**Keep in Mind that THIS Novel IS NOT a FanFiction**

THROUGH THE SANDS OF TIME Copyright © 2012 by Krista Warcop (K.M. Mosher)

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

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Some research was done while/after I wrote this.  Do not take this as historically accurate as it is a work of fiction.  I am a puppet to my characters, an extension, the one that brings their story to life.

To Elisabeth, thank you for creating the current cover and editing and correcting some other mistakes that I had made.  

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"It Starts!"

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She didn't know how long she had been walking, but by God did she ever want to stop. To be able to have a nice cold beer and watch an episode of Supernatural sounded deliciously sinful. Yes, that sounded heavenly. Alas, she knew that was not going to happen anytime soon, not with miles upon miles of sand in every which direction she turned.

Looking out into the distance and across the horizon, Bailey gasped, awed by the beautiful, picture perfect moment displayed out in front of her.  The sun was beginning to set, shades of pink, purple, and orange lit up the late afternoon sky. Her hands immediately went to the bag located on her left side and grabbed her EOS Rebel T4i camera. Taking off the protective lens, aiming it, and pressing the shutter button many times before finally being content with the shots taken.

Running her fingers through her shoulder length dark brown hair, which was drenched with sweat, Bailey grimaced, a shiver of disgust sweeping over her. Beads of perspiration rolled down her face and all she could think of was finding the nearest hotel so she could have a nice, cool shower.

And what made the unbearable Egyptian heat even worse were the dark clothes that she had chosen with great intelligence to wear that day, and was mentally kicking herself greatly for it as she made her way through the desert, her breathing eventually becoming ragged, and every muscle in her body protesting loudly to being overused. Bailey cursed in a very unladylike fashion, feeling the caprice pants cling uncomfortably to her skin.

If her mother were there Bailey knew damn well that she wouldn't hear the end of it. She smiled then, hearing her mother now, chiding her on the poor choice of wardrobe in a country that was known for its searing heat.

The smile she wore slowly dwindled. Her heart clenched tightly, her mind flashing back to when her mother was first diagnosed with a rare form of bone cancer-a cancer that was caught too late to be treated. Bailey almost died that day.

She missed her mother dearly. She had been everything to Bailey. Her best friend, confidant, and the only woman Bailey would ever allow to kiss her on the cheek. But most of all she was a mother whom Bailey looked up to and hoped that when the day came for her to become one herself that she would be just like her own.

Bailey recalled the day her mother had requested her assistance on buying a suitable camera, and in that process made a bucket list of all the places she wanted to visit, and everything she ever wanted to do.

She had done everything on that list, except visit Egypt.

The determination to fulfill her mother's list and visit one of the oldest places in the world and fill her mother's camera to the brim with memories of her trip was everything to the twenty-year-old.

Out of all the places that both Bailey and her mother had visited, or had wanted to visit, Egypt was the one place they could geek out over together. They were both fascinated by the history and everyday lives of the ancient Egyptians. Bailey was delighted at finally being able to travel to the country but could not help but feel guilty about her mother not being there to enjoy it as well.

However she knew that her mother would not appreciate her being miserable during her trip.

Live life to the fullest, make mistakes, learn from them and move on.

Those would be the exact words her mother would speak if she were around.

Her friends, Shala and Kahryn, believed in that saying as well and in the end convinced her to go on this trip and, of course, they just had to come with her.

Her brows furrowed then. The last thing she really remembered was the three of them being guided around the Cairo museum.

The question was: how the hell had she ended up in the middle of nowhere?

She shook her head, pushing the thought back to edge of her mind. She could ponder about that later once she found civilisation, somewhere where she could use her cell phone and call...

...unfortunately, her cell phone went dead.

She groaned, cursing loudly, in frustration.

Did the fates really like to torture her?

xxx

What felt like an eternity passed, the scorching rays of the sun pelted down on her, as she sluggishly made herself go forward. At the rate she was going she would end up dead before she found any sign of life.

The sounds of a horse galloping somewhere behind her could be heard and she paused. Was she really hearing that? Or was that just her brain signalling that she had finally lost it?

However she realised it was real as she heard the voice of a man coming from somewhere behind her. Bailey frowned, noticing that the language he was speaking was not Arabic, but rather, a language she had never heard before. Her eyes studied on the area where she saw the dust being stirred up, finally noticing a well built man, a man who appeared to be around her age trotting towards her.  She watched as he rode closer. His shoulder length dark-brown hair blew in the wind as he rode.

When he caught up to her Bailey's brows rose in slight amusement at the guy's attire. What was this? Blast from the Past? Was she somehow caught in the middle of a movie set that she had no idea was going on in the area, she figured after all, who the hell would be caught dead wearing that?

The man in question was wearing a pair of handmade leather sandals, three or four thick golden bands snaking their way up his ankle to the middle of his calf. A white shendyt embroidered with golden bands down at the bottom of it hugged his hips, rings adorned goods fingers, bracelets his wrists, thin bands, but almost as painfully tight as the ones in his legs were around his forearms and biceps, the muscles appearing to want to break the damned things. A red, blue, and brownish colored collar rested on his tan, well sculpted chest.  A white cloth wrapped aground his head, an equally as golden cobra snaked it's way around his head, the deadly animal positioned in a striking pose, holding three cloth in place in the middle of his forehead, his arm brown hair peaking through the bottom of the cloth.

Bailey was brought back to the present when he hard him speak, and it took her mind a little time in realizing that he wasn't speaking English, he was speaking that strange language that she had heard before, and she frowned. Sure, she knew a bit of Arabic, perhaps not for a full-blown conversation, but she wasn't a translator, that would be Kahryn, as she had went to post-secondary education, hoping to become one and work for the government.

Unfortunately, she wasn't with her, and somehow, Bailey had this strange feeling setting in the pit of her stomach, something she couldn't quite put a finger on, but something was terribly wrong. And vaguely her mind wandered on where her two  mischievous friends had gone off to.

Her heart leapt into her throat for some reason, and she shook her head, "I'm sorry dude, but I haven't a clue on what you're saying."

The look of utter confusion danced across his features, his dark brown eyes turning a shade darker as he spoke again.

Again, Bailey repeated what she had spoken earlier, but with a bit more bite. The man growled, clearly not interested in playing this sort of game, and whichever that was, she didn't want to play either.

Bailey huffed, placing her hands on her hips. "Seriously man, I don't understand a single thing you just said," And more to herself added, "You have no idea what I'm saying either." She sighed, "Great."

She gasped, her eyes widening when he suddenly dismounted from his horse, and he pulled out something from one of the satchels that was draped over the animals side, and she swallowed, realizing that what he had in his hand was a whip.

Did she do something wrong? Okay, perhaps she was a bit grouchy at first, but that shouldn't give them a free ticket to hurt someone, or at least he could've made more of an effort to communicate with her? No. Instead, here he was, scaring the ever living crap out of her.

What could possibly go wrong?

Slowly, she backed up away from him, her heart hammering in her chest as she felt anger, fear, and confusion rush through her.

"Stay away from me!" She shouted, hoping her voice didn't betray the terror she felt at being at the ends of some sort of crazed serial killer, you know, the ones from those horror movies.

He picked up his pace, speaking again, his voice loud.

As if it would do anything, she held out her shaking hands in front of her and ground out through gritted teeth, "Go ahead, hit me you prick, and I sweat to Good that you'll regret it."

Yeah, okay, Bailey looked at him over again and realized that her words were probably a home to him, as he was a good foot taller than she, and could possibly break her in two if he really wanted to.

Which she hoped he wouldn't.

However, that didn't mean that she wouldn't show him what a DuMont was made out of. No. If he wanted a fight than by hell was he gonna get one.

Quickly she moved out of the way, just in time as he swing his arm down, listening to the small of the whip as it hit nothing.

What was with this guy? Bailey thought incredulously, this guy was insane and she felt her anger, annoyance, and frustration rising.

The man, she noted, seemed to enjoy trying too cause her pain.

She should've been paying more attention though as she felt a sharp, stinging pain in her left side as the whip made contact with her, the action sending her to the ground with a soft thud. She cried out, gasping in pain as she clutched the affected area.

He... He hit her. That bastard actually hit her.

The jackass also had the audacity to actually laugh at her suffering.  Something in her seemed to have snapped, thank God, as she pushed herself up to her feet and charged at him, rage filling her as she roared, startling him momentarily, knocking him down to the ground, a slur of profanities left her lips as she kicked him a couple of times in the leg, ignoring the pain it caused her, and with one final kick to the groin, feel back to the ground, gasping for breath, stars dancing across her vision.

Once getting her vision back, she stood up onto trembling legs and stared down at him, fists clenching at her sides as she spoke with a dangerous calm; "Do that sort of bullshit again, you fucker and I'll make sure more damage is done."

Trying to hide the wince at the sudden movement she did, bending over to pick up the bag she dropped and without another look, kept on walking.

Fear shook her to her entire core, and she felt tears stinging her eyes.  She had absolutely no desire to die, not yet. A sob escaped her lips, why was he there? Where the hell were the police when she needed one?

Then, she gave an hysterical laugh. When she pictured signs of life, it didn't include some crazy nutcase who had some sort of ancient Egyptian wardrobe fetish.

Bailey almost paused where she was, her endure body going rigid and she swallowed hard, hearing the sound of hooves making contact with the ground, and knew that he had gotten back up.

Without looking back she stayed running, ignoring the pain she felt as she did so, making herself move add fast as her legs could carry her, her muscles protesting loudly.

Her breath hitched and she screamed, as the beast appeared in front of her and she fell, frantically crawling away from him, feeling the hear of the sand burn her exposed flesh, but she bit her lip and moved on.

She couldn't die. Not here. Not now.

But here she was, her mind going through many possibilities, and each one was even worse than the last.

Her breath was knocked out of her as she was grabbed by the back of the shirt and thrown roughly to the ground, she lifted her head and glared equally at the man towering over her.

Hazel met dark brown as they fight to see who would crack first, and a lone brow rose with curiosity as she noticed his expression softened slightly, and before she could ask what the hell was his problem, she felt it.

A sharp, stinging pain of a bite, shooting up her arm, and ripping her arm back away from where it was, her head turning to see what had caused such pain, she stilled, heart sinking as realization struck.

An Egyptian cobra had bit her.

She knew Egyptian cobra venom was slow acting but it attacked the nervous system and led to complete respiratory failure. She would literally choke to death if she didn't get help. But the panic, that clawing fear of dying, of dying like that, was creeping in and the only person who could help get her to a hospital didn't understand or speak a lick of English and it wasn't long before she noticed her vision was going fuzzy around the edges.

She was having a panic attack.

That's what it was. And she couldn't seem to stop it.

Her vision swam and darkness was starting to settle in and though she tried to move her muscles felt cramped from the panic. She glanced down to the wound and noticed the discoloration and the swelling were starting to set in already.

She fell back into the sand, completely ignoring the man who not so long ago was seemingly keen on killing her. Now, however, he walked over to her, kneeling down and all Bailey could do was state up at him through the haze.  Her breathing was now coming on with quick, shallow gasps. Bailey was surprised that the man hadn't left yet and thought that maybe he just wanted to watch her die slowly. Painfully even. She was startled when he dropped down beside her, carefully lifting her up into his lap. He grabbed her injured arm.

What was he up to?

She whimpered, lifting up her hand when she saw him draw a dagger, its blade almost glittering in the blinding, late afternoon light. Forcefully, he held her other hand beneath her injured limb, and held it there. Tears sprang from her eyes, looking away as he drew near, and she felt him squeeze her hand as it sliced into her skin, cutting an X over the wound.

She sobbed, trying to desperately move away from him, but she couldn't. She couldn't do a damn thing. She murmured something incoherently, he shouldn't be doing this. What the hell was he doing? She felt his mouth covering the wound.

Attempting to suck the poison out wasn't going to do anything, except causing more harm, she wanted to say, but nothing came out.

She needed to go to the hospital.

She needed a doctor.

Shouldn't he have known that already?

Couldn't he see that?

She felt herself being lifted, she wanted to protest. She didn't want to go anywhere with him, She met his gaze for a split moment. Why did he save her? What was the purpose? Was this some sort of cruel trick?  Those were the last thoughts that entered her mind before finally losing the battle, and slipping into unconsciousness.