“Oh, heavens, no,” he told her.“Nothing like that.I’m a therapist.I thought we could order some room service and chat—if you like.”
Jace didn’t even look at him, just gripped my arm tighter.
“Some of the guys already went for food,” Sophie said, putting a protective hand on Jace’s shoulder.“And we had enough ‘therapists’ at school.”
“Those Circle schools?”Dave wrinkled his nose.“Yes, well.I understand the reluctance.I’m Were, if that helps.”
“What clan?”Lee demanded loudly, his voice halfway to wolf speak.He hadn’t liked Dave touching me.He hadn’t liked it at all.
But Dave didn’t appear to notice.
“No clan.I’m a Guardian.”
“No clan?”Noah put in.“What the hell does that mean?You’re avargulf?”
“Oh, no… well, not exactly.”Dave settled himself cross-legged on the floor, since nobody had given up a chair, but he seemed perfectly at home there.Like he would have sat there anyway, even if offered the best seat in the house.“The native Were clans have a tradition by which certain healers, including what you call therapists, stand outside the clans, to allow us to treat anyone who needs us.It also allows us to treat displaced persons likevargulfs, whom clan healers aren’t allowed to visit.”
“So, you really don’t have a clan?”Lee said, frowning.“Like, at all?”
“No.I did at birth, but renounced it when I joined the Guardians.Sebastian asked us to help with the, er, situation in the basement, and Sienna thought that talking to Jace—and all of you—might give us some idea how to get through to those boys—”
“What?”I asked, my scattered thoughts finally managing to focus for a second.“What boys?”
“You were in the bathroom when they told us,” Sophie explained unhelpfully.
“Told us what?”
“That they brought them back here.Arnou rounded them up after you left, all they could find, anyway—”
“Rounded who up?”I looked around, but nobody answered me.
“They couldn’t be left there!”Jason blurted.“They couldn’t be left behind!”
“No, of course not,” Dave agreed.“The Black Circle would have recruited them, brutalized them, and ultimately gotten them killed.But they’re… unhappy… about their current situation.They view it as confinement—”
“Maybe because you locked them in the goddamned basement!”Noah said angrily.
“What?”I repeated, sitting up.
“Thevargulfs,” Jason explained.“The ones who fought.They ones who stayed with you when you sent us away!”
Yeah, he was furious.And then what he’d said hit me.“You’re telling me that thevargulfsfrom Tartarus were broughthere—”
“That’s what I’m telling you.”
“—and were locked in thebasement?”
“It was all we could think to do with them,” Sienna said, eyeing me.“It’s a temporary measure.”
As if that made it all right!
“They must be released,” Dave said, seeing my face.“They are not prisoners; they have violated no law.Yet, if we don’t find a way to reach them, they will end up back on the streets—and back in the Black Circle’s clutches—swelling the ranks of our enemies.”He looked at the young people scattered around the suite.“I thought that you might have some insight into how to explain the situation to them, how to get through—”
“They know the situation!”Lee said angrily.
Something that didn't faze Dave at all.
“—after all, someone got through to you.And you were brave enough to give the Were world a second chance after—”
