Chapter One

Gram Campbell sat in a chair, looking out of the infirmary-room window at the setting sun. Even being immortal and having seen countless sunsets, the beauty of it wasn't lost on him. Although it was hard to find joy in much of anything as of late.

Not long ago, he'd thought he had it all…a ready-made family, a future. None of that was to be.

He was alone, and doing his best to heal from life-threatening injuries. He'd sustained them a few weeks ago. He'd gotten them by protecting someone he loved, and he'd do it all over again. Though, this time, he'd be sure the assholes from The Corporation couldn't get the jump on him long enough to inject him with whatever they'd given him. It was something engineered for a supernatural with extremely high healing capabilities.

Gram had slightly higher than the average shifter-healing abilities—or he had, until the injection.

It had stopped his ability to heal himself as a supernatural would. And while he was still doing far better than a human would under the same circumstances, he was nowhere near where he should be. He wasn't sure he'd ever be one hundred percent again. That worried him.

He couldn't return to work as a solo operative with the Paranormal Security and Intelligence (PSI) Shadow Ops Division until he was medically cleared for duty. Gram couldn't even get clearance to go home, let alone return to work. It had taken its toll on him mentally. He'd never been one to sit around. Idle hands were the work of the devil, in his opinion. Being forced to do nothing was pure and absolute torture.

Pain radiated through his back and down both legs. He gritted his teeth and rode out the discomfort. He knew another spasm would follow shortly behind the first. It always did. They were like aftershocks from an earthquake. Everyone knew they were coming, but no one could predict them. He'd been told the pain was caused by damaged nerves. He didn't know or care. He just wanted it to end.

Medication had been offered to help dull the pain, but he didn't want any more. The meds— which were experimental in the sense that no one had ever tried using the concoction before, and no one should really try to use it again—caused him to hallucinate and killed his ability to focus in any fashion. They monkeyed with his ability to use his natural-born magik and made his already pissed- off wolf even more unstable than it had been.

The hallucinations were honestly what bothered him most. They had gotten so bad while on the meds that Gram had thought his mother was in the room with him more than once, and he'd had full conversations with her.

She'd been dead for over a century.

That didn't stop her from weighing in on his love life, or lack thereof. Yes, he understood she wasn't really there. That she was a manifestation of some deeper need to have his mother around him when he was injured—at least that was what the head shrink had claimed; the one PSI had tried to force him to see.

Gram just thought it was caused by the shit they were injecting him with.

If getting lectured by his dead mother about getting up and out into the world to find his perfect someone wasn't bad enough, the damn meds kept making him think a white wolf was in the room with him. It wasn't. At least, he was about ninety-nine percent sure it wasn't.

His wolf, the one who was as broken as he was, would have lost its shit had an actual predator been near. Then again, his wolf had had the shit kicked out of it, too, so it was nowhere near full strength. That being said, it could still sense danger. It didn't seem the least bit worried about the white wolf appearing to him. Even Gram's wolf understood the crap they were giving him was making him loopy and high.

Gram had thought that was the weirdest it would get on the meds. He'd been wrong. Several times in the last week alone, he'd thought a red kickball had rolled into the room, only to find it wasn't actually there. It had been a trick of his mind.

In addition, he'd started seeing a woman in white. She had long dark brown hair and pale skin. The dress she wore hung almost to the floor, leaving her bare feet showing. While the dress was nothing he'd consider fashionable or form-fitting, it was thin, gifting him a glimpse of what she did and did not have on beneath it. His dick didn't really care if the chick was real or not. Each time she appeared to him, he walked around with a hard-on for hours.

He'd yet to see her full face, but each time he hallucinated her being in the room with him, he felt the fierce need to draw her close and protect her. The problem was, the second he tried to make contact with her, she vanished into thin air, having never actually been there to start with.

He understood she wasn't real, that she was simply a by-product of the drugs he was being given, but none of that mattered. He couldn't get her out of his head. She'd only just started appearing to him…and he found that ironic, since visions of her began when he'd started skipping doses of the serum. He'd assumed that would lessen the number of weird things he was seeing.

It hadn't.

A few times, she had been standing next to the red ball, looking to be staring off at something in the distance—not that he'd seen her face or anything. He could sense her anguish, her despair, and her desperation. He could also smell her fear, as if she was real and truly near him. In addition, the hallucination of her was always accompanied by the smell of honeysuckle and vanilla. Both scents he found soothing and alluring.

Kind of like her.

She was tall for a woman but nowhere near Gram's height. And she was thinner than he felt comfortable with. It was as if she was supposed to have more to her but didn't. As irrational as it sounded, he wanted to feed her, care for her, and protect her.

Not to mention fuck her.

It had been three days since he'd taken the injections but he still saw her. His last time seeing her had left him acting like a fool. He'd rushed into the hallway as fast as he could, considering the condition he was in, and he'd nearly knocked over his close friend Garth, who had been coming to check on him.

Garth humored him when Gram told him of the woman in white. It was painfully clear Garth hadn't seen her, or the white wolf who had appeared just after the woman vanished. It was also clear Garth thought Gram had lost his damn mind.

So did Gram.

His two main doctors, James Hagen and Auberi Bouchard, had threatened to hold him down and give him the meds regardless of his thoughts on the matter. He knew they'd do it at some point if he didn't start healing on his own soon. For all the meds' faults, they had assisted in kickstarting his healing abilities, though not to the point where they needed to be.

Still, something was better than nothing.

That was what they kept telling him.

If roles were reversed, he'd have done and said the same things to them. It was difficult to fault them for wanting the best for him. But Gram didn't want to be under the influence of the medication any longer. He'd either heal on his own or he wouldn't. He couldn't continue to be out of touch with reality.

And he had to stop fixating on a woman who didn't exist, all while also dwelling on the woman he'd cared for and lost to another.

The plus side of no meds was that he no longer had conversations with people who had long passed or saw wolves that weren't there. The down side was that his pain was high, and his healing had crawled to a virtual standstill. He still had burns over large portions of his back and down the back of his left leg. And his right leg, which had been effectively shattered, wasn't healed fully. It had a long way to go. The damn thing had turned into a jokester in the sense he never really knew when it was going to give out on him and stop bearing his weight.

"Trick knee, my arse," he said gruffly. "Try trick leg. Hell, trick body."

He was under the care of the best medical minds in the world. But that meant nothing to him. He wanted out of the infirmary—out of headquarters. He could not heal just as well at home as he could not heal there. He missed his bed and the smell of his house. The damn infirmary smelled heavily of disinfectants, all of which bothered his sensitive nose. He had a constant low-grade headache as of late, and he blamed it on the smell of bleach and pine-scented cleaners.

No pine tree he'd ever been near smelled like the stuff they used around the infirmary.

He actually longed for another woman-in- white sighting, just so he could smell something good—like her.

"Och, she's nae real," he reminded himself.

As pain spread down his back and into his right leg, numbing his foot, he considered changing his stance on the meds. Maybe even taking just a small dose to take the edge off.

"Even a small amount is nae guid for my mind," he chastised himself for his moment of weakness.

The medication not only made him feel high and see things that weren't there, it didn't do his magik any favors, either. The same magik he'd been born with, that he'd learned to control centuries ago, was now a stranger to him thanks to the injuries and the meds. The combination left Gram's power erratic, and that was dangerous.

Downright deadly even.

No amount of practice seemed to help. Of course, he hadn't exactly been able to open up and go wild with his power, mainly because of his weakened state.

As much as he disliked admitting it, he wasn't the same man he had been before the attack, before his world had turned upside down. His magik and his body should have been back to business as usual. Being stuck in a room, subjected to test after test and pumped full of experimental drugs, shouldn't still be a thing for him.

But it was.

In fact, it was his full reality as of late.

And he hated it.

Gram had lost track of the number of days he'd been in the infirmary. Felt like forever. Far longer than he'd ever needed to be treated for anything before. The days ran into the nights and the hours ticked by painfully slowly. Some moments, he swore time stood still. If his injuries didn't kill him, boredom likely would. Most of his friends and fellow PSI-Operatives had missions to go on that took them away from headquarters. That was great for them but sucked for Gram.

He disliked knowing he wasn't out there helping fight the good fight. The Corporation was enemy number one, and it seemed like new revelations concerning them came daily. They had their hand in everything. They backed countless governments, controlled huge businesses, and were far bigger than anyone ever thought them to be.

They had one end goal, which seemed to be total world domination.

Aim high and all that shit.

It seemed as if they were able to regenerate at an alarming rate. PSI would cut the head off one faction only to have two more pop up elsewhere. It had been all hands on deck with PSI and its affiliates for months now. They could spare no one. He was needed in the field, not sitting on his backside, doing nothing but seeing things that weren't there.

Besides that, he had to admit he missed his friends. The company was appreciated. He'd spent twenty years as a solo operative, but even that had given him contact with some of his friends. His handler, Armand, for one, and a network of contacts he'd acquired over the years and trusted fully. One of which was a wereshark named Cody.

Prior to being a solo operative, Gram had been part of PSI Team Eight. That had given him a close-knit set of men he considered brothers. His friends all stopped in to check on him as time permitted but he could see the pity in their eyes, and it stung.

He'd had that same look on his face more than once when visiting an injured brother-in- arms. He knew what they were thinking. If he didn't actually heal and soon, his days with PSI were over.

Fuck that.

As if on cue, a visitor arrived.

Chapter Two

Amelia Fabius stood at the back of the large outdoor assembly, doing her best to fade away from notice. She smoothed down the front of her white dress, noticing she'd gotten a bit of potting soil on the bottom. No surprise with as much time as she spent in the greenhouses at the compound. They had become her domain. She loved nature and growing things. It gave her a much-needed sense of peace.

That was one thing she'd miss about the compound when she was gone—her gardens and the greenhouses. She loved everything to do with healing and herbal remedies. It was her passion. She'd spent the greater part of the afternoon making a salve for burns. It was simple yet worked wonders. St. John's Wort, comfrey leaves, calendula flowers, lavender, and a few other special touches come together to make a fantastic salve. It hadn't been on her to-do list, but she'd felt compelled to make a large batch. The reserves in the main spa area had been running low anyway, so it wasn't as if she'd wasted her time. Then again, she didn't plan to be around to see the salve get much use.

Besides, it gave her something to do other than work on various things that were supposed to help a VIP guest who had only just left. The guest was one who made her shudder just thinking about him. She'd been tasked with coming up with new salves and remedies to help what ailed him; the problem was, she didn't know how to fix his issues, nor had she been fully versed on what his troubles were.

In a nutshell, she'd been kept in the dark, and that was fine by her. The vibe the man had let off said he wasn't a good guy.

That being said, she'd done her best to offer him some relief, despite her gut telling her to allow the man to suffer. She had been able to offer him something to help him sleep. It had been a special blend of natural remedies she'd been toying with. She'd made a tea with valerian root and passionflower. Getting the taste just right had taken some work, but she'd found honey did nicely.

Amelia picked a bit of dried calendula flower from under her fingernails as she glanced around the gathering, staring at so many faces who should have been friendly to her but weren't. Very few allies were among the massive group. The area, a grove that had a clearing in it, with fallen trees that had been halved and set up as benches, was packed with people. Everyone was dressed in white, as was the standard. It promoted unity and reminded everyone that they were the same—no one better than the other (at least that was the slogan, anyway). They had their arms in the air as they held the hand of the person next to them. They swayed, singing a song in unison that was special, just for them. For their beliefs.

It spoke of having the protection of a powerful god. Of finding a path to everlasting enlightenment and riches of the spirit. Beliefs Amelia had been raised with and wholeheartedly bought into—until the blinders had been ripped from her eyes.

Since then, she saw the world around her in Technicolor—warts and all. It wasn't full of beauty and wonder. It was full of lies, deceit, and evil. And she lived in the thick of it.

Amelia stood partially behind one of the trees, hoping to avoid detection. She didn't want to be singled out yet knew it would happen. It always happened at impromptu gatherings. As of late, it was happening at non-impromptu ones as well.

She was a misfit among the group of followers. They knew her heart wasn't into it, but that didn't seem to matter. She just wanted to fade away from notice.

A tall, well-built man stood at the head of the area on a raised platform, a pulpit he preached at often. He held a book in his hand. Not a Christian bible, but a book of scripture he, himself, had written throughout his incredibly long lifespan.

She wasn't entirely sure of his age, but it was rumored to be around three thousand years. Though the man didn't look to be out of his twenties. There was a certain wisdom in his dark brown eyes. At times, he looked caring, nurturing even. Other times, a monster stared out from his hard gaze. His mood changed on a dime.

While his wrath had never been directly aimed at her, it had been focused on someone she'd loved dearly. She could still remember hearing the screams of her loved one. Of knowing there was nothing that could be done to help. And knowing the very man who should have given his all to keep the woman safe had been responsible for her death had driven home every warning she'd ever gotten about the man. Every red flag that had ever been raised.

He and his followers, or the Flock, as they liked to be called, had all gone off the sanity deep end long ago.

Probably before Amelia had even been born.

There was a high chance the leader had never actually been sane. Apparently, sanity wasn't a requirement when organizing your own religion and amassing followers. Charisma, a charming smile, good looks, confidence, and power were.

Caladrius "Cal" Fabius had all those things in spades.

He held the Flock's attention as he paced on the raised platform, gripping the Book of Peace.

She nearly choked on the irony of the title. Its teachings were anything but peaceful. His followers were hardly innocent sheep, lured by the lion into the den. They were people who blindly obeyed his every twisted command. Who did his bidding even when it was painfully clear his wishes were dark, his desires equally as perverse.

He saw himself as a god. The Flock helped to permeate that falsehood.

They blew a lot of smoke up the man's backside.

But not Amelia.

She was a constant thorn even when she was doing her best to be a good little soldier.

For good reason.

He'd had it in his head she was going to help lead the cult into the next stage of enlightenment. That she was special, chosen, born to help usher the Flock to bliss. To nirvana. To endless power.

Amelia wanted nothing to do with any of it. Nothing to do with ushering the Flock into anything, unless it was jail cells—where they all belonged. But none of them would ever be held accountable for their actions. They'd been getting away with so much for so long that they were invincible. And their numbers grew each year as more and more wayward supernaturals found their way to the Flock. Some found a new home within the compound walls. Others were simply never found again.

She had no idea how Cal had managed to ensnare so many and get them to not only believe in him and his ideology, but to give up all their worldly possessions and follow him in whatever he did. They worked for him, running various businesses the nonprofit owned, and all the proceeds went into a communal pot (which only a few charmed Flock members had access to). The funds were used to keep the businesses running, feed and clothe the members, and to make Cal one of the richest men in the world.

He made television evangelists look like lightweight amateurs. They may have been blessed with leadership skills and the gift of charming others, but he had honest-to-gods magik. Powers that he'd been born with that helped him heal others, influence others, bend their minds to a degree—much like a vampire could. But Cal was so much better at it all. And his powers had only increased over the centuries. Amelia wasn't even sure of everything he could do. She just knew he might very well be one of the most powerful supernaturals out there.

And why not?

He'd gained the additional power through means that were ruthless and unspeakable. Very few could stand against him.

She didn't understand the sheep and their obedience. Then again, she'd been born with an independent streak. One her mother had feared would get Amelia punished or harmed by Cal. So far, it had only served to help her, but she suspected her time was limited in that respect. There was only so far she could push Cal before he'd push back. It didn't matter who she was to the man.

She'd seen him direct his rage at Flock members before.

It was horrific.

And even as traumatizing as witnessing his fury had been, Amelia still refused to bend to his every whim, to conform, to be a brainless, mindless twit. She saw through him and his silver tongue. His false promises and prophecies that never came to be.

He'd predicted the end of the world twice that she was aware of. Neither time had it occurred. Amelia had been scared that Cal would do something drastic and either launch an attack against humans and their government or talk all of the Flock into a mass suicide. The only saving grace was that he was too bent on achieving ultimate power and control to check out on life. And he needed the Flock to reach his goals.

At least for now.

When the day came that he didn't need them anymore, they'd all be dead. They were disposable in his mind. She was sure of it. What she wasn't sure of was why none of them seemed to wise up and smell the cult leader. He didn't have them on a path to enlightenment and better days. He had them on a highway to hell.

She'd have thought the fact the world had not ended on any of Cal's predicted end dates would have proven Cal to be a fraud or, at the very least, mentally unstable.

But no.

The Flock didn't question him.

When the supposed end came and went, with no one dead and the world still standing, Cal explained it away. Saying the great gods had been testing the Flock. That it had been a way to prove their loyalty. He drove home the fact his visions were shown to him in a way that he had to interpret, and since he was a man, error was possible.

The sheep, as she liked to call them, bought it hook, line, and sinker.

He could do no wrong.

To them, Cal was the embodiment of perfection and a higher power. To her, he was a nightmare. She didn't need to be told that she was fast running out of time before he'd do what he'd been promising to do since she was born—force her to lure some supposed Bringer of Change into the Flock. Some powerful being who was going to either take the Flock to new heights of enlightenment or destroy them.

She really hoped it was the latter.

It would serve Cal right if his savior actually turned out to be his destroyer.

"Prepare thyself for the upcoming trials. For the battle that is upon us. The time is now," he said, his voice booming out and over the large crowd. He didn't need a microphone, yet there was a sound system there just in case. "A vision has come to me. The gods and goddesses have seen fit to give me the knowledge that the Bringer is nearly upon us. His arrival will test our resolve. Test our dedication and loyalty. We may even be required to take up arms to defend our way of life. Some of our own may even turn their back on the cause."

Whispers and gasps made their way through the crowd. Accusatory looks flew between the members as each tried to figure out who among them would betray the Flock. Amelia nearly raised her hand. She intended to betray them all.

"Do you have what it takes to stand up to this test?" asked Cal of the group. "Is your faith strong enough? Are you ready to move to our next evolution?"

Amelia had to use all her willpower to avoid rolling her eyes at Cal's statement. He'd been doomsday prepping ever since she could remember. So far, the end hadn't occurred. Didn't mean he stopped getting his followers ready. Though he normally just said that one day the Bringer would arrive. This speech sounded a lot like he was expecting the Bringer guy to show up at the front door of the compound at any minute with bells on—or in the Flock's case, dressed all in white since that was the standard outfit among them.

"We will not back away from this challenge. We will rise up out of the darkness," said Cal, his long dark hair hanging down to his midback. He wore loose-fitting white cotton pants and a tunic- like baggy top. The shirt was cut lower in the front, showing off his muscular chest. He was barefoot, only serving to lend to his peaceful-guru- hippie vibe. To most, he was handsome, intelligent, and the answer to their prayers.

To Amelia, he was a madman.

One she'd been unable to totally break from, despite the effort and sacrifice that had been made to do so.

She lowered her gaze, wanting to avoid crying. She'd spent enough tears on the man. She'd give him no more. Not if she could help it. He was beyond redemption.

"We will walk in the light. We shall no longer be forced to live in secret. We will be the ones who marshal in the times of peace and prosperity," he said, grinning in a way that sent a shiver down her spine.

The Flock hummed together, nodding, hanging on his every word. As usual, they were enthralled.

Sheep.

She caught Cal's word choice—marshal. He most certainly would enforce changes on the world if given the chance. Though she doubted anyone would think they were better off.

She continued to hang back, wondering why the emergency meeting had been called. Could it be his message about the Bringer really meant he believed it to be happening now? Normally, they only met as a group twice a week for sermon and worship. But the sound system had played the calling bells only an hour before, signaling a gathering. Everyone had stopped what they were doing to attend. Well, all but the children and a few select adults who watched over the young ones.

There weren't many children in the Flock, but the few the group had were not included in the meetings. Nor were they permitted access to the main compound building at the resort the group owned, operated, and lived on the grounds of.

The cult, for lack of a better term, had many faults. Keeping the little ones from seeing anything they shouldn't didn't tend to be one of them. Though they had failed in that respect two years back, and once before that as well.

The latter had been a night she would never forget. It was the night she'd first seen her father attack her mother, his intent to kill her. He'd unleashed a fury on her mother the likes of which Amelia had never seen before. He would have killed her then and there had it not been brought to his attention that she was expecting. The child was newly formed but there all the same. That had been the only thing that had stopped Amelia's father from completing what he'd set out to do.

It had saved her mother's life that night and given them the opportunity to flee, but ultimately, it had not been enough to prevent the inevitable.

The death of Amelia's mother at the hands of her father.

Tonight marked the two-year anniversary of her mother's passing. No one had ever paid for the crime. Mostly because within the Flock, the act had not been seen as law-breaking at all, but rather fitting punishment for going against Father.

Amelia nearly gagged at the fact the Flock called Cal Father when he'd not actually fathered any of them. In all his thousands of years, the man had only had two children—Amelia and her sister, Andie.

And he'd then murdered their mother right before their very eyes.

Andie, who was now just over the age of four, was tucked away in her bed, being watched over by adults who specialized in caring for children. For all the caregivers' faults and their stupidity in buying into the cult's rhetoric, they were good to the children. Unless, of course, they were all forming a circle around someone they saw as a threat to them and their way of life. Then they were downright terrifying.

"I've called you all here on this night to tell you the time is upon us," said Cal, causing a ripple of gasps to go through the large crowd. "The one we have waited for is nearly here."

They lowered their hands, all of them falling silent as they stared up at their leader.

He offered a smile that was meant to be reassuring. "I have seen it. The one who will usher in change is nearly upon us. He will arrive any day now."

The crowd cheered, having waited so long for this special someone Cal often spoke of. Most of the cult members were hundreds of years old. Being immortal allowed for that. Even with all those years under their belts, they still allowed themselves to be brainwashed.

They bought into hype.

Into madness.

"Is he the bringer of light or darkness?" asked one of the followers in the front row.

Cal stroked his long, well-kept black beard. "Time will tell. I have hope that the Bringer will lead the Flock in my stead."

He'd been talking about who would take over the Flock from him since Amelia was little. It wasn't as if he was going anywhere. For one, he was immortal and one of the most powerful supernaturals out there. For two, he would never willingly hand over control of the Flock. He liked being seen as a god in their eyes far too much to walk away from it all. He'd already proven he picked the cult above all else.

"One of our very own, as predicted, will be instrumental in bringing him into the fold," said Cal, looking up and over the crowd. His dark gaze landed on her and his smile widened.

She stiffened.

He pointed to her. "Amelia, come. Join me."

She took a small step back, only to find herself being shoved forward by a woman who got on her last nerve.

Susan was a medium-height blonde woman who desperately wanted to be Cal's main love interest. Problem was, he wasn't really a one- woman kind of man. No. He preferred to bed nearly all the women in the cult. It didn't matter if they were already paired off with a male. They were fair game. And the men in the cult saw it as an honor to have their women selected to bed Father.

The men also had no issue sharing their significant others with one another. Some of the rituals of the Flock were nothing more than huge orgies.

"Come, daughter," he said, still holding his arm out. "Join me in your rightful place—by my side."

The Flock cheered as Amelia walked slowly toward the platform. She felt a lot like she was on death row, doing a last walk on the way to the electric chair. In place of death would come the taint of darkness that would never wash off.

Susan stayed directly behind Amelia, forcing her in the direction of the stage. Amelia had half a mind to turn around and claw the woman's eyes out, but she held back. Already her plan for escape had been set into motion. She wouldn't risk it now over someone as pathetic as Susan.

All eyes fell onto Amelia as she made her way to her father.

When she was close enough to the platform, her father's security team, who were called his advisors but were really just muscle, converged on Amelia. Taggert, the scariest one of them all, made sure he was the one who touched Amelia. He grabbed her hips tighter than need be and lifted her with ease, setting her on the platform. He then ran his hands over her in a manner that was anything but appropriate, but in a way that others couldn't see.

Her father took hold of her hand quickly, steadying her. He drew her closer and kissed her temple. "Sweet daughter, the day is near for you to fulfill your destiny. You will ensure the Bringer of Change comes to be with us. You are the glue that will hold him to us."

Amelia's gaze flickered downward to Taggert, who stood at the base of the platform with his arms crossed over his massive chest and a look of pure hatred on his face. She already knew his thoughts on the entire Bringer of Change. He wanted the man killed. He thought the change the man ushered in would be the end of the Flock.

Amelia could only hope Taggert was right.

That someone would put an end to the madness.

Taggert also had a warped idea in his head that Amelia would accept a forced mating to him, and he'd then inherit the Flock one day. Not likely. Amelia would never mate with him, forced or not. And Cal didn't seem to be in any hurry to increase Taggert's responsibilities, as if he felt Taggert was already working to his capacity.

Cal lifted Amelia's hand in the air and the crowd cheered louder. "It's important we all be prepared for the arrival of the Bringer of Change. You all know what must be done."

A round of yeses came from the people.

Cal motioned for one of his men to bring him his acoustic guitar. They did, and he looked to Amelia, giving her a slight nod. She didn't want to join him in song and worship. She wanted to go back to the cabin she shared with her sister and then head out to meet with a contact. The impromptu gathering was cutting into her time for the evening. Already she'd be late enough as it was.