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  DARK KING’S HUMAN BRIDE

  TESSA STOCKTON

  Creative Purpose Publications

  COPYRIGHT

  Dark King’s Human Bride

  United States of America

  All rights reserved

  Published January 2022

  Creative Purpose Publications

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be circulated in writing of any publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published without a similar condition including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  This novel is a work of fiction and the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or organizations, is coincidental and beyond the author’s intent.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Epigraph

  Part One: What Was

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  Part Two: What Is

  31

  32

  33

  34

  35

  36

  37

  38

  39

  40

  41

  42

  43

  44

  45

  46

  47

  48

  49

  50

  51

  52

  53

  54

  55

  56

  57

  58

  59

  60

  Part Three: What Shall Be

  61

  62

  63

  64

  65

  66

  67

  68

  69

  70

  71

  72

  73

  74

  Author’s Note

  About the Author

  Sign up for Tessa Stockton's Mailing List

  Further Reading: Sea God's Siren

  Also By Tessa Stockton

  Epigraph

  “Life is divided into three parts: what was, what is and what shall be.”—Seneca

  Part One: What Was

  “Love frees a soul and in the same breath can sometimes suffocate it.”—Cecilia Ahern

  1

  “The woods are closing in on us. We should go back.”

  Eliana stood among the towering cedars. Lifted her smiling face toward the boughs of the forest giants giving shade. “Not yet.” Closed her eyes and filled her lungs with the woody spice and sweetness of comfort. “I can breathe here.”

  “What are you talking about? This place is claustrophobic. It frightens me. And what about wild animals?”

  “What about them?” she asked her friend. Although friend was a stretch of definition when her husband sent Mara as constant company only to keep track of her. Eliana practiced kindness, but the two women had little in common.

  “They’ll eat us.”

  “They haven’t yet. Besides, this is their home we’re visiting.”

  “Exactly. We don’t belong here.”

  I don’t exactly belong there either, thought Eliana. There meaning back home. She bit her tongue, trying to clear negative thoughts. Except, deep inside, the truth pervaded. Often, she’d wake up in the mornings and instead of giving thanks for another day, she asked the numbed mind carried in the dutiful body: Who are you? I don’t even know you anymore. She also asked for the millionth time: How did I end up in this situation?

  Powerless to change circumstances, it couldn’t matter. And when conditions suffocated, the forest proved the only place Eliana could breathe with ease, so she fled there whenever she could.

  And the birds... they flittered and zipped through the swaying branches, or flew high above, dissolving into the sky.

  To dissolve into the sunlit sky... that was freedom.

  If she ever envied anything, Eliana envied the birds.

  “With or without you, I’m going back! I hate it here.” On a complaint that sounded very much like Eliana’s own husband, Mara tugged up the layered hems of her cumbersome skirt for the hundredth time and half-stumbled in a vague direction. “Something feels off today. It’s like the forest has ears and listens to everything we say.”

  “The woods do listen, Mara, life is teeming here.” Although she couldn’t put her finger on it, she knew what Mara said rang true. Something did feel off, different today.

  Her friend’s voice rent the air with a shrill scream.

  “Mara, what is it?” Eliana rushed to her.

  The young woman’s eyes sprung tears from her reddened face. She fixed her forefinger toward a black insect on the move. Though her pointed index locked, her entire hand shook. “What is that?”

  “What? You mean that?” Eliana chuckled. “It’s probably a harmless spider. They’re interesting, don’t you think?”

  Disbelief stretched across her face. “No! It’s hideous.”

  “Mara, calm down. We don’t even know what it is yet. Here,” Eliana bent to get a better look. “Well, it looks more like a beetle, but I don’t know—”

  It was not a beetle or a spider or any insect at all. Black like onyx, a stone smoother and shinier than any she’d ever seen shimmied on its own.

  “It’s some sort of magic.” Mara’s eyes nearly popped. “Rocks, they’re possessed here!”

  “No, they are not. Do not demonize the stones, Mara, just because of something you can’t explain.” Eliana stooped to grab the black rock. Almost flat like a pancake, it had two smooth sides. When she touched the object, the thing didn’t stop vibrating; in fact, it hummed.

  Even the rocks cry out in praise, it whispered. She held the stone first to her ear and then against her bosom.

  “How can you embrace it like that? You don’t even know what it is. It is no ordinary stone.”

  Eliana smoothed her thumb over the pulsating object she now gazed at in her palm. “No, but I hear its praise to its creator, our creator, so I do not fear it.”

  “Rocks do not praise, Eliana. I question your judgment. Your husband was right in having someone oversee you. You are not right in the head.”

  Eliana faced Mara, tamping down the anger flushing through her. “First, everything—all creation praises its maker. Just look around you at the trees, the hills, the streams of water that help give us life. Mara,” she drew in a sum of air, counting the seconds to a calmer disposition, “if we won’t praise our God then the rocks will. Our ancient writings tell us so.” She turned away so Mara would not see her sadness, which became more difficult to conceal. “As for my husband...”

  “I know,” Mara sighed. “You don’t have to say it. I’ll say it for you. You are not crazy. Jabez is about as possessive as a green-eyed snake, imperceptive as an ostrich, and with his words he possesses the snapping jaws of those barracuda I’ve heard our villagers tell in their strange tales of faraway seas.”

  “I-I wasn’t go
ing to say any of that. My husband can be a bit rough,” she nodded. “Still, I am devoted to Jabez, I always have been and will be until I die.”

  “A bit rough?” After a pshaw, dramatic Mara softened. “You sacrifice your happiness for the sake of others.”

  “Is that a bad thing?”

  “It’s honorable... that you try so hard. But does holiness mean you have to give up happiness?” Her voice still carried alarm. “I just wish our people allowed divorce on occasion—”

  “Mara!”

  “Well, it’s true. I witness you—sweet, unassuming Eliana—with interests, and gifts of your family’s trade of natural healing, yet Jabez doesn’t share these things with you; doesn’t support them or even try to like anything you like. No, he strips your freedom so that you’re left there, more or less, a domestic slave to serve and occupy yourself on only him. He’s finally crushed all the good pursuits out of you, is what he’s done. I’ve watched it carry on over the years with my own eyes. Life is tragic when you wither and die while you live, Eliana.”

  “I am not dying—”

  “Yes, you are, on the inside. Maybe others can’t see it, but I can. I’m with you every single day, and I see your vacant eyes fill with moments of intense longing. Usually out here. That’s mostly why I don’t like coming out here. Your entrapment is tangible; it scares me.”

  Eliana looked away. She slid the black stone into the pocket of her apron and brushed her hands together with a long exhale. “Well, enough said. Jabez can be charming still. I was sixteen when he first charmed me and we married. Oh, he was so handsome, too! Still is, but back when he was younger,” she smiled but the whimsy disintegrated. “He took me away from my family and now nine years have passed without seeing them. We lost our two children. Life can be hard. But we have good moments... every so often.”

  “Still, it frightens me, that I don’t think I ever want to marry.” The younger woman shook her head. “I wouldn’t want these things to happen to me. Jabez is self-centered and mean—more than anybody I’ve ever known—”

  “Don’t speak about my husband that way.”

  “I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” she lifted her quivering chin, “but it’s true. His behavior is like an illness,” she pointed to her noggin. “And I-I don’t want to move about like you, numbed to everything because of disappointment. It’s like a curse.”

  Her comment pained Eliana. A knife plunged into the heart, really. She wasn’t so numb after all. Yet, she didn’t have an adequate response for Mara, no words of encouragement. “Well, it’s best we be getting back.”

  2

  When they were almost at the edge of the forest near the clearing, Mara asked Eliana, “Why do you think Jabez keeps you from the things that bring you joy? I mean, I thought our God, El Roi, who watches over us and cares for us, is big on joy; that he wants us to experience it and have it fully for our lives.” She stopped walking and looked after Eliana, who only slowed a little. “Eliana?”

  Eliana froze then, but did not make eye contact with Mara. “What is it?” She wished the uncomfortable conversation would end, preferring instead a refreshing moment of quiet denial.

  “I asked you a question.”

  “Yes.”

  After a pause, Mara urged, “Well?”

  The cicadas’ tymbals buzzed, and the Jerusalem crickets hissed, clicked, and drummed on the warm summer’s eve.

  Eliana waded into the long-bladed wheatfield, the golden stalks billowing around her like rivulets of waves lapping the shore of a pond after tossing in a large stone. “El Roi is my joy.” She brushed her palms over the bearded tops, eyeing the way they moved around her at the gentlest touch. “And this brings me joy,” she said, her eyes squinting in delight.

  “But that’s not what I mean. I intend the question about your husband.”

  “Mara, one thing you have to realize is that I was young and smitten and this is how things have evolved. I chose him as my own. I couldn’t foresee or predict or even imagine that my only moments of joy would be in these simplest pleasures, and that I’d have to experience them alone. Well, not alone exactly.” She attempted a smile. “You’re here.”

  “Eliana, I need to know. I have a suitor and I-I,” she huffed, “well, I want to be happy.”

  “Of course.”

  “How do I make sure I don’t end up in your situation?” She mumbled, “No offense.”

  “None taken.” Eliana swallowed hard. “I would pray. I would not marry unless you’re absolutely sure it’s what El Roi would want. Since he’s in the business of our joy and all.” Her smile came on, meek but sincere.

  “Did you pray?”

  “Yes and no. Mostly no. I was immature and impetuous. Mara...”

  “Yes?”

  “If you don’t get a direct answer after praying,” she paused, “then I’d give it time between you and your suitor to get to know each other. Learn if you share the same interests, if your personalities go together before you vow to him your life. Because sharing the same faith is not enough; it’s necessary but not enough. Jabez and I grew up understanding the same basic tenets, but we are hardly compatible in spirituality—or anything else in the day-to-day. Even our perspectives on faith seem to come from opposite sides of the same stream.” She sighed.

  “Did you imagine he’d be so jealous of your interests?”

  “No.” She clamped her jaw. Breathed deeply the sunbaked pine and cedar they left for another day, and the milky sweetness of the wheatfield they now swished through. “And I don’t think he’s so jealous as he insatiably needs attention.”

  “All of your attention.”

  “Yes. He doesn’t care for anything that takes my attention away from him, he needs it for himself so there’s room left for nothing else; nothing but him.”

  A reddish eyebrow perked up. “You’re lonely, if you ask me.”

  “Jabez is a busy man.”

  “Yet he expects you to have nothing except readiness for his beck and call?”

  “Mara, this is not helping,” she gestured to her own mouth, then Mara’s.

  “I think he’s wrung you to dry bones.” She bowed her head after the glare Eliana shot her. Murmured, “Sorry.”

  A weighty exhale streamed between Eliana’s clamped teeth. “He requires a lot, and if he doesn’t receive an adequate amount of attention, he’ll create diversions or obstacles to make sure he gets it. I made the mistake of thinking smothering was loving, but it’s not.” Tongue against teeth, she clacked. “I don’t think he’s aware that he does it.”

  “Don’t you talk about it?”

  Eliana snorted, “I’ve tried, believe me. But he’s like a yoked stallion that plows down everything in sight according to how he sees things and nobody else.”

  “But because he thinks his ways are right doesn’t mean that El Roi thinks they’re right.”

  Eliana’s smile widened. “You show a great deal of wisdom for such a young age, Mara. I believe you are going to be just fine with decisions about marriage.” She strolled over to the girl and took both her hands in her own. “You will be happy, Mara, I just know it,” she gave her hands a tender shake.

  They walked through the field of Jabez and Eliana’s farmstead.

  “Oh, look,” Eliana exclaimed. She bent and plucked a single purple flower and held it in her palm. “A wild crocus.” She cast her eyes over the immediate area. “Growing all alone out here; how strange yet how beautiful.” Eliana admired the blossom.

  “What a lovely flower with that yellow in the center, and those striking red strands.”

  “Yes, these red threads, when dried, are the saffron we use to season some of our food. They’re beneficial to us besides flavor, of course; good for our health, they improve one’s mood,” this upbeat mention made her friend grin.

  Mara nudged Eliana’s elbow, “You ought to use more of that in food you prepare for Jabez.” She laughed in a playful fit.

  “Oh, believe me, I tried—that, an
d other helpful plants.” She glanced at her askew. “He doesn’t like the flavor, any of it. Jabez wants plain meat and potatoes. Anything added, herb, spice, makes him grimace with complaints of an upset stomach.”

  A look of worry crossed the young girl’s face again.

  “He’s a simple man.”

  “He seems difficult if you ask me.” The girl’s troubled expression deepened.

  “Don’t worry, Mara. My life is not your life. My man,” she shook her head, “not yours. May your suitor be everything and more to you, dearest. You deserve a fine husband, one who is most of all, kind. And again, Jabez isn’t so bad...”

  “He’s plain and blunt—”

  “I will not criticize the man I’m devoted to, nor continue hearing criticism about him. This conversation has to stop.”

  “I... I am sorry. It’s just...” Mara bit her lower lip. “Well, I just think you excuse blatant shortcomings to help you endure. So he’s a plain man, he can’t help that; but he’s critical of others—most of all, you—and that he can do something about yet doesn’t.” Mara glanced at her sheepishly, checking for a reaction to which Eliana gave none. “If Jabez doesn’t like saffron, why did you pick the flower rather than let it stay in the field to grow?”

  “It’s reached its full life already and will only fade and wilt now. Besides, Jabez will harvest this wheat soon. No, I’ll place this blossom in a bowl of water so that I can admire its beauty a little while,” she winked to encourage the girl. “The saffron I can pluck and use for coloring, too.”

  Just then, a hump erected. “There’s Jabez now,” Mara pointed at the bulge of a man near a livestock trough, rubbing his lower back after having crouched over working on something.

  “Oh, good,” Eliana said, lightly. “I’ll show him my find of this pretty treasure of a flower.” She hooked her arm with Mara’s and they pushed through the field.

  3

  “Jabez,” Eliana called to her husband. “Look what I found in the wheatfield!” Her face lit with delight to show him.

  “You’re crushing the crop,” he barked. Flapped his hands to clear out Eliana and Mara. “How many times have I told you to go around the field, not tromp through it?” He circled his arms, scolding them as he would his children. “Around the field—”