Free Called to Duty (Adventures Through Time) by Capri Montgomery

 
    Chapter One
     
    N efertari, Princess of Nubia knew the soldiers of Pharaoh would kill her father if she did not agree to what he wanted. She did not wish to become his bride. She wanted to marry the man of her choice, but the Pharaoh had elevated himself to the status of the gods and no one would refuse him—no one except her, and her father.
     
    “No!” She struggled against the men holding her arms as she watched her father. His ebony arms were spread wide with two of Pharaoh’s men holding him out stretched and the Pharaoh himself ready to run him through with the sword. “I will do as you ask, please do not kill my father!” He was the only parent she had left as her mother had died in battle just months earlier.
     
    Ramathes the ruler of Egypt, of all that was golden and rich, looked at her with one devious glint in his eyes as he ran her father through with the blade of his sharpened sword. She cried, she screamed and she tore herself away from the men holding her, getting to her father’s side as he took his last breath. She could see the fear in his eyes, fear for her. In her anger she pulled the dagger he kept hidden behind his back free and she lunged for the Ramathes, slashing his face good before he overpowered her and knocked her out.
     
    When she came to she was in a holding cell with four men; men who looked foreign, as if they were not meant to be in her time. And then she knew, she knew what had been done. Her mother had told her about the crossings of two worlds, and how when the fight was unbalanced, when the war had tipped the scale to the dishonorable, the goddess would bring equilibrium. Were these men friend, or foe? Were they brought for the side of the Nubians, or for the side of the Pharaoh? She could only guess that he had yet to determine their origin, and their loyalty. If he knew the answers to those questions they would either be with his men or killed just as all those who opposed the Pharaoh’s oppression had been killed before.
     
    Not many knew of the tale that passed along the Nubian tribes for the ability to travel the times was determined to be a fate the goddess Amesemi had blessed the Nubians with and had not shared with any other people.
     
    “Who are you?” The one with the raven hair and the crisp blue eyes asked her.
     
    “Who are you?” She countered.
     
    “I’m Alexander Dumas. This here is Gregory Shields,” he pointed to the blond with the catlike eyes. This color for human eyes was foreign to her, yet those eyes were beautiful. “That’s Mitchell Davis,” the other had dark eyes and reddish brown hair. He too was tall, foreign, and a warrior, she was sure of that. “And last but not least we have Ian Jacobs.” He was shorter, but no less big in muscles. All four men would make great warriors in her court someday.
     
    “Now, who are you?”
     
    “I am Nefertari, Nubian princess warrior.”
     
    He chuckled. “They hit you a little too hard huh? Nubia’s been gone a long time.”
     
    “Never! Nubia shall not fall to that wretched beast. I will die before he conquers my people.” She was the only one left in line for the throne. In Nubia it was not impossible for women to rule. The strongest warrior of the family would rise up and be ruler. Unfortunately, this war had claimed everybody, except her brother and he was not interested in ruling. He was only interested in fighting and leading the men into war. He had told their father as much. If her father had listened to her he would have been safe on Nubian land, but he left and the traitor to their people, to their king, had betrayed them, leading him into an ambush.
     
    “Look, I don’t know what’s going on, but things are kind of sketchy here. There’s no electricity, or running water…”
     
    “Electricity? What is that?”
     
    “Um…wow…” Ian looked flustered and at a loss for words.
     
    “You are from what time?”
     
    “Excuse me?”
     
    “When do you come