approached. But she knew.
"I thought I’d be the last," she said quietly.
"You weren’t."
She glanced up then, eyes glistening. "I feel it too. All of it. But it scares ."
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