Page 28 of Wounded Hearts

Chapter 15

Drew watchedthe look of complete desolation and terror morph over Smithy’s face at the words none of them had wanted to hear. The entire team was there, along with Jack, and Alex, his second-in-command.

Every time he thought about his relationship to that woman he cringed. To know he shared blood with evil of that kind was hard to get his head around and without Fortis, and most especially Kanan, Daniel, Will and Lucy, who’d been so involved in mentoring him he may have never come to terms with such a thing. But it was Lauren and his niece and nephew that had driven it home. When they’d been born, he’d been so angry, so lost, but seeing them grow into miniature replicas of his sister and her husband Dane, toddling to him on chubby legs and smiling, he’d finally realised that sharing blood with Rhea didn’t make him like her. If it did, it meant those babies were like her and he’d refute that until the day he died.

Losing his leg in the plane crash that had almost cost him his life had been a turning point. Not knowing why he’d been spared when he could’ve so easily died had given him the motivation he needed to fight for his recovery, to get to where he was now. A place where he was physically as fit as he could be, as mentally strong as he’d ever been, and happy in his own skin. He’d never been more content with the man he was because now he had a purpose and that was to keep his family safe—and that meant all his family, Smithy included—and to see him so wounded hurt him and fired an anger in his belly to finish this so they could finally have peace from the threat hanging over them.

“Do we know what she wants?” Smithy focused on Zack who’d given him the news.

“Not yet, but we’re going to find out and we’re going to end this once and for all.”

The determination in Zack’s voice was met with nods from around the room. Every single member of the team had been hurt in some way or another by the Divine Watchers and now they wanted blood.

Smithy ran his hand through his short hair, his agitation evident. “Do we have a plan?”

“That’s why we’re here. We’re going to hash this out here and now, figure out what our next move is.”

“Okay.” Smithy sat back, resting his hands on the table that was full of his teammates. Both from the SAS and Fortis.

Zack gave a brief nod and then turned his eyes on Drew, who met them with unflinching surety. “Drew, I think it’s time we delve into yours and your father’s pasts and find out if there’s any snippet of information we may have missed that could help us. Winslow is here for a reason and at this point, we can’t discount the idea that it could be to do with you or Lauren or even Leah and Aaron.” Drew heard a grumble, or more aptly a growl, come from his brother in law at the mention of his babies.

“Of course, what do you want to know?” He was an open book, any information he had that could help was freely given, but he wasn’t sure what he had they didn’t already know.

“Well, let’s go back to the beginning. We know she was married to the leader of the Divine Watchers and became leader after his death. We know she lost a child not long after birth. She ran away from home when she was a teen and your father hated her. Do we know if he ever had any idea that his estranged sister was the leader of the group he was so heavily involved with?”

“I was never aware that he did, but he didn’t share much with me.”

“Where are we with the Thracian text? Last I heard, we found it linked to the Holy Phial of Blood and several ancient texts found at Preedy’s home?” Zin asked his arms crossed, his Russian accent thicker with his anger.

“Ava is waiting on a professor from Oxford to speak to her about it, but it mentions the chosen sisters and the number three keeps appearing in the text. As you can imagine, it’s extremely difficult to interpret though, as it’s so old and uses an extinct language. I’ll speak to her tonight and see where we are.”

“We know she thinks the Divine Watchers need a stud to impregnate one of their chosen women and that it holds the key somehow,” Dane said with a glance at Jace and Meg, who were supposed to have been the chosen couple created from the three sisters and the Prime Fecund who would sire these children.

“We know she had a drug that would only attack those without gifts and would kill millions of people and she was using mind control on soldiers, at least a hundred that we knew of, so once the people without gifts were dead, she’d have men in place to control those that were left.” Drew cast an apologetic glance at Smithy as he spoke. His jaw was tensing and flexing as he tried to conceal his feelings from them.

“So, we need to assume her game plan is still the same. She may have lost the lab she was using but she could still have the recipe and methodology for both drugs. We need to look for missing soldiers or groups of men and women of fighting age. She’ll want to recoup her army.” Jack spoke with the confidence of a man who’d seen and done more than he’d ever talk about.

“Can you and Eidolon get on to that?” Zack asked making a note on the whiteboard as he ticked off that line of investigation and wrote Eidolon beside it.

“Sure, of course.”

“Ava will look into the Thracian text again. Drew, you and Jace can look into anything your father may have that could be of use to her. Go through his things, anything you can think of.”

Both men nodded. “No problem.”

“Dane and Kanan, I want you to dig more into Brayden Wells. I want to know everything there is to know about that man. Keep looking for those skeletons. I want to know what they are and what his connection is to Winslow. Where they met, when, every damn thing.”

“Daniel and Zin, I want Winslow found. I don’t like knowing she’s out there, and we don’t know where she is or what she’s up to.”

“Nate, Roz, can you two coordinate things so everyone is protected? I don’t want to take any risks after last time. Every single person needs to have a guard at all times.” Nate nodded, silently his eyes burning with determination. “Roz, can you speak with your team and get them to talk to their contacts and find out what they can. Even rumours at this stage are a starting point.”

“The girls will start right away,” Roz answered.

“What about me?” Smithy spoke quietly sounding unsure of himself.

Zack crossed his arms and faced the man who’d been subjected to so much. “I need you and Meg to find a fucking cure for these drugs because if we can’t stop whatever she has planned, then that’s all we have between us and arma-fucking-geddon.”

“I won’t let you down.” Smithy stood and Drew could feel the weight of the request on his shoulders, but he also knew that if Zack had asked any less of the man it would’ve been an insult to his training, to his bravery, and to his resilience.