The Island seemed darker.

It wasn't; it was just as bright and beautiful as it had always been, but the day's events seemed to have drawn a pawl over the landscape. Every tendrilous finger of a shadow seemed to flee the glorious sun and reach from each cloud and tree in ever more threatening shapes toward me.

Each of them seemed to point accusingly at me.

The ambulance procession back to the bunker had been long and slow. Ray had remained mercifully unconscious for the entire journey. Still, the soft, pained groans coming from Zoe told every other member of our group that she was not only awake but was feeling every single one of the careful footsteps that her stretcher bearers were taking.

Amy, ever vigilant, stopped the trek a few times to check and refix her blood-saturated dressings before allowing us to continue. Each time, Amy's face grew a little darker. Zoe had lost a lot of blood, and Amy, having no means to check blood types, had no way of giving her more. The doctor looked exhausted. It had been less than an hour since the moment that possessed-Ray had attacked Zoe, but Amy looked like she had lived at least a week's worth of hard work in that time. What was worse was that we all knew that she wasn't just the only person who could help but that her task was far from finished.

Two people required her aid, and one of them was looking to be in a very bad way.

Zoe was pale; her breathing, even the one around her throaty groans, was shallow and labored, and a slight sheen of perspiration gave her skin a sickly, almost grey hue. She was conscious, but her eyes were closed, and the arm on her uninjured side hung limply off the edge of the stretcher and dangled toward the ground.

The look that washed over Amy's face with each of the many, many glances that the doctor gave her patient could only be described as distraught.

I flashed a look to Tom and gestured for him to take over carrying the head of Ray's stretcher. Considering he lived with a condition that the cliches said made him oblivious to the subtleties of interpersonal communication, a pointed look and a nod were all it took to get him to step away from the group at the back of the procession and take the poles from my hands to bear the weight of Ray. Like so many people living with Autism, his ability to defy the stereotypes was genuinely amazing. Far from being fearful or frozen when he had returned to the carnage of the lake with Louisa, he had simply acted. He saw what needed to be done, and where everyone else was panicking, he just did it.

I had spent much of our time on this Island thinking that Tom needed to be sheltered, looked after, protected, or otherwise treated differently from the rest of the group. Now I could see that Tom may very well have been the best of us, and I felt a momentary pang of shame for ever thinking otherwise. I rested a hand on his shoulder and nodded my silent thanks to him before stepping closer to Amy.

She barely even looked up.

She was smeared in blood. It was caked into her hair, over her bikini top, and spread onto the skin of her chest. Her hands were covered in it as I slipped mine into hers and laced our fingers together.

"You are doing everything you can, Amy," I whispered softly.

"It's not enough," she murmured back with a trembling breath, her hand squeezing mine as a tear carved its way through the crimson stains on her face.

I chanced a look behind us. Everyone was listening. I couldn't be sure if the women at the back of the line - including Katie, who was equally covered in blood from her efforts to drag Zoe from the lake - could hear us, but the solemn, worried looks on their faces were certainly hinting that they could.

Only Caroline held my eye. In the time that it had taken us to get here from the lake, her expression had shifted. Not to replace the reverent, heated fever with which she looked at me but simply to include a significant amount of concern for her friend. That real-world fear was the only thing stopping her from acting on the desires smashed into her by our apparently shared vision.

"What do you need?" I asked Amy, returning my full attention to her while being careful not to pile the pressure onto what must have already been a monumental load on her shoulders.

"Dan, she needs a hospital. She needs blood; she has lost too much, and we don't have it. Even if we did, I have no idea what blood type she is, let alone anyone else's. The wrong blood type will kill her. But if she loses much more, she will start suffering from organ failure. Her heart is already beating more than twice as fast as it should be." The tears were starting to come faster now. "I don't... I don't know what to do."

I didn't know what to say. Our beautiful, amazing, heroic blonde doctor was doing all she could, but from the way she seemed to be breaking before my eyes, it sounded like it wouldn't be enough. All I could do was try to reassure her and repeat myself, even if it would change nothing. "You are doing everything you..."

"Hmmmmmm, I am O-Negative." Tom interrupted, sounding almost cheery from behind us.

Amy whipped around with a speed that should have snapped her neck. "What?"

Tom had something of a smile on his face as if he knew he was being helpful, even if the relevance of his outburst was completely lost on me. "My blood type is O-Negative," he repeated proudly.

"Are you sure?" Amy had let go of my hand, and the tears had been replaced with a look that could almost be called hope.

"Yes. I am O-Negative." He nodded, maintaining his smile. "I give blood at O'Connor hospital in San Jose every twelve weeks.... It is on Forest Avenue, and I go on a Tuesday." He finished with an affirmative nod.

"Oh my God, Tom, I could kiss you!" Amy almost screeched.

Tom cast a nervous look back to Louisa. "Ummm. No, thank you." He frowned

The whole group was following the conversation, too, but a few of the women, Louisa, Robyn, and Liz specifically, seemed to understand the relevance a whole lot better than I did. "I'm... what? I'm confused."

"O-negative is the universal blood type," Amy explained excitedly as a wave of relief seemed to wash over her. "It doesn't matter what Zoe is. Her body won't reject Tom's blood, even if they don't match."

I could almost see her burden lightning. "Does that mean...?"

Amy wasn't listening; her mind was already busy elsewhere. She was thinking out loud rather than directly answering me. "I need to seal her wounds; her dressings will need to be changed and kept clean... We can't drain Tom, we will need to pace any transfusion... and she will need to be kept on broad-spec antibiotics to stop any infections, but..." She finally looked back up at me, the most beautiful of relieved smiles painted on her lips. "...I think she might be okay."

********

The next few hours were a bit of a blur. With a glimmer of hope about Zoe's condition, the ambulance procession redoubled its pace and proceeded without pause or hesitation. The two stretchers were practically power-marched up the side of the mountain and toward the bunker where Caroline, possessed by Mother, had found me the previous day. It was the most direct route to the hospital from this part of the Island, if not the easiest of climbs.

This slope was steep, and the footing was uneasy. The pace of the march had to be measured against the sureness of each footing, but it was still much quicker than crossing the river and climbing the gentler east side of the mountain to the main entrance to the bunker.

There was no doubt that the hike became an increasingly unpleasant experience for Zoe, but Amy had stated that the faster she could be moved into "surgery" - and she used that term lightly - and then start her transfusion from Tom, the better her chances would be. Ray was still unconscious, but I took over the lifting of the foot of his stretcher from the tiring Caroline. Her hand brushed over my arm in thanks, lingering affectionately and adoringly for a moment before she fell into step beside her friend, holding Zoe's hand. For the moment, that reverent hunger in her gaze seemed to be under control, or at least held in check by the reality around her.

It was still there, but it wasn't as palpable as it had been when I first came around from the vision. At that point, it seemed like she was ready to throw herself at me, on her knees, and in my service with little more than an affirmative glance. The rampancy of that moment had simmered, but it was nowhere near gone. There was a need behind those eyes that would need to be dealt with later in one way or another. I looked down at Ray... Despite what had happened in the vision, despite what I now felt in my bond with Caroline, despite the looks that she was giving me, he was my friend, he had saved my life, and he deserved better than for me to sweep in and claim her while he was hurt. That would be worse than what Lewis did to me.

Something fundamental had changed in Caroline. Taking advantage of it would be... well, it would realistically be no different from taking advantage of the control this island exerted on the women here, but it somehow felt worse. It felt like a betrayal, and looking down at Ray's unconscious body, I vowed to fight that urge with everything I had, at least until we could sit down and properly discuss everything that had happened. For now, there were more pressing matters.

It had taken Robyn and Hannah about forty-five minutes to run the return journey to the hospital and back when they had gone for the supplies. Despite the frantic pace that the procession marched up the hill, it took more than double that time just to carry Ray and Zoe one way. Eventually, though, we made it. Amy was still very much in charge and fully recovered from the battering her confidence had taken from the fear of losing Zoe. She still looked haggard and tired beyond measure, but she was putting her patients first and powering through that exhaustion with a level of dedication that, in my opinion, set those in the medical profession far above the rest of us.

After we had safely transferred both patients from the stretchers and onto the beds, she ushered everyone out of the room with the exception of Tom - who was to give his blood to Zoe - and Louisa, who would act as Amy's nurse.

With a resounding crash that reverberated through the corridors of the bunker, the metal door to the hospital crashed shut, and the rest of us were left outside to wait.

Amy wouldn't leave that room except to use the bathroom for three days, reminding all of us of the pure dedication and heroism of her profession.

All the rest of us could do was wait.

********

Waiting, as a general rule, sucks. There is, of course, a massive and yawning difference between waiting for something like a bus and waiting for a friend to come out of surgery. In our case, the sense of waiting was acutely heightened by several important factors. The most obvious was the enormous adrenaline crash that came after the fight at the lake. The question still hadn't been asked by that first night, but everyone was thinking about it. And I am not talking about our general, perpetual concern over Zoe and Ray's condition.

What. the. fuck. just. happened?

And would it happen again?

Not only had the question not been asked out loud by anyone, I don't think any of us could have answered if it had. Freya and Mother were perhaps the only ones who could have given us any sort of insight, but both had been infuriatingly silent in the time since the night before the visit to the lake.

Something had changed. None of us knew what it was - although we had all seen its manifestation in Ray, the reasons behind it were a complete mystery - but the realization still hung heavy in the air the following morning. It was tangible. It was like it gave a physical weight to the atmosphere around our group as we waited for news - any news at all - of our friends' conditions.

We had been attacked.

The door to the hospital had been closed around midday, the fight having taken place an hour or so before that. The walk, between the stops for Amy's checks and the general care of the stretcher-bearers, had taken much, much longer than I would have thought. With no way of telling the time, it was impossible to say with any sort of accuracy, just that that sun was somewhere around its zenith as we entered the bunker. There had been no word for the whole rest of that day, and the sun had slumbered for the night, then re-emerged above the burning eastern horizon, casting its long, warming rays into the tunnel to the bunker when Lousia finally stepped out of the room.

None of us could claim to have had much in the way of sleep, maybe an hour or two of disturbed, broken rest, but Louisa looked like she hadn't even had that. Her face was drawn and haggard, and her eyes seemed to have sunk deeper into her skull, leaving dark rings around her usually vibrant hazel orbs. She looked exhausted. Splashes of dried blood - doubtlessly from her assistance of Amy in the surgery - speckled her upper arms and parts of her chest. Nobody mentioned them, nobody wanted to draw attention to them; I'm not even sure that the others noticed, least of all Louisa. She seemed to be using the last of her energy just to stay upright.

The whole group stood as one as she stepped wearily into the main common area. Caroline, who had never been far from my side for the entire wait, pressed in next to me as Lousia hugged a few of the women she was closest to.

"She's going to be okay," she said, her voice sounding just as tired as her face looked. "It's gonna be a while til she is up and about, and she won't be able to do much when she is, but Amy thinks she is out of the woods."

There was a collective sigh of relief around the group, and more than a few of us let our shoulders slump with the release of the tension the wait had inflicted on us.

"But..." she swallowed hard. "...she lost a lot of blood. Too much. She..." a tear rolled down one of her pale cheeks as she looked away from the faces staring at her. "...she lost the baby."

The collective sigh was instantly replaced by gasps of grief. Hayley and Hannah, both of them carrying my own offspring and both standing in my eyeline, lifted their hands to their bellies and cuddled in closer together. Liz and Katie started crying. Robyn dropped distraught back onto the chair she had been sitting on.

For her part, Louisa looked like a woman who had been condemned to death. Like anywhere on Earth would have been preferable to being the one to deliver this news.

"How are you doing?" I asked softly.

"I'm okay," she said with a sad, exhausted, but grateful smile that never quite reached her sunken eyes. "I'm tired and sad, but I'm okay." She continued before I had the chance to ask the next question. "Amy is like a machine. I don't think she has sat down for more than a few minutes all night. She is having a bit of a rest with Tom at the moment. The poor guy has been almost drained. But she is a little concerned about Ray."

That pulled everyone's attention back to her.

"Is he okay?"

"Well, that's the thing; he seems to be fine. No broken bones, no head injuries, a nasty bruise on his chin, and those cuts on his arms seem to look worse than they are. He's just... sleeping and not waking up. She doesn't have any smelling salts or adrenaline to wake him, so she was wondering if there was a way you could ask Freja or Mother for advice. The only thing she can think of is that... whatever happened to him... has put him into some sort of coma."

I nodded. "I'll try to reach out to them."

She simply nodded back. It wasn't dismissive or even that she was satisfied with my answer. It was more that she was so tired that her ability to add anything more to the conversation was just not there. "Would one of you be able to take over for me in the hospital for a few hours so I can get some rest? You won't need to do much, just..."

"I'll do it," Liz announced before Lousia could finish, wiping the tears from her face and pulling herself to her feet again. One look at the tawny-haired geologist's face was all I needed to see that she had no interest in playing nurse, but sitting in solitude, watching our hurt or resting friends, was better than being here and wallowing in the grief.

"Thank you, Lizzie," Louisa smiled gratefully. "Just wake Amy up if any of the others wake or stir or... something."

"I will. Go get some sleep, darling. You're dead on your feet." Liz smiled weakly as she shot a glance at me and the others, then made her way to the corridor that led to the hospital. Lousia offered a tired smile of her own, then turned down the other corridor toward the room she usually shared with Tom and disappeared into the darkness.

Silence descended on the group.

It was hardly boisterous and lively before Lousia had arrived, but now that the immediate risk seemed to have passed, the rest of the feelings came rushing to the surface.

"So are we really gonna pretend that none of that shit happened?" Robyn asked after what felt like a few hours of solemn silence but was probably only a few minutes. "What the fuck was that thing? .... And Kudos to you, Dan, for smacking the shit out of it."

Hannah snorted out a nervous laugh.

"Yeah, you were pretty incredible, baby." Hayley agreed, smiling one of those tired but affectionate smiles I had grown to love so much.

"Gods, breeding, dead scientists, crazy sex-inducing influences, not to mention surviving a plane crash... and now being possessed. This island is fucking crazy." Robyn huffed.

"And..." Katie added nervously, wiping her eyes on the back of her hand. "... I don't know if it's relevant, but I think I had a vision or something just after the shit-smacking finished."

Every eye in the room shot to her, and then to me, and then back to her again. All except Carolines. That heat was starting to glint behind her eyes again.

"Wait," Hayley frowned, "Big stone temple, Dan being some sort of Demigod and claiming all of us?"

Katie nodded, her eyes narrowing in realization.

"Oh my god, I had that too," Hannah gawked. "Dan was starting to fuck..." Everyone's eyes turned to Caroline as the words died on her lips. "... is that why she's looking at you like a prize bitch in heat."

Caroline swallowed hard and nodded.

"Hang on, that was real?" Katie blurted out.

I groaned loudly, pinching the bridge of my nose and nodding. "Yeah, it would seem so."

"Dan, darling," Hayley tried to smile, "I think there might be a difference between a shared vision and something being actually real. I love you to bits, but the cock on you in that dream was fucking massive. I've seen your cock..."

"You've done more than see it," Hannah interrupted with a smirk.

"I've seen your cock," Hayley went on, ignoring her friend with all but a slight smile in her direction. "I love your cock, but the one in that vision would probably kill me if it went inside me."

A few of the girls nodded in agreement.

"And yet," Hannah said after another few thoughtful moments, "Caroline looks like if she doesn't get some of that dick in her pretty quick, she's gonna go nuts. And if that part is real..."

This time, even Caroline's eyes followed everyone else's down to my groin.

"Whip it out, Dan." Hannah grinned.

"Not the time, Han," I groaned, still rubbing my nose.

"You may as well, I think we could all do with some stress relief, and you're gonna be fucking her before long anyway." Hannah pushed.

"Seriously, Han. Now isn't the time." I fixed my eyes on her.

"Hey, if anyone is getting fucked, it's me!" Robyn blurted out from the other side of the group. "He was balls deep in me when the proverbial shit hit the fan. I want..."

"What the fuck is wrong with you?!" I barked at all of them, my patience finally snapping like an over-stretched elastic band and my anger bursting from me in an explosion of frustration. "I know you are all lucid, and this isn't the island's influence talking; I can feel it! What is it you want me to do? Ignore the fact that our friends have been hurt or that Amy is dealing with all of this shit on her own? Sure, that's cool. Let's just pull my cock out and have a mass orgy right here, right now, just keep the noise down or something so we don't wake the others, is it? Is that seriously where your minds are at? Not on what just happened at the lake, not on if it could happen again, and let's not forget that Ray could wake up at any moment to find me fucking someone who is - as far as he is concerned - still his partner, while his other partner almost died and has just lost their baby? How the hell do you imagine that playing out?"

The girls were immediately shocked into my silence at my outburst. None of them had seen my temper fray like that before, let alone been on the sharp end of my anger. I had always been the model of calm, comforting protection, but this whole situation was simply too much for me to cope with. The fact that their minds were on anything other than the incredible dangers we had just escaped was utterly unfathomable to me. Talking about sex - let alone sex with Caroline - at that moment was like waving a red rag at a bull.

"I'm sorry," Hannah whispered sadly, her eyes cast down to her hands as she wrung them together. "I just needed to think of something other than..."

"Ray is gone." Caroline interrupted, once again silencing everyone around us.

"What?!" I blinked at her, then looked past her toward the hospital.

"No, he's probably still fine, but he's... I don't know..." Caroline tapped her finger against the side of her head. "He's just gone."

"What... do you mean?" Hayley asked slowly after another long pause, casting a nervous glance at me before fixing her attention on the short-haired brunette.

"I don't know how to explain it," Caroline continued as she kept her eyes reverently on mine. "We all have felt that bond when you're with someone... like there is no one else on earth." The rest of the girls nodded but stayed quiet. "As soon as you hit Ray with that stick thing, it was like that bond just... blinked out. And then in that vision, in the temple." She paused and swallowed hard. "I felt you, I felt your.... Divinity. And that bond snapped to you like it should never have been anywhere else, but it was.. Different."

"Different, how?" Hannah asked, her head cocked to the side inquisitively.

"It's... more," Caroline answered carefully, as if explaining it poorly would be worse than not explaining it at all. "I remember my bond with Ray, but it feels so distant now, and it was never like this. With him, it was... Companionship, it was company... This is so much more. This is more like...."

"...Worship," Katie finished for her. "Belonging. I remember that from the vision."

"Actually, I remember that too," Hayley added, a curious expression on her face. "I know you love us all, but this wasn't the same. This was more like... I belonged to you. Every fiber of me."

Caroline nodded, then turned my attention back to me. "You own me. I am yours. My body, my mind, my heart, and my soul... they belong to you. I can't imagine a time when you were anything other than my God... I can't even look at you without needing you... My Lord."

Robyn huffed and flopped back into her chair in a faux display of petulance. "Well, I can't compete with that. Guess I am going to have to wait to get fucked."

Hannah snorted out another laugh but silenced herself after another withering glare from me.

"Nobody is getting fucked! Not until we know that everyone is okay and that this isn't going to cause a rift between Ray and me. Life is hard enough on this island as it is without making problems for ourselves. Ray saved my life, he saved all of our lives, he deserves better!"

"My Lord, I will obey, of course," Caroline said seductively with a soft nod, her sultry, smoky eyes locked firmly onto mine as she stepped closer and pressed herself up against my side. I could feel the heat emanating from her core as she pushed it into my thigh and the soft swell of her chest mashed against the side of my ribs. "But wouldn't you feel better after taking all that frustration and uncertainty out on a hot, willing little fuckslave?"

The rest of the girls just gawked at her, watching the blatant display of supplication. I frowned. If I didn't know better, I would have said that this was either Mother possessing her again or the island's influence exerting its will over her and making her act this way as it had done to me with Robyn and Hayley after our first mass lucid moment. But, without really understanding how, I could tell that wasn't the case. This was all her.

"No, Caroline, I can't. At least not yet."

"But I have already sucked on your massive god cock, my lord. I may have been possessed by Mother at the time, but I could still taste you. I could still feel your steel hardness on my tongue. And I loved it. I licked my lips, feeling you, for the rest of that evening. That part was me, not Mother. Please let your whore show you her devotion. You will feel better after it, and we can deal with the Ray issue later."

I groaned loudly. As much as I was trying to fight her advances and the burning need that was blazing in my chest, there was no hiding the tenting bulge in my shorts or the fact that my hand had moved - entirely of its own accord - to palm her tight little ass. "Caz," I moaned, spontaneously shortening her name. "I need you to stop. This is wrong."

She was actively humping herself against me now, dragging her molten center against the hard muscles of my thigh while her tiny little bikini panties mounted a herculean effort to contain the torrent of slick juices flowing out of her... and they were failing miserably. "Then order it, My Lord." She purred into my ear, her hot breath washing over my skin. "Command me to stop, to leave your side, to sit on my hands. You are my God, and I will obey without question. But my cunt needs you, I need you, and I think you deserve a reward for saving us all. Allow me to worship your God cock."

"Oh fuck, that is hot," Hannah murmured to nobody in particular as she lowered herself onto her chair and let her hand slide between her legs.

I could feel the temperature rising, I could taste their womanly heat in the air, and my cock was hard enough to crush diamonds into dust. My heart seemed like it viewed my ribs as prison bars and was pounding itself into them in a desperate plea for release. Release that my heavy, impossibly full balls were more than happy to provide if only I would do my thinking with my smaller yet massively inflated lower head.

All I had to do, by her own admission, was to say the words, to command her to stop. To wait. Even if only until my bigger head could get a handle on the situation. Just one simple word.

Stop!

But my lips, parted and dry, refused to cooperate.

My hand flexed harder onto Caroline's ass, making her mewl softly and happily as she leaned her head forward and pressed her lips against the side of my neck. Her lips were planting delicate but hungry kisses on my skin, tasting the sweat that was beading at its nape. I could only close my eyes and clench my jaw. The influence that seemed to hold sway over the women of the island was still strangely silent in them at the moment; I could tell that this was all Caroline, but the roaring, primal urge to slam her into the nearest wall and take her up on her challenge - the almost painful coiling need in the pit of my chest to just fuck her into my group of extraordinary women - was so much like the influence that I felt in the early days of our time here that I had to question if it was now effecting me, if not them.

I closed my eyes, taking in a deep breath and trying to calm the pounding need that was my hammering heart, and also trying to wrestle control of my ass-groping hand away from the craving that was consuming me.

This was wrong; this was wrong on so many levels. Ray had saved my life; he had saved all of us. He had not only pulled Hayley and me from the sinking wreckage of our seats after the crash, but he had guided us to the others and the life raft, and then he had somehow managed to find this island for us. He had stopped me from being eaten by a fucking shark, for god's sake. Even if the bond between him and Caroline was broken, even if she was now as much mine as Hayley, Hannah, or any of the others, he didn't know that yet. All he would know is that something happened at the lake, and he woke up to find one of his partners hurt, by him no less, his baby lost, and his other partner claimed and taken by the friend whose life he saved.

He deserved so much better.

With a herculean show of strength, I pulled my hand off Carlone's ass, and gently but firmly peeled her off me... And walked away.

"No, please, wait," she almost sobbed, collapsing to her knees and watching me go. "I need you. I can feel it clawing inside me."

I didn't have the heart to look back at her.

"Dan?" Hayley called after me in concern. None of them had ever seen me turn down sex before, let alone so forcefully.

"She needs you, Dan; just look at her," Hannah added. "I know you are worried about Ray and what he will think, but..."

"Dead scientists!" Katie blurted out. The spontaneity of her outburst even caused me to pause and look back at her with a confused arch of my eyebrow. "What was it that Doctor whatshisface said about women who bonded with a guy not being able to be with him?"

My mind flashed back to the fifty-year-old recordings left by the dearly departed Doctor Walker.

"That's right!" Robyn sat herself up in her chair excitedly. "Didn't they go crazy if they couldn't get to the men they were bonded with?"

"They died..." Hayley added slowly. "That is what you told us."

I turned back to face the women. Only Hayley was looking at me; the rest of them were looking sympathetically at the writhing husk of molten need on her knees between them. Caroline was sobbing in desperation, her on hand was clawing at her breast in a way that must have been downright painful, while the other hand was holding her sodden sex as if protecting it from the rejection I had just given her. Her whole body was writhing and undulating in frantic need against the cock that I had refused to give her. It looked like she could almost feel it.

"I'm not saying no. I just need to speak to Ray first; I need to be sure he is okay with all of this. Caz, I want you; I want to fuck you and make you mine. I am fighting this as hard as you are, but..."

"What if he doesn't wake up?" she sobbed desperately at me. "What if it is days or longer? I don't think I can last that long. I can already feel it overwhelming me... this isn't me just wanting to be with you. This is more. Fuck, please... I need you. I will serve you, I will love you, I will be yours completely..." Her whole body looked like it was being wracked in muscle-spasming pain, like not having me was physically hurting her, and her eyes blazed with a carnal need that I could scarcely comprehend. But in another display of the hidden strength that seemed to reside in all of the women on the island, she pulled herself onto her hands and knees and crawled toward me.

"I am yours," she panted as she got closer, her trembling body seeming to calm the closer she got to me as if just being close to me was enough to sate the worst of her desperation. "I will be your slave; you don't have to love me, just use me. Fuck me and cast me aside, use my body for your needs. Fuck your frustration into me. I know I am worthless; I know I am undeserving..." She finally reached me, looking at me with a pleading devotion in her eyes that burned to the very heart of her. "But I will be your most devoted disciple, I will give you everything. Please, My Lord... I need..."

Something snapped inside me.

"No..." I stopped her. I let the word hang in the air for a few more seconds than was necessary as my mind wrapped around the reality before me. Caroline was mine, and as much as I didn't want to risk a feud with Ray over her, the possible consequences of refusing her, as the others had pointed out, were much more serious. "If we do this, we do it properly," I continued slowly, never taking my eyes off her. "You are not unworthy, you will never be unworthy. You will be mine, just like the others, and I will take you as mine... Now get up!"

The flash of gleeful relief that shot through Caroline's eyes was breathtaking as she scrambled to her feet, her hands still clutching at herself in frantic hunger. The others, led by Hayley, started to saunter closer. Hayley and Hannah pressed themselves against my sides, each of them grinding themselves against me just as Caroline had been doing, their hands running tenderly and encouragingly over my chest. Katie and Robyn moved to Caroline and started guiding her back toward where we had all been sitting.

"Let's get you ready, baby," Katie whispered into her ear as they led her back to the main area.

I watched her being led away. "We are all going to do this together," Hayley whispered into my ear as she gave my earlobe a bit of a tug with her teeth while Hannah's hand slid down to my shorts and slowly started to pull them down. My cock sprang out angrily.

The last of my resistance disintegrated, the walls of my resolve crumbled to rubble, and the full measure of my own desire - a hunger that could almost match Carolines - burst into blazing life in my chest.

"Oh, I've seen that look," Hannah purred as she slowly started lowering to her knees. "You are gonna get it, girl." She flashed a grin to Caroline before swallowing half of my length.

"We are in this together," Hayley continued, "We know what it is like to feel that hunger, and we all know that this..." she gestured to the squirming Caroline as she was led back to a chair and slowly stripped, "... could happen to any of us. Ray will understand with all of us explaining it to him. This has to happen; this is going to happen... She is yours. And you are going to fuck her until you break her! Let her serve you... my Lord." Her words were soft and slow, interrupted by a groan falling from my lips as Hannah worked her talented lips and tongue up and down my throbbing length.

My eyes locked onto Caroline's across the room as Katie and Robyn slowly peeled her bikini off her and started to run their hands over her slick, panting body, cupping her breasts and parting her legs for wandering fingers. Hayley purred into my neck as she started to run her pillowy lips over it, and Hannah mewled happily at the healthy dose of precum that washed onto her tongue.

None of them had been claimed as part of a group. Maybe Robyn, but it was different. Caroline was being welcomed into the fold by all of my women except the two in the hospital. We could all feel it, the bond growing between us, not just between Caroline and me but between all of the women, too.

"Take her, My Lord," Hayley whispered softly.

"Fuck her hard, My king," Katie purred.

"Claim her, make her yours," Robyn murmured as her lips attached to Caroline's nipple.

"Break her on your cock!" Hannah grinned impishly as she popped me out of her mouth.

"I am yours, My God." Caroline breathed hungrily as I took my first step away from Hayley and Hannah.

"Yes," I nodded firmly as I closed the distance. "You are mine!"