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“Didn’t I?”
Daire was more than a highly trained operative, he was elite in his field. Sometimes, when she was mooning over him, the professional was easy to forget.
“Harry will hate me,” she said, bringing her knees onto the seat.
“For what? Not telling him you have the Scepter?”
“For stealing you.”
“You didn’t steal me; I came of my own freewill. Now go back, what did Byron say to you in London?”
But she wasn’t done talking about her father. Sitting up straighter, she set Daire in her sights. “We just have to agree, right now, we’ll be really strict. You’re here for physical back-up, that’s it. We’re completely platonic, colleagues… nothing intimate. Just tell Harry it was a split-second strategic decision, that it was easier to monitor me and report back if you were with me.” She winced. “Right?”
“Right that’s what I’m doing or what I’ll tell Harry?”
“Daire,” she whined.
With a smile on his face, he reached over to squeeze her knee. “What did Byron say?”
“He said the next time we’d see each other was at the beta site and sort of implied that would be in a max of two weeks… Though that last part might just be my interpretation.” As Styx pointed out. “Ulysses wasn’t happy that Byron said so much.”
“He didn’t want you to know that they were going to the beta site or that you’d be back in the country within a couple of weeks?”
“No, he shuttled me off to my room. I overheard him saying if I knew, I had power, but then…” She paused for a second to ensure his full concentration. “He said my blood had to be living.”
He glanced at her. “Your blood had to be living? Z said that your blood had to be living?”
Nodding, she pressed both of her hands onto his, stroking him, pushing his palm into the denim of her jeans. “He said he couldn’t just slit my throat and that my ignorance meant less resistance or something.”
Though he was facing front, she could hear his curiosity. “He needs your blood at the beta site.”
“I didn’t tell anyone else I heard that,” she said. “I don’t know what it means or if knowing it causes problems for you.”
She wasn’t all that sure he was listening because his thinking face didn’t react. When he exhaled and his expression relaxed, she guessed he’d figured something out.
“Goddamn Asclepius.”
Scooping his hand up, she sandwiched it between hers. “Jeremiah Landyn?” Again, she managed to surprise him. On a shrug, she smiled. “Hugo told me about him.”
“He worked with Garrick on developing biological elements to technological security.”
She nodded. “Hugo mentioned that too.”
“Remember I told you there was a screw up when they were securing JARR?” he asked, though he didn’t wait for a reply. “That was right around the time you were living at Olympus’s pleasure.”
Taking a turn at surprise, the shock sank in. “They need my blood to access JARR?”
“I don’t know for sure,” he said. “But it’s the only thing I can come up with. It’s probably not the only element, they wouldn’t let just one person have that amount of control. If Byron said you’d be at the beta site, and Zeus said he needed your living blood, it’s the thing that makes most sense. They don’t give a damn about demo. They will give a damn about the extraction of Minotaur and JARR. They are the essence of what makes Olympus, Olympus.”
“Well, how much do they need?” she asked, feeling a little sick. “Are they gonna exsanguinate me just to pick up a hunk of junk? Is that all I’m worth to Olympus?”
Wearing another smile, he took his hand out of hers to squeeze her knee again. “I’m here, LR. No one will touch you without permission.”
“Okay,” she said, her head dropping against the seat as a yawn overtook her.
“Good enough for you?”
“Good enough,” she breathed out, stroking the back of his hand and his wrist.
