Alexis pulled the homemade lasagna from the oven and checked the time.
Again.
There were still a couple of hours before dawn, but Ronan should have been back by now.
Whenever they made plans to spend the day together, he never stayed away for long, especially when he had her Kawasaki. Not only did he respect her boundaries where her motorcycle was concerned, but they both treasured the escape of physical pleasure too much to resist the temptation. The promise of sex was like opening the gates to an amusement park. Neither was getting it elsewhere, and it had been weeks since they’d been together, their tryst earlier this evening notwithstanding.
In Alexis’s opinion, they didn’t have sex enough.
No, he wasn’t her mate, and no, she didn’t want him to be her mate. She wasn’t even in love with him.
But praise be to God, Ronan knew how to fuck her just the way she liked.
In that way, their partnership was perfect.
But it wasn’t all play and no work. They made a great team in the field. He didn’t get in her way when they hunted bounties, and he made the perfect backdoor man during a hit. And when they needed medical supplies, they could be in and out of a pharmacy undetected in less than three minutes, coming away with twice what she could snatch by herself.
But when the work was done, the play began.
And, oh, how they played.
He fondled her breasts, sucked and nibbled her nipples, and spanked her without getting too rough. Best of all, he tied her up and indulged her rescue fantasies, pretending to rescue her from her make-believe incarceration, getting her so hot she sometimes came just from being untied.
Of course, sometimes her fantasies took her down a darker path. One where she wanted him to pretend to be her captor, and she was his hostage. The thrill she got when they performed this way was just as exciting and just as explosive as when they played rescue games, only in a more sinister way.
Sometimes, she felt as though she were trying to rewrite the horrors of her childhood through her fantasies so she didn’t see herself as a victim. By taking control in her fantasies and playing them out with Ronan, she found a certain amount of reconciliation with the past. No longer was she the scared little girl paralyzed by fear. Instead, she became the aggressor, taking what she wanted and turning her captor into her savior when he realized he adored her so much he could no longer keep her restrained. All her fantasies ended by having her bindings removed.
The only problem with letting her fantasies follow this course was that Ronan was not her prince. She couldn’t even call him her savior. He was a means to an end. A reasonable facsimile. A stand-in for the real thing.
And that was just fine by her. She didn’t need the real thing. She’d survived on her own for over one hundred years. She could survive on her own a hundred more and then some.
But who knew the abuse she had suffered as a child would manifest in adulthood as a sexual fantasy so powerful she could get off without being touched.
She went to the front door and glanced through the peephole. Nothing. No Ronan. No Kawasaki. Only his Jeep, still sitting at the curb like a dog waiting for its owner to return.
She paced into the sitting room, pushed the opaque curtains aside, and scanned up and down the street. Still nothing. No sign of him anywhere.
Returning to the door, she disengaged the series of locks and deadbolts securing her home then stepped onto the porch. There was a slight chill in the air, but otherwise, it was a comfortable night. Inhaling, she sought for any sign of Ronan on the breeze.
All she picked up was the stench of urine from a nearby alley and a hint of fresh-brewed coffee from her neighbor’s brownstone. Her neighbor was an older human female who was up by four every morning, rain, snow, or shine. She was actually awake early today. Bad dream, perhaps?
Passing one last glance up and down the street, she went back inside and returned to the kitchen, where she took a sip from the glass of wine she’d poured for herself while waiting on the lasagna to bake. It was a lovely cabernet. Rich and full. It would pair well with the hardy Italian dish.
She sat on a barstool.
She tapped her fingernail on her wineglass.
She glanced at the clock.
“Fuck it.”
Hopping up, she covered the casserole dish of lasagna with foil and shoved it into the fridge. Then she twisted her long hair into a ponytail, tucked it under a black knit skullcap, and grabbed her gun, a spare clip, her jacket, and keys.
In a flash, she was out the door and locking up. The next moment, she ducked into the shadows on the side of her porch and dematerialized, following the trail Ronan had left hours ago.
It was easy to track him, not only because of the scent of blood his bullet wound left behind, but because they fed from each other. It was easier to track someone you’d fed from than it was to track someone you hadn’t, and vice versa.
She homed in on the South Side. Ronan had been itching for a fight, and the South Side was where you went when you were looking one. And like any other adolescent male vampire, Ronan had a lot of angst to work out.
If only a vampire aged more like a human. Human adolescence ended between nineteen and twenty-five. In comparison, a vampire’s adolescence could, on rare occasions, continue past the age of fifty. In his late forties, Ronan was a perfect example of that.
But here was the catch: By eighteen, a vampire looked more or less like they would as a “mature adult.” Their body would continue to age through their transition, which usually ended by the age of twenty-six—usually, because there were always exceptions—but at eighteen, a juvenile vampire could do almost everything a mature vampire could do. They could have sex. Feed. Take a mate. Have young. Their dematerializing and memory-altering skills might still lack, but that was about it.
And nothing said “babes raising babes” like a twenty-year-old vampire with a child. It happened. Not often, but it did.
That would never be Ronan, though. The guy was more averse to taking a mate than she was. Mostly because of what had happened with his parents. His father was a fucked-up mess of a male still suffering over the loss of his true mate, and his mother had been ripped away from him when her true mate had found her. So, yeah, there weren’t a lot of happy family memories for Ronan to emulate. And not much of a foundation to build on. A father who was emotionally bankrupt and mentally fractured half the time, and a mother he hadn’t seen since he was a little boy.
Was it any wonder Ronan acted like a rebellious teenager?
Within seconds, Alexis ghosted into an alley and found her Kawasaki. Just in time, too. A pair of hoodlums had spied her ride and were prowling in for a closer look, all “Whoooooeeey! Would you look at that.”
She materialized between them and the motorcycle, her gun already drawn.
Anywhere else, pulling a gun would have been overkill, but not on Chicago’s South Side. Here, pulling a gun was how you said hello to strangers, especially when they were eyeing your property like they wanted to have sex with it. People killed for a whole lot less than a motorcycle on the South Side, where you could get shot just for your shoes.
The two lowlifes stopped and blinked, their mouths falling open. They were probably trying to decide whether she was real or a hallucinogenic product of whatever narcotic they’d swallowed, smoked, or injected.
“Sorry, boys, this ride’s taken.” She cocked her Glock and put the laser sight between the eyes of the one on the left. The one who had flinched like he was thinking about doing something stupid, like trying to disarm her or maybe pulling his own gun. Nope, not gonna happen. If he so much as twitched like he was going for a weapon, she would blow a hole in him. “I think you understand.”
“You don’t think we can take you?” the one on the right said.
“Nope.”
He raised one eyebrow, leering as his gaze passed over her body. “There’s two of us, baby, and only one of you.”
“It wouldn’t be a fair fight even if there were six of you. Trust me, I can shoot both of you dead before you can even wrap your amateur hand around the pistol you’ve got tucked somewhere inside those ridiculously loose jeans hanging off your ass.” It was her turn to raise an eyebrow, challenging Mr. Dipshit to make a move.
For a long moment, they stared each other down, neither backing off. Then the guy on the right took a slow backward step.
“Yeah, okay. It’s your ride, baby. We were just watching it for you.” He shoved his friend’s arm. “Right, Spider?”
Spider? Really? That was the best nickname he could come up with?
“Yeah, yeah. We was just watchin’ it for ya.”
She nodded and waved them away. “Well, I’m here now. Go guard someone else’s ride.”
She kept her gun trained on them while fishing her keys from her pocket with her other hand. Then she deactivated the net pod, slung her leg over the seat, and fired her up.
Only then did she lower her gun and tuck it into the back waist of her jeans.
Cranking the throttle and the brake, she swung the Kawasaki around as the engine whined, the back wheel spinning and throwing up gravel and white smoke. Then she gunned it, leaving Dumb and Dumber in the alley scratching their balls.
She picked up Ronan’s trail again, followed it to a warehouse where she found two freshly dumped bodies, then tracked around to the side of the building where the smell of drecks and cobalt wrinkled her nose. A dead dreck lay crumpled on the dirty, wet pavement.
Yep, Ronan had definitely been there.
But where was he now?
Investigating, she picked up the scent of another vampire. A female. One high on cobalt and in distress. Her scent mixed with Ronan’s, which meant only one thing. He’d been a good little Boy Scout and taken her somewhere for help.
And where does one vampire take another who’s suffering from a cobalt overdose?
That’s right. The only place that could help. AKM.
Jesus.
She really didn’t need to show her face around AKM for a baker’s dozen of reasons, but if she was going to find out what had happened to Ronan, she would have to bite the bullet and at least follow Ronan’s trail there.
After racing home, she changed into clothes a little more appropriate for a common civilian, slicked her hair into a tight spiral, and pulled on one of her wigs. Then she rolled her eyes—because why in the hell was she doing this?—said a quick prayer that nobody would recognize her from a WANTED poster or by scent, and poofed to the shadows of AKM’s rear parking lot.
She wasn’t actually a criminal, but her profession sometimes put her in opposition with the king’s enforcers and their mission, and she didn’t want to risk bumping into anyone who might have picked up her scent from a kill or could otherwise identify her. Given her surroundings, it would be best to keep herself as invisible as possible.
Checking herself to make sure her disguise was in place, she started around the building.
Only to be accosted by a hooded, shadowy figure that leaped from the shadows only a few feet from the front of the building.
So much for staying invisible.
Her back slammed into the brick wall, and a heavy hand landed over her mouth.
But Alexis was not just some pansy-assed pretty face. She was a fighter. Her training had gotten her out of tighter situations than this, and if she kept her wits and struck back swiftly—before her attacker could completely incapacitate her—she’d get out of this one.
She slammed her forearm against her attacker’s, trying to dislodge his hold. When that didn’t work, she shot her other hand out and struck whoever the guy was in the chest.
A deep, masculine oomph! was music to her ears as his hand fell away and he took a staggering step backward.
Seizing the opportunity, Alexis turned to bolt, only for that same heavy hand to cage her wrist in a hold so strong, she’d be lucky to get away without any broken bones.
“Alexis, stop. It’s me.” The male thrust back his hood.
Everything stopped. She knew that scarred face. She knew it well.
“Hunter?”
What was he doing back? Hunter had been exiled twenty years ago, right before—
“Is she still alive?” he asked.
She. Her sister. Annalise.
This wasn’t a conversation to have here, especially when she hadn’t been prepared for it.
“Hunter, maybe we should—”
His grip tightened, making her wince. “Is she still alive?” The desperation in his face tightened the jagged scar that ran from above his right eyebrow, over the bridge of his nose, and down his left cheek to curl and come to an end at the corner of his mouth.
Bowing her head, she closed her eyes. Why did he have to be here? Why now?
“No,” she murmured. “Annalise is dead. I’m sorry.”
A choked noise broke from his throat, and his grip weakened, his hand eventually falling away from her wrist as he stumbled backward until his back hit the wall of the building next door to the one that housed AKM.
“Dead? My beloved . . .” He didn’t so much as fall to the ground as his body folded in on itself and sank with the pull of gravity until his butt kissed the pavement. “She’s gone? My Annalise . . . my heart . . . she’s gone?” His eyes lifted to hers, glistening against the light coming from a nearby streetlamp. “How? What happened?”
“Hunter . . .”
“Please . . .”
He looked so defeated. So . . . broken. They’d been close once. A long time ago, when Annalise had still been alive. “I’m so sorry, Hunter.”
“Alexis, please tell me . . . how did she die? Was it . . .” His slashing eyebrows dug toward the bridge of his nose as his jaw tensed. “It wasn’t my brothers, was it? It wasn’t Memnon and—”
“No.”
“Then how?”
She knelt beside him and gently placed her hand on his arm. “Annalise died in childbirth, Hunter.”
His expression twisted into one of agony. “Childbirth? My son? He killed her?”
Of course he would know his child was a son. Like vampires, lycans could sense the sex of their unborn children.
She moved closer and took his hand inside both of hers. “My sister loved you. When you were sent away, it broke her heart.” She squeezed his hand as his fingers curled tightly around hers. “I did what I could, but it wasn’t enough.”
He lowered his head and raked his free hand through his thick black hair. Forward and back, forward and back, until it stuck out in all directions. Tears fell from his chin, landing on his black cargo pants, where they soaked into the fabric.
All she could do was watch. This was her sister’s lover. No, Hunter was more than that. He’d been her mate, as far as vampires and lycans could mate one another. And she had died because he’d been taken from her.
Yes, he was a lycan and she’d been a vampire, but they had loved each other in the most magical, truest way, despite the aggressive resistance of her family and his brothers. No one had wanted them to be together, but they had persisted, defying them all.
Which had led to Hunter’s eventual exile and, ultimately, to Annalise’s death.
“What are you doing back here, Hunter?” she asked gently. “Did your brothers let you return?”
He shook his head, but Alexis didn’t know if he was answering her question or still in denial over her sister’s death.
“Hunter . . .?”
He dropped his hands to his knees and looked up. A glimmer of hope shone in his eyes. “My son. What of my son?”
Oh, God. She’d known he would ask, but that didn’t make answering any easier. She needed to tread lightly and choose her words carefully.
“Alexis?” His gaze drilled into hers, begging for good news. “My son. Did he survive?”
She couldn’t tell him the truth. Not only because she’d sworn secrecy to her sister, but because too much was at stake, the danger too great if the truth came out. Not only did she have to worry about Hunter’s brothers, but her own family. No one had wanted the baby to survive but her, Annalise, and Hunter, and nothing had changed. Twenty years might have passed, but to her family—and, most certainly, the lycans—that wouldn’t matter. She hated lying, especially to Hunter, who she had always liked, but telling the truth wasn’t an option.
“I’m sorry, Hunter . . .” It wasn’t really a lie, because she was sorry, but that didn’t do anything to make her feel any better, because she knew he would take her somber apology as an admission of his son’s death.
Fresh tears puddled on his lower rims, and his strong brow twisted with anguish. “He didn’t . . .? My son is . . .?”
Seeing his pain nearly undid her. The backs of her eyes stung, and she had to blink and look away. When he dropped his forehead to his thick forearm and began sobbing, she nearly cracked.
“Oh, Hunter, I’m so, so sorry.”
If only she could tell him the truth, but that would put them all in jeopardy. She needed to remain strong. For the sake of the innocent, she needed to keep her vow of secrecy.
After a couple of minutes, Hunter straightened and wiped his face as he pulled himself together and clamored to his feet, keeping one hand on the wall behind him as if to catch himself should his knees give out.
She pushed to her feet, too, ready to catch him should his emotions overtake him again.
Once he was upright and stable, he drew in a deep inhale, squared his shoulders, and blew it out. “Thank you, Alexis. Thank you for telling me.” Another deep breath, and then another. He appeared to be piecing himself back together with each pump of his lungs.
“I wish I had happier news.”
“No, I needed to know the truth. I will mourn them, and then I will move on.” Bitter determination wrapped around his words. Bitterness at his brothers, no doubt, who had forced him to leave Annalise. He knew as well as she did that if he’d been allowed to stay, she would still be alive and their family intact.
She wanted to invite him to visit her when he was finished mourning, but she held her tongue. It was best they not see each other again. If he came to her, she might slip and tell him the truth. And if that happened, all hell would break loose.
The less she knew about Hunter and his whereabouts, the better, and vice versa.
Then the thought occurred to her . . . Hunter was here. At AKM. And he didn’t know the fate of his own son. So then, why was he there?
“Did you follow me here?” she asked.
“No,” he said without hesitation. “I followed my brothers.”
The air blasted out of her. “Your b-brothers?” Her gaze darted to the building.
Shit, shit, shit!
His face hardened as he wiped away the remnants of his tears with his palm. “Rameses, Dain, and Priest. They’re here, and I must speak to them.”
“What are they doing here?” Please, God, please don’t let them figure out the secret.
“They are here for a vampire who was bitten by a werewolf.”
Ronan! She knew without Hunter having to say it that the werewolf’s victim was Ronan.
Her heart began racing. “Did he have dark hair? Was he dressed all in black?” No wonder Ronan never returned.
“Yes.”
A chill rippled through her body. “Oh, God.”
“He’s a friend of yours?”
“Yes.”
“Then I have detained you too long.” He backed away.
She was already making a break for the front of the building. “I’m so sorry, Hunter, but I . . . I need to—”
“Thank you for telling me about Annalise,” he said dismissively. Then his eyes flashed, and he turned and disappeared into the shadows as if he’d never been there.
Part of her ached for him. For the pain he was surely feeling at such a weighty loss. She paid the empty darkness a moment of deference before turning and rushing toward AKM’s entrance, barely pulling herself together before reaching the door.
The encounter with Hunter troubled her, but she had greater things to worry about, such as seeing Ronan and making sure he was okay. Maybe they weren’t mates, and maybe they weren’t exactly what you’d call lovers, but she cared about him. Hell, he was her best friend.
Calming herself, she forced herself not to rush inside and demand to see him. She needed an excuse for being there. Something that wouldn’t give her away. What did she know about AKM that she could use to get her back to the medical ward?
Blood. That was her way in. They always needed donations of vampire blood.
Tugging the door open, she stepped inside.
The female behind the desk glanced up. “May I help you?”
Here went nothing.
“Does AKM still take blood donations?”
The female’s eyes opened a little wider as if she were pleased to see her. “Yes, we do. Are you here to donate?”
“Yes.”
The receptionist picked up her phone and punched in a series of numbers.
Alexis noted that the female had a bandage on her arm where one would be if she’d recently given blood herself.
“We’ve transferred that task to our new facility,” the female said as she brought the receiver to her ear, “but we brought in a couple of emergencies tonight, and I know they need blood back there, and”—she straightened and directed her attention to the phone —“yes, this is the front desk. Tell the doctor I’m sending someone back to make a blood donation. Yes. Uh-huh. Right away.” She hung up and buzzed open the double doors to the left. “Go on back. Just follow the signs to the trauma center. Normally someone would come up to get you, but they’re all pretty busy back there.”
That had been easier than she thought. No security check or anything. Then again, there were probably enough vampires in the building to sniff out danger if it entered unchecked.
Alexis tried to remain calm as she passed into the hallway that led into the heart of AKM.
Speaking of hearts, hers was beating at twice the normal rate. Not because of what had happened with Hunter, and not because she was afraid of needles. The very real threat of incarceration inside King Bain’s dungeon had a way of spiking her adrenaline. She didn’t always operate on the legal side of the law, but that was the cost of taking care of those who couldn’t take care of themselves.
Once the double doors closed behind her, her pace picked up. Bulletin boards and notices lined the walls, but she didn’t notice any WANTED posters with her face on them. That was a good sign. As she traveled farther and realized how vacant the building was, she picked up her pace again. She was practically jogging as she spied a sign for the trauma center that directed her down a hall to the right.
Less than ten seconds later, she pushed through the doors of the trauma unit.
The doctors and nurses didn’t seem to be running in crisis mode, but tension filled the air, as if at any moment a buzzer would go off and send everyone into a fit of emergency rescue.
“Are you the one here to donate blood?” a nurse asked.
She nodded, searching for Ronan but trying to look like she wasn’t searching. But it was hard pretending to be nonchalant when your heart was beating hard enough to break through your rib cage.
“The receptionist made it sound like there was some kind of emergency back here,” Alexis said.
The nurse let out a soft laugh and pointed her in the direction of an examination room off to the side. “You should have seen it thirty minutes ago.”
Just as Alexis began to follow the nurse to the exam room, she caught sight of three towering lycans on the other side of the room. The blond one appeared a bit grey and green around the gills. Rameses, Dain, and Priest. Hunter’s brothers.
She quickly ducked her head and hurried into the room on the nurse’s heels.
“What happened thirty minutes ago?” she asked as the nurse closed the door.
“Werewolf bite victim was brought in. And before that, an overdose.” The other female prepped her arm. “It’s been a crazy night.”
“Sounds like it.” Her foot tapped nervously.
“Afraid of needles?” the nurse asked.
“No.” She immediately stilled her foot.
Her arm was banded, the needle inserted, and the blood bag began to fill.
The silence was too much for her. She needed to find out what had happened to Ronan.
“I didn’t think werewolf bites were dangerous to vampires.”
“This obviously wasn’t a normal werewolf.”
“How so?”
The nurse shook her head as she checked the bag. “I guess it was genetically modified. The venom was pretty deadly.”
“Deadly?” She swallowed. “Did the vampire die?”
“Almost. It was touch and go for a while, but he pulled through. One of those lycans out there helped heal him. But he’s in for a loooong recovery.”
Thank God Alexis had gotten a Chatty Cathy nurse. If only everyone she tried to get information out of was as forthcoming.
“How long?”
“Weeks? Months? I don’t know. We’ve never seen anything like this. All I know is that he’s in a lot of pain, so we’ve sedated him.”
This was horrible, but thank God Ronan was alive.
The nurse finished drawing her blood then bandaged her up.
“Okay, you’re all set. Thanks for coming in. Our blood supply is running pretty low after the night we just had, so this really helps.” She lifted the clear plastic bag of blood.
Alexis stood and glanced around. She couldn’t leave just yet. Not until she saw Ronan with her own eyes. And maybe one of their other patients. One who seemed to be in a lot more danger now than he’d been twenty-four hours ago, especially with Hunter’s brethren there.
“Um, do you have a ladies’ room I can use?”
“Sure, I’ll take you.”
The nurse led her out of the exam room. She kept her face hidden as she passed the lycans, but her eyes remained alert, glancing back and forth, searching for her best friend. Within seconds, she found pay dirt.
As the nurse took her past a set of rooms, she saw Ronan in one of them, lying like a corpse under layers of blankets, eyes closed, face gaunt, his skin almost translucent. It looked like he’d lost twenty pounds in the last few hours. Jesus! What had that werewolf venom done to him?
“Here you go.” The nurse opened a door marked for females and flipped on the light switch. “I’ll wait for you over there.”
Thanks.
She went inside and locked the door. Okay, so she’d found Ronan and satisfied her curiosity that he was at least safe, even if he looked like death. Now she needed to find the other patient currently in AKM’s care that she was personally attached to. The patient she’d been sworn to protect but had let get captured by Bishop’s lackeys, anyway. A mistake she would never forgive herself for, considering what had been done to him.
First, she needed to convince the nurse to let her stay in the medical unit just a little longer. She cranked on the cold water and splashed some on her face then lightly blotted it dry before pressing her hands against the damp paper towel for several seconds. Just long enough for her hands to feel cool and damp.
After waiting a little longer, she opened the door and took a shaky step out, pressing her hand to her forehead.
The nurse rushed forward. “Are you okay?”
“Yes, yes, I think so. Just a little woozy.” She made it a point to touch the nurse’s hand so she could feel how “clammy” she was. “I think I just need something to eat. I haven’t eaten in hours, and then giving blood, you know . . .”
The nurse nodded and guided her to a chair. “Sit here. I’ll get you some juice and crackers.” She hurried off.
Alexis glanced around. The lycans were still gathered on the other side of the room, chatting quietly to one another, not paying her a bit of attention.
She peeked into the room nearest her. Empty. The next one was occupied, but she couldn’t see by whom, even though the main area of the trauma unit was arranged in a large circle, probably so the nurses at the station in the center could keep an eye on every patient.
Her gaze traveled to the next room, and she leaned forward in her chair as she sniffed the air.
“Here you go.” The nurse appeared in front of her, holding a bottle of orange juice and a package of cheese crackers.
Alexis quickly leaned back, pressing her fingers to her forehead as if she were woozy.
“Thank you.” She took the offered refreshments and unscrewed the lid on the juice.
The nurse patted her on the shoulder. “Take your time. When you’re ready, just call me over and I’ll escort you out. My name’s Jan, by the way.”
She ripped open the package of crackers and pulled out one of the little round sandwiches. “Thanks, Jan. I should be fine in a few minutes. Don’t let me keep you.”
Jan hurried off, leaving Alexis alone. As she nibbled on her crackers, she tipped her head to the side and peered into the room three doors down.
There was a doctor in the way of her seeing the patient’s face, checking the bags of fluid hanging by the bed.
Come on, move.
She swallowed more juice and started on another cracker.
The female doctor remained at the bedside. It looked like she was taking the patient’s pulse or maybe listening to his breathing. As she grabbed the blood pressure cuff that hung on the wall, a nurse joined her. From what she could pick up of their conversation, it sounded as though the doc wanted some of the patient’s blood drawn.
Several irritatingly long moments later, the doctor removed the cuff from the patient’s arm, folded it, and stuffed it back in its station on the wall next to the bed. Then she made a quick notation on her tablet and left the room, finally revealing what Alexis assumed all along.
The patient was Achilles.
Or, rather, Savill. That’s what the human couple who had adopted him named him.
But to her, he would always be Achilles.
Her sister’s son.
Hunter’s son.
The most important secret she’d ever possessed.
She glanced back at the lycans still huddled in discussion.
If they figured out what lay less than fifteen feet away from them and made a move for her nephew, this trauma unit wouldn’t just have three more patients. It would have three DOAs.
She had failed to protect Achilles once. She would not fail a second time.