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Amata pulled her head from his warm neck and turned to look behind her.
There stood the imposing figure of Queen Inanna. She wore her blue lab coat with her hands planted on her trim hips.
Her scowl reminded Amata of when she’d seen Inanna’s mother, Asta, aim the same glare at her daughter when she’d got caught doing something naughty. Amata bit her lower lip to stifle the urge to laugh at her monarch’s stern expression.
“I was going back to bed?” Claude squeezed Amata’s bottom.
Thank the Goddess her robe almost covered his erection.
“Put her down and get back to bed.” Inanna pointed her finger where she wanted the man to go and glowered. “Alone.”
Amata wasn’t sure, but she swore Claude called her queen “spoilsport”. She slid out of his hold and pulled the robe belt tight, since the opening gaped apart, before she faced Inanna.
Behind the Queen was her husband Adapa. He gave Claude a slight nod and a knowing smirk.
Freaking men.
Once Claude settled back onto the bed, he pulled the sheet over his lap. He sat back with a grin and clasped his hands behind his head.
Amata refrained from snorting at his teasing attitude. As she watched Queen Inanna begin her examination of him, she became weightless. All the heavy doubts she’d carried for so long faded away. Her smile widened until her cheekbones hurt. For the first time in a very long time, she encouraged her heart to love again. She and Claude locked eyes, and the encompassing love he sent her made her giddy. While the future was uncertain, she didn’t have to face it alone ever again.
Epilogue
As the mournful notes of Taps echoed throughout Arlington Cemetery, a wave of mixed emotions washed over Claude. He glanced at Amata, who was trying to stifle her sniffles behind large sunglasses with a linen handkerchief. His gaze drifted across the crowd of mourners. The size of the group surprised him. Had he really touched so many people?
As a covert agent for the CIA, no one should know who he was or what his true purpose had been. But there among the crowd were faces he recognized from his missions over the decades.
On one side was a young woman he’d rescued from a brutal kidnapping when she was a child. Next to her was a man in his eighties Claude helped break free from a cult that imprisoned him and his family. There, on the other side, was a small group of women he saved from being sold in a traffic ring overseas. On and on, so many more.
What humbled him most was how his casket filed by those who’d served in the Marines alongside him.
The small remaining band of his military brothers stood together in stoic silence as they stared at his empty casket. Not that they knew there wasn’t a body in it.
Damn, he hated the creeping guilt that made him squirm at deceiving everyone present.
After all, he wasn’t dead. He just had to make sure everyone on Earth thought he was.
To his surprise, Queen Inanna’s sons hadn’t erased the hospital and police records of his “demise”. Instead, they rearranged them to make it look like he died trying to save a famous kidnapped woman who died in the scuffle. Since then, she’d become insanely popular. In a frenzy, the media fed off the sensationalized story. People relished her misfortune and spread rumors and false accusations about her life. They plastered her face on the streaming news, as social media blasted outlandish conspiracy theories along with outright lies about her and her life. Too bad it didn’t look like it’d die down anytime soon, since Amata’s last comic franchise movie was about to come out.
It didn’t take a rocket scientist to tell them to steer clear of the circus of a funeral held for her last week. It was bad enough they were here on the fringes of his own funeral.
They stood on a small hill in the distance to avoid anyone seeing them. He watched in detached bemusement as the horse-drawn cart carrying the gleaming dark cherry wood of his casket came to a halt by the open graveside. He swallowed with a tight, dry throat. Witnessing the tears of grief around him brought back memories of those he’d lost throughout his life. For the first time, a disturbing thought hit him.
“Does it get any easier when you watch those humans you’ve befriended over the years die?”
Amata looked up at him.
He wished she wasn’t wearing those dark glasses and a large-brimmed hat that covered most of her face. He longed to see her beautiful turquoise eyes.
She shook her head and looped her arm through his. “No. It doesn’t.” She gave a deep sigh. “I’m glad Raiden and Jazmi were able to help Marjoy. I feel bad that the initial mind-wipe didn’t take right.”
He squeezed her hand. “Don’t worry about her. They’ll not only restore her back to normal, they’ll also help reunite her with her partner.”
“I’m sure the studio making her the newest head writer on the next comic book movie doesn’t hurt either.” She chuckled. “I’m glad.” The last came out in a soft whisper.
The casket was slowly lowered into the open graveside as the mournful music carried on.
Out of the corner of his eye, he watched a nondescript African-American woman in her late thirties approach him.
