<h4>Chapter 1136: Chapter 1136</h4>


    Zoey looked up at the watchersign and shook her head slowly. "We don’t move unless we decide to."


    Jude exhaled. "Then we go back. We rest. And we wait."


    But something stirred behind them.


    A sound. Low. Almost too low to notice. But not a growl. Not footsteps.


    Breathing.


    They turned as one.


    And standing at the tree line was another version of Jude.


    Exactly like him. Down to the scar on his chest. The mark on his shoulder. His face. His mouth. His eyes.


    He didn’t speak.


    He just smiled.


    And then, behind him, a second Sophie stepped from the trees.


    And a second Rose.


    One by one, duplicates emerged from the jungle. Exact copies. Twelve of them. Thirteen. Fourteen. All with the same curves, the same voices, the same walk.


    Jude’s throat tightened.


    The one who looked like him tilted his head.


    And said, in Jude’s voice: "Then choose."


    The forest didn’t breathe. No wind, no rustle. Just the soft sound of leaves brushing skin as the duplicates stepped into full view. They came slowly, deliberately, as if savoring the weight of every footfall. Each one was wless. Not imitation, perfection. As though the ind had memorized their features and improved them. Rose’s twin had longershes, darker hair. Sophie’s moved like liquid silk. The second Jude had eyes just a shade brighter, his smile slightly crueler. Each pair of bare feet moved in perfect silence across the mossy ground.


    The real Jude stared at his copy, heartbeat pounding in his chest. They were the same height. Same scars. Same shape. But when his double grinned, something inside Jude recoiled. It was too polished. Too knowing. It wasn’t him.


    Behind him, Sophie let out a low breath. "No."


    Everyone turned. Her voice hadn’t been scared. It had been... certain.


    She stepped forward and pointed to her copy, who had stopped just at the edge of the clearing.


    "That’s not me."


    The duplicate tilted her head, mimicking Sophie’s gestures exactly.


    But Sophie just stared harder. "Because I would never smile like that."


    Jude felt something shift. The copy’s expression faltered. Just for a heartbeat. But it was enough.


    Rose moved next. Her double stood no more than a meter away. She circled her slowly, examining the posture, the hands, the curve of her lip.


    "She’s beautiful," Rose murmured. "More than me."


    "No," La said, walking up behind her. "Just... less human."


    They stood in a strange line now, each woman across from her own reflection. La across from La. Susan, Grace, Emma. All of them faced perfect versions of themselves. Even Scarlet, still shaken from Elyara’s touch, stood before her copy with shoulders squared.


    Jude turned to the rest. "They want us to choose."


    "Which means we already have," Lucy said from behind him. "They’re not here to trick us. They’re here to tempt us."


    He looked at her.


    She was staring down her duplicate, who had her same smirk, butcked the fire in her gaze.


    "You’re not real," Lucy said to her copy. "You don’t know what it was like to bleed next to him. Or scream under him. Or cry with my head in Sophie’sp after thest monster tore through our garden."


    The duplicate just stood, blinking slowly.


    Jude stepped forward and faced his own.


    His copy watched him with a halfugh on his face. "She already picked me, you know."


    Jude didn’t answer.


    "She liked the way I touched her. Said I didn’t hesitate. That I took her the way she needed."


    Jude’s jaw clenched.


    "I didn’t ask for love. I took it," the copy said. "Isn’t that what she wants?"


    "No," Jude said calmly. "She doesn’t want love. She wants obedience."


    The copy faltered.


    Then Jude turned away.


    He faced the real Sophie. The real Rose. The real women standing shoulder to shoulder.


    "These copies don’t scare me," he said. "Because I’ve already made my choice."


    He walked to Sophie first, kissing her without hesitation, letting his hands trace down her back. She melted into him, her lips soft and certain. Then to Rose. Her mouth was slower, searching him with something ancient, deep.


    Then La, who gripped him with hunger. Zoey, who growled into his neck. Susan, who dragged her fingers under his shirt. Grace, who kissed him with tears in her eyes. Lucy, Ste, Natalie, Scarlet, Emma, one by one, his arms around them, his mouth pressed to theirs, his hands in their hair, his love real and warm and messy and alive.


    And the duplicates watched in silence.


    The ind trembled.


    The fake Jude cracked first. His jaw unhinged with a sound like bones snapping under pressure. His eyes glowed.


    Then the duplicates began to scream.


    Not words.


    Screams of static and agony and broken ss.


    Their forms flickered, Sophie’s duplicate twisting into smoke, Rose’s melting like wax, La’s catching fire from the feet up.


    They weren’t real.


    They never had been.


    And now that truth burned them.


    Jude grabbed Sophie’s hand. "Back to camp. We don’t wait for them to vanish."


    They ran, all of them, the group moving like one body through the forest. The trees bent aside. The path, impossibly, cleared. Behind them, echoes ofughter and shrieks chased through the trees, but none of them turned back.


    Not until the clearing opened around them.


    And at the center of it, where their fire should have been...


    ...was another watchersign.


    This one glowed gold.


    One word:


    Yours.


    Jude staggered forward.


    And behind him, every one of his wives dropped to their knees, staring at the glowing word in stunned silence.


    Then it dimmed.


    And a second line appeared beneath it.


    This time in red.


    But not forever.


    The fire was out when they returned. Not just extinguished, gone. No ash, no smoke, no ember. As if it had never been there at all. Only the watchersign remained, carved deep into the earth like roots: Yours. But not forever. Jude stared at it, heart pounding, as the heat of their sprint cooled from his skin.