"I am sorry, Naiobi."
"Don't tell me you're sorry! Just tell me who or what the hell you are, damn it!"
Andrew’s smile was wistful and a little sad. "I am called Amun, captain of my Egyptian Queen’s personal warriors."
"There are no Egyptian queens in this day and age," Naiobi replied angrily, yet shivering at the cold trickle of realization.
"I talk of your ancestor, Naiobi."
My ancestor. "Cleopatra."
"Yes. The evil you fight has lived on this earth a long time. My queen and her most knowledgeable subjects could not discover a way to defeat it, so she prepared for the future."
"With you." Naiobi’s laugh was short and sarcastic.
Amun moved closer, invading her personal space. "With me. As my queen could not destroy this thing, she believed that her descendents would succeed where she had failed."
Naiobi’s skin tingled with sheer need to hold this man close, to feel his muscular body beneath her fingers, yet Naiobi would not—could not—touch him. However, she also refused to retreat. She didn't dare let her fear of Andrew’s—no Amun’s—unknown history stop her from finding out the truth. "I've seen and fought some weird things in my life," she stated, looking up into Amun’s coal black eyes. "But you take the cake." She tilted her head. "How did you travel 4,000 years into the future?"
"Queen Cleopatra sought volunteers to give aid to those born of her flesh and blood." Amun rested his hands on her shoulders. Naiobi didn't flinch and she didn't give in to his slight caress. "I agreed to be transformed—," he hesitated.
This time, Naiobi backed up warily, her gaze intent. "Transformed? Into what?"
"A stone statue." Amun let his hands fall to his sides. "My soul remained in the statue until it was considered necessary."
"The fight in the alley," she whispered.
He nodded. "My soul infused the statue, turning it to skin, muscle and bone. I protected you with my own life, as I once swore for my queen."
Naiobi nodded, more to give herself a chance to digest this strange turn of events. She licked her lips. "What happens to you after I win or lose this war?"
Amun shrugged, but Naiobi didn't miss his fleeting expression of doubt and fear. "I do not know, but I believe that I will return to my original form—a soul locked within a stone body."
