Blood of the Nile (3 page)

Maliyah pulled on
what looked like a pair of snug-fitting yoga pants and a tank top, and then
plopped down on the bed. Soon the house grew quiet as all the other members of
the Aziz family hunkered down to sleep for the night. Ramses kept an eye on
Maliyah, watching her toss and turn on the mattress for close to an hour; but
sleep evaded her.

Jet lag, most likely
.

Soon, Maliyah turned
on the lamp by her bedside. In the shadows, he could see her prop herself up on
a pile of pillows and flip through the pages of what appeared to be a paperback
book. Before long, Ramses saw her move again. She chucked the book to the other
side of the mattress and leapt to her feet. She crept down the stairs and
tiptoed to the sliding glass door on the left side of the house. Slowly, the
door slid open and Maliyah, dressed in iridescent black, flitted across the
sand headed toward the river.

Shit! Leave it to Anwar’s daughter to run off on her own. Doesn’t
she know how dangerous the streets of Cairo can be for a woman?

Ramses slammed the
binoculars on top of the small table where he sat, running down three flights
of stairs to follow after her. When he got to the corner of the narrow street,
he stopped short, not wanting to get too close. He wasn’t worried about scaring
her off.
On the contrary.
If Maliyah was anything like
her headstrong father, Ramses would be the one quaking in his boots.

She walked several
blocks before climbing atop a large rock nestled in the sand along the river’s
edge. Ramses crouched behind a dilapidated storefront some 50 meters away. At
first, Maliyah sat in silence, staring up at the yellow-gold moon as its rays
danced across the shimmering water. Then suddenly, she opened her mouth,
letting the first notes of a song slip past her lips. Its sweet melody was the
most beautiful sound Ramses had ever heard.

Hush now, be still

Let the rushing river

Lull you back to sleep

Let its flowing cadence

Rock you in its arms

Embrace you, oh child,

Like the Gentle Nile

May you dream in
peace.

Ramses’ gaze
remained locked on Maliyah as her captivating voice thrummed in his ear. Its
seductive purr reverberated through him. The sensation whirled over his
nerve-endings like a cloud of sand on a hot, windy Sahara afternoon. He moaned,
feeling the dust devil of emotion spiral out of control and lodge itself firmly
in his groin.

A moment later,
Maliyah’s soulful lullaby turned sad replaced by a muted whimper. Tears
streamed down her face, visible in the moonlight’s bright reflection. Without
hesitation, Ramses stood, his nimble feet dragging him involuntarily toward the
weeping woman. He had no choice; he was a sucker for a damsel in distress.

“Excuse me, Miss.
Are you okay?” Maliyah jumped, her body jostled from the surface of the stone
upon hearing Ramses’ voice. She turned her head to look at him, her furrowed
brow distorting the features of her face.

“I saw you
earlier. You were sitting outside on the balcony of the apartment across the
street from my father’s house. What the hell? Are you stalking me?”

Chapter Three

The Realization

The half-naked stranger
raised his palms in a defensive stance. “I know. I’m sorry. But I promise
,
I’m not a serial killer. My name is Ramses. Ramses
Shakir
. I’m a friend of your father’s.”

Maliyah placed her
hands on her hips. Then she
squinted
her eyes and
cocked her head to the side.
“
Shakir
?
As in
Shakir
Shipping?”

“Yes, we’ve met
before. But you were but a child. You may not remember.”

“I remember.
Vaguely,” she said with a nonchalant shrug of her shoulders.

Boy did she remember.

Even back then Mr.
Shakir
, as she called him, was an Egyptian god. With a
broad, muscular build and dark, brooding good looks, how could she forget? Surprisingly,
he’d only gotten better with age.

Like the Egyptian
god Anubis, Ramses’ sharp features and mysterious midnight-hued hair and eyes stood
out, stopping many an unsuspecting woman in her tracks.
An
arousing anomaly to say the least.
Any girl with the gift of sight
instantly recognized his virile masculinity and dreamt of claiming him as her
mate. As a child, Maliyah had seen him work his magic on the ladies, inviting a
different lover to dinner at her father’s house each time he’d graced them with
his presence.

“Why are you
following me?”

Ramses scrubbed
his hand over his unshaven face; his eyes pierced her with a somber glare.
“What the hell are you doing out here alone? Don’t you watch the news? Surely,
you must have heard about the female photographer that was brutally raped and
terrorized by a group of overzealous Egyptian youths?”

Maliyah turned
away from him, peering out into the calm waters of the Nile. She drew upon its
peaceful serenity to try and settle her rattled nerves. She was annoyed at
Ramses for stalking her. She didn’t even know if she could trust him from what
Husani had told her. After all, he was one of her father’s business associates.
But Ramses was right about one thing. The dark, seedy streets of Cairo were no
place for a woman, especially a foreigner in Maliyah’s questionable emotional
state.

Still, the urge to
goad Ramses into a fight overruled common sense. She licked her lips and smiled
up at him through her half-mast gaze. “How do I know
you
aren’t one of those overzealous brutes? What do you want with
me, Mr.
Shakir
?”

Ramses pounced on
her like a feral desert jackal, his rough hands jerking her back against the
cool stone she’d been perched on only minutes before. He leaned in, his heated
breath rolling across her neck and down the slender column of her throat until
goose bumps formed. So close, she could have sworn she felt a pair of sharp,
serrated teeth graze her prickly skin.

“I’m here to keep
you safe. Don’t ask me what I want from you, Maliyah. You may not like my
answer.” Ramses’ fingers dug into her shoulder blades. His hulking frame
pressed firmly into Maliyah’s demure curves. She felt his erection thrust against
her pelvic bone, thick and hard like the rock that rested against her spine.
Her nipples tightened, poking through the thin material of her tank top to rub
against Ramses’ bare chest. He must have sensed her heightened arousal because
a moment later, he re-positioned himself so that his erection came into direct
contact with her throbbing clitoris. Maliyah moaned as a gush of liquid
trickled down her thigh.

Before Ramses
could distract her any further, Maliyah jerked out of his grasp. She stared
into his swirling, obsidian orbs. All of a sudden, she felt dizzy.
Light-headed, as if she could no longer stand on her own two feet.
She propped herself up against the rock and stared back at her captor.
Provocative and defiant.
“Sounds like an interesting
proposition. But there are more important things I’d like to discuss with you
first.”

“Like what?”

“Like what
happened to my father.” Maliyah said as she skidded away from the edge of the
rock and paced backwards across the sand, her eyes never leaving his gaze. Still,
she felt anxious. She wrung her hands together nervously, dreading his
response.

Ramses’ eyes shot
open, one eyebrow rose higher than the other. “You have doubts about his
presumed cause of death?”

“I do. At first, I
had no choice but to believe the initial explanation. But the more I think
about it, the more preposterous it seems.
A heart attack?
Really?”
It was true. Once her cousins, Salma and
Husani, brought up the possibility of foul play, Maliyah just couldn’t imagine
her health-conscious father suffering a sudden heart ailment. It didn’t make
any sense. No wonder she couldn’t get any rest. It was near dawn, and she
hadn’t slept a wink.

“The sun’s almost
up. Come on. Let’s get you home. I’ll hail a cab and we can talk on the way.”

Once Ramses
flagged down a taxi driver, they hopped in and drove off. As the car rolled
down the deserted streets, an awkward silence fell over them. The thick,
unspoken attraction between the two of them was undeniable. Maliyah cleared her
throat, but before she could speak, Ramses broke the monotony.

“That song you
were singing on the rock. It was hauntingly beautiful. What was it?”

“Just a children’s
lullaby,” Maliyah said, shrugging her shoulders. “Something my father used to
sing to me.”

Ramses shot her a
sympathetic grin. “You know, he loved you very much. You’re all he could ever
talk about,” he said. But then his expression changed. It looked almost
playful. Mimicking Anwar’s deep baritone voice, he proceeded to provoke her.
“Maliyah graduated from MIT. She’s got this great new job in Italy. She’s a
fantastic cook.
Blah.
Blah.
Blah.”

So he’s got a sense of humor, eh?

Maliyah always
enjoyed a man with the ability to make her laugh. “Funny, he never mentioned
you
,” she replied, ribbing him with the
same sardonic banter.

“I’m not
surprised. I’ve got a bit of a reputation with the ladies and knowing Anwar,
he’d want to keep his daughter far away from the likes of me.”

“Enough about you,”
Maliyah said, rolling her eyes. “Why is it that you question the nature of my
father’s death? If you have any pertinent information, you owe it to my family
to fess up.”

“Maliyah, I worked
with your father day and night for many years. I knew him as well as, if not
better than I know myself. That man was as healthy as a horse. That fact alone
makes me suspicious. I don’t have anything else to go on at the moment, but if
I come across any leads, I’ll be sure to pass them along to Husani.”

The cab came to
halt in front of her father’s house. Ramses stepped out and came around to open
Maliyah’s side of the door.
“Husani?
Why not me?”

“Because
Cairo is a man’s world.
You have no business
sticking your nose into matters that don’t pertain to you.” Ramses gruff voice
resounded in her ears as the meaning of the words he spoke finally sunk in. Not
only was Ramses a philandering womanizer. He was a sexist pig too.

Typical Egyptian macho bullshit!

***

Ramses watched
Maliyah disappear inside the house. He ducked under the overhang of the
apartment building at the same time he felt the radiant heat of the sun scald
the skin on his bare shoulder. While being a vampire had certain advantages, it
also had some major drawbacks. Sensitivity to the sun was one of them.

The biggest perk
of the job had to be Ramses’ magnanimous skills of seduction. He could transfix
female victims with a single glance and command their total submission. Not
surprisingly, sex was his preferred form of manipulation. Women were like chess
pieces simply waiting to be wielded by Ramses’ potent powers of persuasion.
Even though it hadn’t gotten that far with Maliyah, it wasn’t for lack of effort.
He’d tried, to no avail, to mesmerize her with his compelling gaze. Instead,
she was the one who had him by the balls, enthralled by her every sultry move.

After entering the
apartment, Ramses rushed to close the blinds and block out the sunlight. Then
he collapsed on the bed, weak from too much exposure to ultraviolet rays. Half
awake, he felt the familiar pang in his stomach and realized he’d been so
preoccupied with Maliyah that he’d forgotten to feed. But finding sustenance
was the least of Ramses’ worries.

I just hope that meddling woman doesn’t get into too much trouble
while I’m asleep.

Chapter Four

The Entombment

Maliyah was
jostled from slumber by the sound of someone knocking on the door of her suite.
She pried open her eyes, lids and lashes still glued together at the edges.
Perspiration gathered in the hollow of her arched spine as heat from the desert
sun streamed in through the sheer window coverings. She peered at the
nightstand on the side of the bed. Eleven o’clock.

Oh shit!
She was supposed to be up hours
ago in preparation for the trip to the sacred pool of
Amun
.