The Chosen: A Resurrected Series Novel

by S. M. Schmitz

  “He was,” I whispered.

  Aiden nodded. “I know,” he said gently. “Thing is, we don’t know all the details. There’s not much I can actually tell you. They’re keeping most of their files on some kind of device and it’s taking our agents forever to sift through them. But that’s how we found out about Mason and you.”

  “They tortured him, didn’t they,” I said, that horrendous nausea quelling up in my stomach again. I hoped I would have time to get the driver to stop. I hadn’t thrown up since that day in my apartment in Atlanta when Mr. Schultz had beat me and threatened me and I knew my life there was over.

  I didn’t miss that God-awful nausea.

  The only thing I missed in that moment was my old body that couldn’t throw up. I swallowed the bitter taste in the back of my throat and waited for Aiden to answer me. He was still watching me carefully.

  “Yes,” he finally said. “But that’s all I’m saying. I don’t know what they were trying to learn, but I do know they never had any intention of letting him live and they will never leave you alone either simply because you know about him. For some reason, they’re convinced people like him are dangerous to their business. And are you ok? Do you need us to pull over?”

  “Yes,” I moaned, clutching my stomach.

  I didn’t wait for the van to come to a complete stop. I yanked on the door handle and slide the door open, tumbling into the warm, sticky night air. I heard Aiden following me out and wished he hadn’t. What woman wants Adonis himself to watch her throwing up?

  Aiden’s fingers brushed against my neck as he pulled my hair away from my face and a strange mixture of revulsion from the act of vomiting itself, the humiliation of doing it in front of him, and the tingling thrill of his skin against mine, passed through me. I groaned as my stomach heaved and twisted but nothing else came up.

  If I’d believed in a god, I would have cursed him then.

  Worst. Moment. Ever.

  And this was coming from a woman who traveled to another planet because she was young and in love and stupid, who brought a body back to life – and that’s not a pleasant or pain-free experience – who lost the love she’d come here for in the first place; who had to leave her only human friend behind because an entire army of men wanted her dead… oh, and she’d just gotten fired from the Waffle House.

  Yeah.

  I’d officially hit rock bottom.

  Aiden helped me stand and put an arm around me to steady me. I wanted to pull away from him because of how absolutely disgusting I felt and probably smelled like it, too. But he helped me back into the van and knelt in front of me. I tried to hold my breath so I wouldn’t breathe on him.

  “Let me get you a room where we’re staying. It’s almost three a.m. and this is a lot to absorb. You’ll be fine as long as you’re with us. Even if those bastards know we’re here, they won’t do anything about it.”

  Mario snorted and I looked at him curiously. “They’ve tried to kill our best field agents. What makes you think they’ve suddenly realized they’re outmatched?”

  Aiden shot him an angry look and snapped, “What the hell is the matter with you?”

  Mario shrugged. “No reason to lie to her.”

  Aiden sighed and picked up my hand, holding it gently between his own. I stopped breathing again but this time, it was for a completely different reason.

  Holy shit.

  It had been six years. Of course I’d dated. I’d long since lost my virginity. But no man had ever made me feel dizzy just by touching my hand. Maybe it was the vomiting. Or the abject fear that I had somehow landed on the radar of the CIA and this company and I still had no clue what the CIA even wanted from me.

  Or maybe it was him.

  “Dietrich sent me here for a reason. He knows I can keep you alive.” Aiden quickly exhaled and shook his head. “Help you stay alive, I mean. Help you if you decide to help us. Yes, they’ve tried to kill some of our agents, but they’ve failed over and over again because we’re far better trained and we have the knowledge and experience they lack. You’ll be fine.”

  Mario snorted again so Aiden let go of my hand and punched his shoulder.

  “Dude!” Mario snapped. “Goddamn, that hurt!”

  “Keep your mouth shut then,” Aiden snapped back. “You’re here for technical support. You’re overstepping your bounds.”

  Mario held up a hand in defeat and picked up his phone again. A small voice in my mind whispered, “What the hell is so fascinating on there?” but a much louder voice shouted, “Why the hell did you let go of my hand, you gorgeous idiot?”

  I bit my lip and hoped I hadn’t actually uttered either of those thoughts out loud, especially the second one.

  Aiden didn’t touch me again though. He sat back and kept a wary eye on Mario while he finished his attempt to reassure me that he could keep me alive while involving me in something the CIA thought was important enough to get involved in. Maybe they didn’t like that aliens were here at all. Or maybe a few of them had gotten mixed up with terrorist cells. How the hell should I know?

  I’d been on the run for six years, and all I knew was that I’d suddenly found myself in the back of a van belonging to one of the most powerful agencies in the world. And I couldn’t stop thinking about the agent they sent for me in completely inappropriate ways. My eyes drifted down to the dark green polo shirt he wore and the way it hugged his arms and chest and I brushed my fingers over my hand, remembering the way his warm hands felt over mine.

  I heard my name and lifted my eyes again. He was staring at me like I was an alien from outer space. You know, like I looked like an alien from outer space since technically, I guess I am…

  Oh, fuck it.

  “Bella, are you sure you’re all right?” he asked.

  I had a feeling that wasn’t the first time he’d asked me that question, so I shook my head slowly. “I’m exhausted,” I admitted. “And confused and more than a little overwhelmed. But truthfully, whatever is going on now, I’d rather take my chances with you guys than this company that murdered my best friend so…”

  “Your best friend?” Aiden interrupted. “The file says he was your husband.”

  I licked my lips and wondered how I would explain such a bizarre situation to him. I glanced at Mario who had his phone out still but even he seemed interested in my answer. I didn’t want to admit the truth to all of them. Mason hadn’t wanted me because he could never move past his love for Chloe. And I could never be her.

  I lowered my head and folded my hands in my lap. More than ever, I wished this journey came with the ability to return home, that we could somehow extricate ourselves from these bodies and find a portal and get the hell off this planet that was hardly the paradise we’d been promised.

  The weirdest part of our lives was that this was my body now. It felt just as mine as my old one because in order to make it function again, we had to become part of it. Every cell of this human body contained the woman who used to be me. Ok, that’s not completely accurate. Cells die. They’re regenerated. But you get the idea.

  I didn’t want this body to die again. It was mine. And I would have done anything to protect it.

  Aiden shifted a little closer to me on the seat and assured me I didn’t have to talk about Mason right now. We’d go to the hotel where they were staying outside of Baton Rouge, and we’d talk in the morning. He gave Mario a pointed look and added, “Just us.”

  I heard my voice speaking before I realized what I was doing. “Oh, come on,” I teased. “He’s probably just having a bad night because his brother got killed by an angry mushroom.”

  Aiden laughed and Mario blinked at me then seemed to remember what he was wearing. He grinned and handed me his phone.

  I stared at the screen then gaped at him. “You’ve been sitting over there the whole time playing Super Mario Bros.?”

  “As Aiden said, this isn’t my show. I’m just here for technical support.”

  “Asshole,” A
iden told him.

  Mario flipped him off but he didn’t look genuinely pissed off. I leaned forward and tapped the driver on the shoulder. “Are you sure they really work for the CIA?”

  “That’s the rumor,” he answered. “Though if you think they’re bad, you should see Dietrich and Eric together.”

  “Don’t know who that is,” I reminded him. “Other than one of those guys is your boss and is apparently as mature as Mario and Luigi back here.”

  The driver snorted and warned me, “Worse. Though honestly, I blame Eric.”

  “Definitely Eric’s fault,” Aiden muttered. “Don’t tell him I said that either. I don’t want either one of them kicking my ass.”

  “Nice guys,” I retorted.

  Aiden shrugged and offered me that crooked grin. I pretended to watch the lights on the Mississippi River Bridge as we crossed it.

  “They’re the kind of agents we all wish we could be,” Aiden admitted. “Even if none of us are totally convinced they’re not a little gay.”

  “So?” I asked.

  Aiden opened his mouth then closed it.

  “Not gay,” Mario mumbled at his phone. “Just… unusually close. They’re both weird.” He looked up at me and added, “Don’t tell them I said that either.”

  “Got it. So men on your planet can’t be close without being homosexual, which is apparently a bad thing.”

  “I never said that!” Aiden insisted. I couldn’t tell if he looked panicked or irritated. Given that I never expected to meet either of these guys, I was only messing with him anyway but I had no intention of telling him that.

  I waved him off and sat back against the seat. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll just get Dietrich to explain what you’re all babbling on about since none of you are making any sense to this alien.”

  All three men looked at each other – even the driver turned his head over his shoulder to gawk at his colleagues – before talking over one another in an attempt to convince me I’d misunderstood. I pretended to ignore them and pointed to the exit the driver was taking. “Why are we getting off in Lobdell? There’s nothing out here.”

  “Not true. There’s a Comfort Inn right by the interstate and that’s where we’re staying,” Aiden corrected.

  “Richest country in the world and they put us up in a Comfort Inn?” I complained.

  “It’s one night, Princess Peach. You’ll survive,” Mario retorted. He hit the home button on his phone and tucked it into his pocket as the driver pulled into the brightly lit parking lot.

  I crossed my arms and raised an eyebrow at him. “I survived essentially being sold into slavery, traveling across the universe, losing the man I thought was the love of my life, and six years of hiding from a company that wants me dead because something went wrong with him. Don’t patronize me.”

  Aiden gave Mario another pointed look and added, “Pretty sure I won’t get written up for kicking your ass if you piss her off again.”

  He pulled the door open as it came to a stop and I crawled out of the van, relieved to be in the fresh air, even if it was the damp, humid air of a south Louisiana summer. I smiled to myself as I listened to the men argue behind me because it had taken me a lifetime, but after twenty-nine years, I was my own. I belonged to no one and no one controlled me.

  And I was never going back.

  Chapter 5

  A soft rapping on a hollow, metallic door startled me and I slowly opened my eyes and tried to remember where I was. The stark white sheets that surrounded me, the red numbers on the clock that blinked back at me, the ugly brown curtains that covered an entire wall…

  CIA.

  Motel.

  More men wanting to control my fate.

  Right. This was my life.

  I groaned and rolled over as the soft rapping sounded again. I sat up and rubbed my eyes, yawning and eyeing the coffee maker across the room. Whoever was outside was unlikely to wait until I brewed a cup of coffee first. Another knock confirmed I was right.

  “I’m coming,” I groaned again.

  I dragged my feet to the door and looked outside. I could barely make out Aiden’s features in the blurry peephole so I hit my forehead against the door a little harder than I meant to. “Ow,” I complained. “Aiden, it’s too early. Let me sleep.”

  “Um… I kinda need you to open the door now. Sorry.”

  I grunted something unintelligible at him and pulled the door open. He wasn’t alone.

  I stepped back and stared at the tall blonde man standing beside him who didn’t look like he could be any older than me. He had remarkably blue eyes and was as breathtakingly beautiful as Aiden. I opened my mouth then closed it again.

  And then I remembered I’d just awakened and was wearing my dirty uniform shirt from the Waffle House and had taken my pants off.

  “Goddamn it,” I muttered.

  I slammed the door on them both. I heard talking outside the door while I grabbed my pants off the floor and slipped them on. As I moved closer to the door again, I could tell one of those voices had an accent, unusual but alluring, and I blushed again before I could even open the door.

  To my surprise, Aiden was blushing, too. The tall blonde man hadn’t even seemed to notice. I wasn’t sure if I should feel slighted or relieved.

  “Bella,” Aiden said, trying to meet my eyes but struggling, “this is Dietrich. When I told him you were here, he wanted to meet you, and…”

  “Wait,” I interrupted. “This is your boss?”

  I hadn’t meant to sound so incredulous, but the guy was like… my age. How the hell did he end up so powerful so young?

  Dietrich just lifted an eyebrow at me and glanced past me. “May we come in?”

  “Uh… yes?”

  I watched him walk past me, perhaps a little too admiringly because somewhere in the back of my mind I seemed to remember the guy was married. I blushed again and caught Aiden staring at me. For some reason, he looked pissed off.

  “Sorry,” I sighed. “How would you like it if strangers showed up at your door and you were half-dressed?” I shook my head and added, “Oh, you’re a guy. You probably don’t care.”

  “Not really,” Dietrich agreed. He pulled a chair away from the table and sat down. At least he didn’t look pissed off at me.

  It must have been the lack of sleep that made me decide to push my luck and see why these men I’d met last night were so scared of this guy, because honestly, he seemed totally normal to me. I smiled at him and hit the power button on my coffee maker. “So, where’s your boyfriend?”

  “Bella!” Aiden hissed.

  I gave him an innocent look. “What? I’m just flattered that I actually get to meet your boss. I thought I might get to meet them both now.”

  Aiden’s wide blue eyes, rimmed with that beautiful shade of hazel green, turned to Dietrich and he shook his head quickly. “She’s fucking with me,” he insisted. “We did not tell her…”

  Dietrich rolled his eyes and told him to shut up. “I don’t care what you told her. You’ve all been gossiping about us for years. You think we’re stupid and don’t know?”

  “We know neither of you are stupid. And I never said…”

  “Yeah, I’m sure she just guessed that on her own.” Dietrich’s brilliant blue eyes flashed to me and he shrugged. “You are just fucking with him, aren’t you?”

  “Depends,” I answered. “Are you really going to kill him?”

  “Depends,” he answered. “What else did he say?”

  I decided I liked this weird German-American who very few people seemed to understand.

  I liked him even more when I remembered something else Aiden actually had said the night before. “Your wife,” I breathed. “She crossed over like me.”

  Dietrich watched me carefully, those amazingly blue eyes studying me as if he could see inside me. “Yes,” he finally told me. “Along with her best friend, who is also a woman.”

  “It’s true then,” I whispered. “There are o
ther women here.”

  Dietrich sat back but his eyes never wavered from me. I felt oddly exposed as if I’d opened the door completely naked, but worse, without even my flesh to hide my secrets and wishes and desires. I gripped the dresser behind me as the coffee maker finished brewing my cup of coffee and waited for him to say something or look away or, hell, even decide he really did want to beat the shit out of Aiden.

  “There aren’t many,” Dietrich finally said. “They don’t allow many women to cross. Your world is…” He inhaled slowly and let his eyes drift to my cup of coffee, a small smile playing at his lips. “Go ahead and get your coffee. My wife would kill me if she knew I’d allowed a perfectly good cup of coffee to go to waste.”

  I wanted to obey because there was something so commanding in his voice, but as I reached for the cup, my fingers trembled and Aiden immediately noticed. He reached for my hand and stopped me and picked up the paper cup for me, nodding toward the table where Dietrich sat. My legs obeyed him, too.

  Aiden placed the coffee in front of me along with the packages of sweetener and creamer but I kept my eyes fixed on his boss. I’m not alone. I’m not completely and utterly alone. I’m not the only one.

  This man who seemed to terrify those who worked for him hadn’t brought terror into my motel room; he’d brought me hope.

  “Bella, I’m…” Dietrich blew a quick breath through his lips as his eyes quickly shot up to Aiden then lowered to me again. Whatever he wanted to tell me, he wasn’t comfortable saying in front of Aiden. “I’m admittedly overprotective of my wife. I lost her once. For two years, I thought she was dead. She wants to meet you, and she has so many questions about Mason…”

  “Oh, my God,” I interrupted. “Your wife was resurrected.”

  Those magnificently blue eyes transformed, revealing a depth of pain and sorrow that made me want to cry for him, that made me want to stand up and slap Aiden for being so blind and stupid and not getting how losing this woman had meant he’d lost himself, too. “What happened with Mason?” he asked. “What was he doing in New York? Mirowski’s file said he left you, but it doesn’t make sense. He came here for you.”