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He rubbed his head. “My grandmother… She was called to Jonas, but died before the claim. Does this mean she’ll come back?”

“Possibly. But such things take time,” her father explained. “No one knows how fast a lost soul can be reborn.”

“Did you say lost soul?”

“Oh, no.” Adriel sensed where this was going and tried to intervene, but her father spoke too fast.

“That’s the traditional term.”

“They called my sister a lost soul.”

“That’s different, Dane. Cybil died.”

“Then why is she still breathing?”

“Who is Cybil?” Lilias asked.

“She’s my sister.”

“Dane, I could possibly understand such theories in cases like Isaiah’s, but Cybil’s situation was a tragedy.” Adriel hated to see him lost to false hope when the chances of his sister ever recovering were completely unlikely.

“Whoa.” Juniper dropped into the seat beside Dane. “Is no one else thinking…” She looked at them one by one. “You all didn’t immediately think…” Her mouth snapped shut. “Never mind. Ignore me.”

“No, say it.” Adriel wanted to know what she was thinking.

“She means Isaiah,” Dane said, a look of horror on his face. “There’s a reason he was in our area. A reason why he never left.”

“Perhaps his mate died.”

That seemed obvious to Adriel. “You never considered that possibility?”

Juniper scoffed, her eyes shifting to awe. “It makes sense why he was so protective of her.”

“Who?”

“Cybil,” Dane said and chills raced up Adriel’s legs, her head already shaking in denial.

Cybil was a lost tragedy. Dane needed to accept that and move on.

“He drank from her,” Juniper whispered as she stared into the distance as if recalling a different time and place. “I heard them at night, growling and slurping.”

“I saw it too,” Dane confessed. “I even reported it to the council.”

“Maybe that’s why she went ballistic when you tried to kill him.” Juniper looked at Adriel. “How long ago was he called?”

“It’s been nearly a century.”

“A hundred years seems like a nice round number.” She shrugged. “Your sister would be of age by then.”

“It doesn’t work like that,” Adriel argued.

“Do we honestly know anything about how it works?” Juniper challenged. “Gracie was just called to a wolf-man.”

“He’s a shadow-wolf,” Lazarus corrected, sounding very much like Adriel.

“Whatever. I’m just saying, those two were in that basement with me for months. I heard them attack anyone who came within reach, but they never hurt each other.”

“She’s right,” Dane breathed. “He protected her. And she protected him. They were both feral but not nearly as deranged as everyone believed. They trusted each other. If their humanity were truly gone, that wouldn’t be possible.”