He noticed. Manara swore inwardly and forced her expression impassive. She didn't have time for this. "Please, just remain here. I must attend to something."
Even as she moved away, Manara was acutely aware Matthew would not follow her direction long. She must deal with this before he discovered her darkest secret.
Chapter Eleven
Manara was hiding something. Matt's gaze narrowed on her as she moved toward the hospital tent's entrance. Whatever was going on out there, it worried both Shahdi and Manara, sending them into the language Manara knew he couldn't speak. He hadn't missed Shahdi's glance, either.
Determined to get to the bottom of at least this mystery, Matt edged toward the entrance and eased aside the fabric to look out. Confusion assaulted him.
What the hell was Manara up to?
She stood, her back ramrod straight, about a foot from a flashy, roll-top jeep. In the front seat sat two bruisers in dark clothes who looked every inch like the Hollywood stereotype of bodyguards. The man in the back seat, however, drew Matt's attention and held it.
"Holy shit." The words flew from him in a quiet, shocked oath. Bald, clean-shaven, with a heavy brow currently furrowed into an impatient scowl. Ramón Bouchet. Bouchet was an archeologist who worked closely with his mother for years before her death. What was he doing here?
Whatever it was clearly didn't make Manara happy. She spoke with Bouchet in French, her tone clear and cutting. How many languages did she know? Her body language told Matt this was not a friendly conversation. Nor did her arguments seem to be swaying Bouchet. Ignoring her, the older man gripped the roll bar of the jeep and levered himself out of the vehicle. He brushed past Manara and stalked toward the hospice.
Shit! Matt ducked back into the hospice and sank onto an empty pallet, pulling the blanket over his head so only his eyes were uncovered, so he could follow Bouchet's movement.
"Ramón!" Manara was hot on Bouchet's heels as he burst into the hospice, his suspicious glare traveling around the room. She continued to argue with him in French, trying to physically eject him from the hospice by barring his way.
Finally, Bouchet's gaze dropped to Manara, his expression one of clear distaste. The filthy lust in his eyes had Matt's hands clenching in fists. He wanted to pound the man on the spot.
Manara drew herself up and stared him down.
"You can't hide him forever, harlot," Bouchet spoke in heavily-accented English, his words obviously meant for someone other than Manara. "We will find him. And even your precious goddess won't be able to save you if we find him here."
He glared around the room one last time, turned on his heel, and shoved out of the tent. The sound of a jeep starting filled the air, the growl growing fainter as it sped away. Only when the sound faded completely did Manara's shoulders sag in relief and the noise level return to the hospice.
Manara's head snapped up, her eyes cast around in panic. Matt threw aside the blanket covering him and struggled to rise. Pain seared through his abdomen.
"Matthew!" Manara was by his side in a flash, helping him up.
"Damn, that hurts." He muttered the complaint, his breath heaving in and out around the pain. When he was finally standing and balanced again, he cast Manara a probing look. "What the hell was Bouchet doing here?"
Her eyes went wide in surprise. "You know who he is?"
"He worked with my mother for years. What did he want?"
She shrugged as she helped him out of the hospice and toward her tent. "A map."
Bullshit. "He said 'he.'"
She nodded, her gaze averted from his. "I have a brother who has fallen in with the Brotherhood of Spiders."
Matt frowned. He wasn't sure he believed that, either, but something in her tone told him she spoke the truth. Just not the whole truth. However, as rattled as she was, he didn't dare interrogate her any further. When Manara got rattled, she startled deflecting. He would have to wait and find out for himself.
Matt bided his time, resting and hoping for strength, until night fell. This was when Manara always disappeared. Tonight, he would find out where to. He lay still, willing his chest to rise and fall in a deep, even manner. Through barely-open eyes, he watched as Manara moved quietly around the semi-darkness of the tent. Night masked her movements, but she acted as though she believed he slept. She didn't even glance his way as she pulled a mass of silky red fabric from inside the wooden chest where he knew she kept her clothing. Draping it carefully over the end of the bed of cushions on which he lay, Manara also drew a thin length of what looked like gold and jeweled links from the chest. What was she up to?
He nearly swallowed his tongue when she suddenly pulled her standard white abaya over her head in a single fluid motion, leaving her completely naked. She froze, the material still in her hands, when he made a choking sound of surprise. Her head turned toward him. Matt slammed his eyelids closed and forced his breathing even -- not an easy task after what he just saw. He wanted to drink her in.
God, she was exquisite. He already knew that from their brief encounter in this very bed two weeks ago. Still, he hadn't seen her fully then. He was too busy exploring her with his hands, at the time. The memory sent a shaft of heat through him, and he wanted to groan. Instead, he clamped down on his desire and forced himself to maintain his even breathing as if sleeping, even as he cracked one eyelid to make sure she wasn't watching him anymore. She wasn't and he couldn't resist opening his eyes to watch her.
Cast in pale lantern light, her naked beauty was enough to stop a man's heart. His chest tightened with the realization he was the only man who'd ever seen her like this. Fierce possessiveness rose up to choke him again. He wanted to claim her. He had to be sure no other man ever saw what he did. Something in his soul demanded no other man gaze upon her beauty.
Manara's light almond skin gleamed in the dim light, and suddenly Trevor's comment about angels wasn't such a stretch. She certainly looked angelic. Her dark hair cascaded around her like midnight shot with stars. And her body... Matt prayed his own body didn't betray him as he watched her swirl her hands in a basin of water, the scent of roses infusing the air as she did.
It was torture watching her bathe. Her hands caressed the cloth as she lifted it from beside the basin then dipped it in the water. He watched, mesmerized, as she ran the wet cloth over the tops of her breasts, sending rivulets of moisture over each high, perfect mound, to catch on the tightened tips. The water and cold air combined to pull them even tighter until he ached to possess what he wasn't even supposed to touch.
Through his consciousness seeped sound, low and breathless. He started as he realized she was murmuring in Sumerian. Praying, something inside of him decided.
Her prayer -- if that's what it was -- continued even as her hands dipped and wrung the cloth again, then covered her smooth belly in moisture as well, followed by her thighs. His brow furrowed. With as many women as he'd been with in his life, he knew a thing or two about female hygiene, and the women he'd gone out with always moaned about shaving their legs. He doubted Manara shaved, yet her legs were smooth and hairless. Another mystery.
He followed the line of her legs, so long and sexy, and broke out in a light sweat as his body clenched in need. That need exploded as her hand and the cloth dipped between her legs. He ground his jaw against a groan. Even if he never had a chance to make love to Manara, he knew this image, and the scents that filled the air, would stay with him the rest of his life.
She finished washing then dipped one finger into a small glass jar on the table, smearing a spicy-smelling paste over the delicate skin of her neck and chest. Finally, she lifted the fall of crimson material, slipping on a flowing, chiton-style dress of sheer red, which she cinched at the waist with the belt of decorative gold links.
Something about her dress set off warning klaxons in Matt's brain. He'd seen it before, and he knew it meant something. He rubbed his bandaged abdomen as his gut churned. He wished he knew what that dress meant. He watched Manara
draw a thick cloak across her shoulders as she crossed the tent, ducked through the flap and was gone.
Instantly, Matt was on his feet, sucking in a wince against more than his wounds this time. His body was still on fire from her innocent peepshow. With an oath, he pushed aside both his pain and libido. This was his chance to see where Manara and her women disappeared to every evening. Matt shrugged into his heavy desert camouflage shirt, grabbed up his Beretta and survival knife, and ducked out of the tent. He stopped to scan the camp for movement. A flash of red disappearing toward a large lit tent at the edge of the camp put him on Manara's trail. He followed her silently, sticking to the shadows and cursing the fire that shot up his leg as he put weight on it.
Matt stopped a short distance from the tent, sharp breaths sawing through his lungs as his heart pounded in dread. Even as he listened to the other man earlier, Matt hoped Watkins was wrong. Now, eyes glued to the daunting expanse of this heavy canvas tent -- the only canvas one in the entire camp from what he'd seen -- Matt knew the other man's suspicions were about to be borne out.
Dark silhouettes and indistinguishable shadows moved in the soft light filtering through the canvas. Wisps of smoke rose around the edges of the tent and billowed from the entryway as it opened and closed with each new entrant. Matt's brow furrowed as he tried to distinguish the sounds coming from inside the tent. A rhythmic chanting rose and fell in the air, setting the hairs on the back of Matt's neck on end as a wave of déjà vu swept over him. He didn't recognize a word of it, but that chant was as familiar to him as breathing and he wasn't even sure why. He never heard it before in his life. What troubled him more, however, were the high cries and low moans that underlay the chanting. They were even more familiar, but he couldn't place if they were pain or pleasure. Matt's soul froze in terror as images and sounds from his past rose to haunt him.
Pain, Matthew Raleigh understood only too well.
Matt shook off the foreboding with a stern self-lecture. His pain and the past that fostered it belonged to Rachel. There was no reason to believe Manara or her people were as sick as his foster mother. Matt closed his eyes and drew several deep, steadying breaths, forcing the memory away. Slowly, trepidation still clutching his heart, he crept closer to the tent. Matt tried to dispel the disquiet, telling himself it was stupid to be afraid at this late date. Hadn't he already fallen victim to the worst tortures a living creature could suffer and survived with his sanity pretty much intact? He should be jaded to pain and suffering. Even as cold sweat trickled down his neck, Matt knew he was not. Rachel's cruelty hardened him, but to discover Manara was that cruel would destroy him.
Matt reached for his survival knife, surprised when his hand shook as he drew it from the sheath. Willing the offending hand to steady, he carefully cut a slit just large enough to see through in the tent wall. As he put his eye to the slit, however, Matt's insides turned to ice, and an entirely new fear stole over him.
Whatever he expected of Manara, it certainly wasn't this.
The sweet scent of jasmine and roses filled the air with the thin haze of sensual perfume spilling from huge golden censers around the temple's altar room.
Matt drew a deep breath of crisp, cool night air, shot with the sweetness of the strangely familiar perfume seeping from the edges of the tent. The air inside was thick with white, sweet smoke.
In fascination, he watched the serene faces of a group of six women, ranging in ages between sixty and ninety, as they sat like statues in the carved wooden thrones on a raised dais near the far end of the tent.
Moans of ecstasy rose around him as he approached the altar through the haze of perfume and the carpet of writhing bodies. The symphony of male and female voices, tuned like a divine, sensual choir, filled his ears and lifted the prayers of thanks and petitions for health and welfare toward the Heavens where his Divine Mother would hear them.
A large circle of lavish cushions spread around the edges of the tent like a rainbow of shimmering color, broken only by flesh and shadows.
Ranging in appearance from young enough he knew they couldn't be legal to around forty, were a number of the women he saw around the camp earlier. They were completely naked, and they weren't alone. There were men as well, as naked as the women.
Matt swallowed hard as his gaze moved among them, searching for a familiar face. His eyes widened as he caught sight of Shahdi, from the hospice. She came across as wise, dignified and proper earlier. This was a completely different woman. Now, she straddled a man's lap, moving sinuously in a dance he recognized only too well. Sex. This entire tent was full of people engaged in explicit acts of carnality. There was a girl he saw working in the hospice, who looked little more than fifteen, sprawled on her stomach across the cushions while two men lavished her body with sensual delight.
Couples and groupings ringed the tent, lost in an orgy of sexual frenzy that, despite it all, seemed not at all depraved. There was an air of sanctity to even the most blatant act and the entire scene was both arousing and strangely peaceful. The odd sensation of finally coming home washed through him.
Matt's stomach tightened as his gaze skimmed the women's faces, searching for one face. He saw Manara go in there, which was totally at odds with her claim of virginity. His mind said he shouldn't expect to find Manara there, but he couldn't stop the clench of dread.
Relief was a sharp knife to his chest when none of the women's faces belonged to Manara. He started to draw away when the sudden brightening of the air inside the tent dragged his attention back. His gaze followed the source of the light to the dead center of the tent.
An altar made of gold-inlayed cypress rose from amid the cushions, and a bare leg draped over one edge momentarily. It was smooth and toned, the color of toasted almonds. It was a shapely leg he recognized instantly. Matt's heart stopped within his chest and the breath rushed from him as he followed that familiar limb upward.
Manara lounged on the altar, as bare as the day she was born and oblivious to the world. Her head was thrown back, her hair rippling over her bare arms to puddle on the silk altar draping. Her eyes were closed and her mouth hung open as if frozen in a moment of divine ecstasy. Her body was splayed open and arched as if into an invisible lover's caress. Matt's entire body screamed with need. She had never looked more desirable, or less accessible. The light he saw in the tent emanated from her, bathing the occupants of the tent in radiance brighter than sunlight. Ecstatic dizziness rushed through Matt as the shaft of light reached out to caress him. He would gladly die to be there with her. The light was soft and warm like a lover's familiar caress, pure seduction that drew him in and wouldn't let go. He leaned forward, his hand reaching toward the wall of the tent. He had to... No! Matt jerked backward, his eyes slammed shut until the sensation left him. This was wrong, he told himself sternly. Manara was no different from Rachel and she'd kill him if he gave her the chance.
But, God help him, it didn't feel wrong. It felt right -- indescribably right. His eyes opened, he called himself a coward and a fraud, because all he could see was Manara. Unerringly, Matt's gaze went back toward the slit in the tent where soft billows of smoke escaped into the cold night air. He was sweating, his blood pounding hot in his veins. Even if Manara was like Rachel, even if she was deceptive and perverse, even if she was the same, he still wanted her, he realized with a sinking heart. Because, somewhere deep inside, he told himself she couldn't be that way. He'd already be dead if she were.
Desperate to believe he was hallucinating, or that he was misinterpreting what he saw, Matt placed his eye to the slit again.
Please let me be wrong.
Manara, supine on the altar as the figures around her wilted into satiation, looked suddenly every inch the innocent she professed to be. Gone was the seductress, arched in her divine ecstasy. This was the Manara he remembered -- soft, fragile, and looking entirely childlike in sleep. As she stirred and sat up, he realized she wasn't asleep at all. Her gray eyes, normally so clear, rolled with bright cl
ouds of colored light, unfocused as they stared straight ahead. Then, as he watched, her mouth opened and a voice like ocean waves rolled from her lips.
"We near the beginning, Children of Babylon. The Daughters of the Star of Heaven will be made whole and Our Sargon will walk the temple once again."
Matt reeled backward in panic as he realized not only had Manara uttered a hair-raising prophesy, she'd done so in Sumerian. And he understood her!
Cold sweat poured over his skin, even in the chill night air. God help him, it was happening again! Bile-raising memories of three days and nights in Hell danced before his eyes, and he wanted to scream in fear and pain. Manara was just like Rachel. Except...
Matt swallowed his next breath on a dry sob. Except he still wanted her. Badly. Matt's eyes flew open, the panic setting in full-force. He had to get out of here and get his men to safety before Manara got her clutches into them as well.
Matt ran for Manara's tent, adrenaline pushing him beyond physical pain and his mind working at light speed. If Star, his source in Sidon, was at all reliable, then he was still on the right track. Ra'id al-Mawsil was Iraqi and he would likely have fled to safety in his homeland once he realized America was baying for his blood.
In the tent, Matt stopped, his gaze casting around wildly. His gaze lit on a canvas rucksack -- probably from one of the jeeps -- and relief surged through him. He could still get away as long as Manara hadn't taken his gear. As he grabbed up the rucksack, a small, leather wallet dropped out of the bag.
He froze, his gaze riveted on the midnight blue wallet. He didn't have to open it to know what it was. After all, he had chosen the design himself. Hands shaking, he opened the wallet to stare down at the silver and blue badge inside, anyway. It was a circle of blue enameled silver, inlaid with a silver relief of a torch and scrollwork declaring the wallet's owner a Project Prometheus agent. His throat tightened at the thought he might have already lost it all by disappearing. Still, he didn't have time for reflection. He shoved the badge into his pocket and began hurriedly stuffing supplies into the rucksack as he tore apart the tent searching for his gear.
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