FOUR

EIGHT MONTHS LATER

Del-Rey stared out at the night as the heli-jet neared Haven. The sky was clear; stars studded the midnight expanse and a full moon shone down on the land with vibrant golden rays. 

Forests ringed the nearly two hundred acres of valley that the Wolf Breeds now commanded, a far cry from the less than a dozen acres they had held before. Federal land had been granted to them as yet more government officials within the U.S. had been proven to be part of the Genetics Council’s lower ranks. Top secret files obtained from select agencies had shown an influx of money through those channels as well as weapons and military trainers. 

Two hundred acres of Uncompahgre National Forest, so far, had been deeded to the Wolf Breeds, with another five hundred acres expected to be ceded to them within the next year. 

The valley the Wolf Breeds claimed as home was within full sight of the cliff peak that the Coyote Breeds had invaded a little over eight months before. That single mountain had been given to the Coyotes due to the fact that it represented a threat to the valley below and hadn’t been in the original land given to Haven. It was a home Del-Rey was now determined to return to. 

He’d just finished an investigation into Engalls Pharmaceuticals and a division of that company, Brandenmore Research. The two companies were working covertly on a drug that would control a Breed’s free will. The investigation had taken longer than he had originally believed it would. 

He hadn’t been back to Base in over two months. 

He hadn’t smelled his mate in two months. He’d had too much time to think and too damned much time to regret. And he was sick of being away from Base, being away from his mate. 

“Where do you think we’re headed next?” Brim smothered a yawn as the pilot contacted Haven’s base and neared their airspace. 

“We’re not going back out,” Del-Rey stated, his gaze still narrowed on the night sky. 

Brim’s silence lasted a little too long. 

“You promised the tribunal a year,” Brim reminded him quietly. 

“I know what I said,” he growled. “We’ll go fuck off at the beach for a few weeks here and there. 

Hell, take the girls to fucking Disneyland or some shit. I’ve had it, Brim. This is bullshit. My mate runs my fucking base better than I do, and on top of it”—he turned to his second-in-command and bodyguard—“did you read that fucking report Sharone finally got around to sending to us? This is a disaster waiting to happen.” 

He was going to start sweating again. Hell, when he’d read the original report, he swore his hands had shook. His mate was too damned brave, courageous and daring, and those female bodyguards he had allowed her were just as damned bad. 

He ran his hand over his face and shook his head. Eight months. A man could do a lot of thinking, conniving and planning in eight months. When it came right down to it though, he knew when he’d reached his limit. Del-Rey’s limit had been reached. 

“Should be easy enough to put another team on Engalls and Brandenmore with our information,” 

Brim stated. “All we need is the proof now.” 

“Proof better come soon,” Del-Rey snarled. 

Brandenmore and Engalls, CEOs of the two companies they were investigating, had nearly been the cause of several Breeds’ deaths as well as a librarian in Virginia who had overhead their plot. 

Being forced to release them to gain information had left a bad taste in Del-Rey’s mouth. 

Information had come in. Information that would save a young woman’s life, and enough medical knowledge to prepare a fail-safe in case another Breed was infected with the drug. But damn if he hadn’t wanted to kill the bastards still walking the streets. Smug, superior, Phillip Brandenmore and Horace Engalls were the worst that humanity could produce. And they called Breeds animals, he snorted silently. 

The black heli-jet came in, full stealth, and settled on the landing pad above the two-story welcome entrance at the gates of the Wolf Breed compound, Haven. The doors slid open silently, and figures, tall, dark and silent, stepped from the craft and moved with lethal precision to the steps that led down to the side of the building and the entrance door. 

Del-Rey and his team didn’t make a sound as they entered the secured building, moved through the security protocols, then entered the enclosed Wolf Breed compound through a lower door. 

“Alpha Leader Delgado, we have a vehicle awaiting you and your men.” A Wolf Breed escort stepped forward in the low light that surrounded the outside of the structure. “Alpha Leader Gunnar and the Wolf Breed Cabinet have assembled as per your request.” 

Del-Rey gave a sharp nod. He motioned two of his men with him, the other two he gave a silent signal to return to their own base within the cliffs that rose high above the peaceful valley. 

With him was Brimstone and another member of his team who was also part of his security as alpha: Cavalier, the Breed Anya had helped him to rescue before the main facility rescue. 

She had never understood why he took only a few at a time. It had been imperative to weed out the spies, to show her that often those she trusted would betray her. And when it came to his packs, he wanted the assurance of loyalty. Cavalier had information he needed and a view into the facility that even Anya and Sharone wouldn’t have known to make note of. 

The drive to the pack headquarters in the center of the compound wasn’t a long one. The valley was nearly two hundred acres of pristine grassland and rising, centuries-old cotton-woods, pines and oak. They sheltered the cabins and buildings within, and deep beneath the base of the mountains that rose above them was a command center rivaled only by the Felines or the American government itself. 

It took time, though, to clear Security in the main building of the headquarters. An elevator ride took them down to the bowels of the base, and then they had another drive through steel and cement to the once abandoned military base that the Wolf Breeds had been given access to. 

Over the past seven years since Haven had been established, the majority of work had gone into this defense and operational base. Above them, the serene valley reflected a love of nature, privacy and established camaraderie, if one overlooked the armed guards hidden in the mountains and the sheltering branches of the trees. 

Below was the heart and soul of Haven’s security, and it ran like a well-oiled machine. 

“The cabinet is waiting in meeting room three on the third level,” the Wolf Breed guard said and nodded to them as they entered an elevator. “Dash Sinclair and his family arrived just ahead of you.” 

Dash Sinclair had risen up the ranks of Breed hierarchy quickly since his revelation of Breed status. A Breed with recessed genetics, he had escaped his labs at ten. He had gone into the American foster care system, been educated and was in the military until a little girl’s letter drew him back to America and awoke the animal that had stayed suppressed within him. 

His daughter, Cassandra, was still a sore point with Del-Rey, but he knew she had been wounded several months before during an operation that she should have never been in the middle of. 

“How is Ms. Sinclair’s recovery?” he asked. He hated the woman’s logic, her ability to argue for everything he had rejected with every part of his soul, but he had seen the tender, compassionate woman she was in her concerned gaze the day she had argued for his mate’s freedom. 

“She’s doing much better.” The guard nodded. “She’s here at Haven at present under the care of Dr. Armani. We still haven’t learned who broke into her hospital room that night.” 

Cassandra Sinclair had had a visitor as she lay in a near coma state, surrounded by Wolf and Feline Breed guards. Someone had managed to cut a hole into a window more than twelve stories above the ground, slip into her room and send her into screams of hysteria. 

The last Del-Rey had heard, she had no idea who or what had been there with her. 

Del-Rey clenched his jaw as the Wolf Breed looked back at him expectantly then. Each time he had arrived at Haven, always secretly, always under the cover of night, the Wolf Breeds watched him with the same expression. As though waiting for him to ask the question he had no intention of asking: How was his mate? 

“Here we are.” The elevator shuddered to a stop depositing them in another steel-and-cement corridor. Water, electrical and various other pipes ran along the walls. Monitors displayed general orders and Breeds—Wolf, Feline and Coyote—moved with an array of humans that had aligned with them. 

Some with clipboards, some chatting with companions—they were all heavily armed and prepared. 

Del-Rey, Brimstone and Cavalier followed behind their escort until they came to a door, the same gunmetal gray color as the rest of the operational base. 

Stepping inside the entrance alone as it slid open, Del-Rey motioned for the other two to wait for him as he faced the Wolf Breed Cabinet that had come together. 

There were six of them. Just as there were six in the Coyote Breed Cabinet, six to the Feline Breed Cabinet. Dash Sinclair; the Wolf Breed Alpha Wolfe Gunnar; Aiden, a class one enforcer; Jacob, Haven’s head of security; Faith, Jacob’s wife and liaison to the other packs; Hope Gunnar, Wolfe’s wife; and the lupina, second-in-command of Haven. 

“Del-Rey, welcome back.” Wolfe and the others rose from the table, hands extended in greeting. 

Once the preliminary meet-and-greet bullshit was over with, Del-Rey took his seat and slapped the file he carried with him in the center of the round table, in front of Wolfe. 

The pack leader’s expression tensed as he opened it and read the report Del-Rey and his men had put together with the help of the Bureau of Breed Affairs, the Feline Cabinet, and the investigations he and his own men had done into the subject. 

The file was passed around the table, each member going over it carefully, their expressions telling the same story. Disbelief and anger. 

“Will it ever stop?” Jacob murmured, his low voice harsh as he finished the file while his wife read over his shoulder. He slid it on and waited. 

Del-Rey watched as Faith laid her hand on her mate’s shoulder, her cheek against the top of his head. The connection, the bonding between them ignited a flare of rage in him that threatened to spark out of control. They were mated. The scent of their bond, their emotions and need for each other was an affront to his senses. An insult to everything that he had been forced to walk away from. 

When the last cabinet member, Dash Sinclair, closed the file, Del-Rey felt the tension as it began to ratchet up through the room. 

“We’ll need to convene the full cabinet together,” Wolfe said heavily. “This is a risk to all of us.” 

The full cabinet was something even Del-Rey had never seen. Each species of Breed had their own cabinet. The twelve-member tribunal he had faced eight months before was a selected mix to deal with smaller issues that concerned the society as a whole. Such as when Anya Kobrin had demanded separation from her mate. 

The full cabinet was another story. Six members of each species. The Wolf and Coyote packs as well as the Feline pride. Added to that was the six-member board selected from within the Bureau of Breed Affairs, comprised primarily of humans except for the director of the bureau, Jonas Wyatt. 

The full cabinet was twenty-four members in all, and Del-Rey had a feeling its meetings wouldn’t be as social and well conducted as the few pack meetings he’d been called to. 

The risk in not calling together the full cabinet was growing by the day. 

“There’s not enough evidence to prosecute the pharmaceutical company or the research and development arm that’s conducting the experiments,” Del-Rey stated. “No evidence that they’ve used Breeds in that research, either willingly or involuntarily.” 

Wolfe ran his hand wearily over his face as he pulled the file back to him and reopened it. Del-Rey knew what he would find there. In the past four weeks the Feline Breed scientist Elyiana Morrey had nearly died from the drugs that had been used to attempt to force her to destroy a Lion Breed known to have an anomaly in his blood suspected to induce a primal strength and rage known as feral fever. 

Mercury Warrant had developed feral fever in the labs where he had been created and trained. At the time of his rescue the scientists there had developed a drug therapy which, in essence, controlled him, locked the animalistic power inside him and forced him to obey the commands given to him by his trainers and creators. 

A variation of that drug had been used on the scientist. The lack of the feral hormone for the drug to attach to in her blood had created far greater, nearly fatal results. It had almost destroyed her mind. Now there was evidence that Breeds unknown to the Breed community were being captured or somehow convinced to participate in the experiments with this drug. 

Three Breeds had been found just within the past week, their brains fragmented by the pressure that had built within them. One had nearly killed a human, and keeping that one covered up hadn’t been easy. 

“This drug could become our personal nightmare,” Del-Rey told them. “It doesn’t just have the power to steal our will; it also has the power to make us killers and nothing more. The Bureau is working to get more information but their contact within the companies has disappeared. They suspect that person won’t show up alive.” 

“They’ve found a way to create the killers they always wanted.” Hope’s horrified whisper filled the room. 

“Not entirely,” Del-Rey stated. “There are symptoms when the drugs are being slipped into the victim. Our concern is the rumor that the research company has managed to find volunteers. 

Breeds who were led to believe that this would recess their Breed genetics.” He leaned forward slowly. “The Breed that nearly killed the police officer was younger, unknown and unlisted with the Bureau of Breed Affairs. We know there are still facilities holding many Breeds captive, moving them often. He could be one of those, or a volunteer. Whichever, we have a problem on our hands.” 

Faith spoke up. “Dr. Morrey was given the drug by Breed assistants in her lab. Breeds that showed no signs of being under the drug themselves. Greed.” 

“Greed,” Del-Rey agreed. “The past eight months that I and my team have been chasing down rumors and leads on this, the company managed to actually get the drug into Sanctuary. We need to stop this now.” 

“And stopping it would require . . . ?” Wolfe asked. 

“One of the teams need to be granted full sanction,” Del-Rey stated, staring back at them coolly. 

“Leashing your enforcers and forcing them to hold back in this investigation won’t get the answers you need.” 

Dash sat back in his chair and regarded him silently. 

“Full sanction?” he asked. “Very few of our teams are allowed that status, Pack Leader Delgado, and none are available now.” 

“Then you better make one available,” Del-Rey stated coldly. “Do you think keeping a leash on your enforcers is going to work in this situation?” 

“Your team has been investigating this since the first,” Wolfe said then. “You should still have time to finish it.” 

His jaw bunched. “I’ve brought you enough to put a sanctioned team on it,” he told them as he rose from his chair. “Go over the file. I should also point out something you’ve obviously overlooked.” 

Wolfe frowned back at him. “And that is?” 

“One of the first trials of this drug was on a human in Haven, eight months ago. The drug was slipped into her food and drink during visits to her parents in the neighboring town. It was considered a failure because she didn’t follow her final order.” 

They were all sitting forward now, expressions dark, savage. 

“Jessica,” Wolfe growled. 

The young military communications officer was still in confinement, nearly a year after she had betrayed the pack. She was alive only because the Wolf Breed suspected to be her mate refused to allow her to be turned over to Breed Law. 

That left confinement until the full cabinet could make a decision on whether or not her actions warranted death. The matter hadn’t been brought before the cabinet because the Wolf Breed Cabinet had yet to decide if that was the action they would take. 

“She was tested for drugs,” Faith protested. “None were found.” 

“The drug has a masking agent.” Dash’s voice was savage now. “It’s not easy to detect.” 

“I’ll be returning to my pack,” Del-Rey informed them. “There are issues I need to take care of there. I’ll no longer be handling the conclusion of this assignment.” 

He turned and moved for the door. 

“Del-Rey, you promised your mate a year.” Faith spoke up then. “Its only been eight months.” 

He stopped, looked over his shoulder slowly, his eyes narrowed on the woman as his lip curled. 

“You must have neglected to put that provision in the agreement I signed. There’s no time stated there, and I have duties to my packs, just as the rest of you do. You can inform my coya I’m back. I may have neglected to do that as well.” 

He stepped from the meeting room and nodded to his men before making his way from the secured underground rooms. He kept at bay the hard smile that would have curled his lips. 

Over the months, he had taken the time to learn about mating heat. He’d made certain he received all Dr. Armani’s reports on his mate and he’d studied them carefully. He hadn’t hesitated to ask questions. 

Getting reports on Base or personal details from Sharone wasn’t hard, simply because she was always eager to talk about her coya. Hell, every damned man and woman on base thought the sun rose and set on their coya’s ass. 

It was the details he had begun to learn that Sharone was leaving out that made his decision for him. Particularly the month before when Anya, coya of the Coyote packs, had convinced her security detail to take her to a bar, in the small town of Advert, nearly an hour from the Haven base. Once there they had proceded to become involved in a barroom brawl that cost his base nearly a thousand dollars in damages. 

A drop in the bucket compared to the price his teams commandeered for their private and government security work, but still, his mate had been there. In a barroom brawl where she had been fighting like a man and taking out her excessive adrenaline surges on the unwary, rather than him. 

Damn her. What the hell did she think she was going to get away with next? A lover perhaps? He had nightmares about that one. Full, vivid, blood-splashed nightmares where he ripped off the head of any man that dared to touch her, while she stared on in horror. 

It was time to return to his place as alpha. Time to show his wayward little coya her place in his life. And it wasn’t merely taking over his base while he was gone, not that she didn’t do a damned fine job of keeping things together in his absence. It was a job that would be done more effectively if he was working with her. She couldn’t train his soldiers. She couldn’t make military decisions, and she couldn’t aid his pack leaders in choosing the men to be assigned to the Bureau rotation. Every six months teams of Wolf, Feline and Coyote Breeds shifted and moved among the command bases. At present, he had twelve Felines and twelve Wolves on base. 

Sanctuary had just as many Coyotes and Wolves, and Haven commandeered the same number of Felines and Coyotes. 

Two of those Coyotes assigned to Sanctuary were the two younger twin females that had come out of the compound with Anya. They were teenagers now and needed a firmer hand than Del-Rey was comfortable applying. What the hell did he know about female teenagers? 

He knew the reports on the older three, and those made him sweat. The price of their clothing, makeup and shoes alone was enough to make a man flinch. Not that Anya spent nearly as much. 

No, he had to have his gifts sent to Haven and then forced on her by the lupina there, Hope Gunnar. 

Stubborn damned woman. She was making him insane. 

“Coya is still on base,” Brim reported as they stepped into the all-terrain that would transport them along the steep road that had been curved through the mountain to the base entrance. 

“Sharone says she requests a few additional days as you didn’t inform her of your impending return and she considers that grossly unfair.” Brim’s lips twitched as he gave Del-Rey the message. 

Del-Rey grunted. “Tell her that’s too damned bad. I’ll be there within the hour.” Then he grinned. 

“Tell her to please apprise my pack leaders that I’ll need them in Command when I arrive.” 

Brim grinned and relayed the message before disconnecting the link to Base that he now wore at his ear. The cylindrical earpiece extended just past the ear. The built-in receiver and mic made communication between Base and Haven much more effective. Separate channels had been built into the interface, and reception was as clear as the satellite phones they used. 

“You could be playing a dangerous game with your coya, Del-Rey,” Brim informed him. “If she walks, the people she brought out of Russia may walk with her.” 

Del-Rey shook his head. “They’re Coyotes; they know a winning side when they see it. I’ll win, Brim.” 

“Overconfidence, my friend?” Brim asked him. Only Brim could have gotten away with that question. 

“Desperation,” Del-Rey growled. “Just wait, Brim. When you’ve gone nearly a year with a hard-on that threatens your sanity, then you question me about overconfidence.” 

Anya turned to Sharone, staring at her silently for long moments after her friend and bodyguard relayed Brim’s message. 

“He asked me to do what?” she finally asked quietly. 

“Call together his pack leaders to Command; he’ll be meeting with them on his arrival.” Sharone cleared her throat. “He refuses to wait the extra time you requested to return to Haven.” 

Anya crossed her arms over the light gray sweater she wore as she tapped her foot irritably against the stone floor of the community room. Around her, off-duty soldiers slouched and watched the huge television screen mounted on the wall or snacked on whatever they had managed to put together for dinner. 

It was going to take her days just to figure out what the hell had happened to the supplies in the kitchen area. Either they were eating more, or someone was saving back supplies again. 

She’d had that problem in the first months. The soldiers would slip food from the kitchen—it didn’t matter what it was—and hide it, just in case they began running low. She suspected it was the younger Coyotes. Food wasn’t exactly plentiful in the facility they had been created and trained within. They couldn’t get used to the fact that this was no longer the case. 

She breathed out heavily as her bodyguard fought to hide a smirk. 

“Let that smile free and I won’t fix dessert for a month,” Anya warned her. 

Several growls turned on Sharone. Male Coyotes who had been shamelessly eavesdropping. 

Sharone rolled her eyes. “They’re worse than that damned Styx when it comes to their sweets.” 

“Remember that.” 

“I don’t know.” Sharone shrugged. “Rumor from Sanctuary is that Del-Rey has told Jonas to take a flying leap. He’s returning to Base for good.” 

Base. She was tired of hearing it called Base. It wasn’t the damned base. It was home. Just as Haven was home to the Wolves and Sanctuary was home to the Felines. Yet Coyotes called home Base. Like soldiers rather than men. 

“He wouldn’t dare.” Anya tossed Sharone an irritated look before turning and heading to the exit tunnel that led to her quarters. “Contact the team leaders and let them know to be waiting on their alpha in Command. Get Emma and Ashley back here, tell them playtime in town is over. 

Their alpha has returned.” 

She didn’t question why she was following his orders. She should have contacted him herself and told him to take a flying leap. But if she did that, then it would affect the team leaders and the soldiers under them. That was uncalled for. Her personal battle with Del-Rey shouldn’t affect the men, and too few women, who worked within the caves and caverns the Coyotes had taken over. 

She listened as Sharone relayed her orders. She couldn’t leave yet; there was still too much to do and she hadn’t been given warning. If she left without preparation, then the place was a mess when she returned, sometimes weeks after Del-Rey arrived. 

She ignored the leap of excitement building within her though, the little ember of warmth that burned low in her stomach at the thought of seeing him again. If she didn’t ignore it, then she was forced to remember everything that was sure to piss her off. To hurt her. 

She hadn’t quite gotten over the hurt yet. Her father and cousins had healed without complications. They were back to full strength; the flesh wounds they had received had healed nicely. But Anya’s heart hadn’t quite healed, and she knew it. She still woke in the middle of the night crying out for him, and she still remembered the feeling of complete isolation as the pleasure of their sexual encounter eased away. 

She had been cold. So cold clear to her soul that sometimes she wondered if she would ever be warm again. At the time, she had known she wouldn’t. And she would never forget his answer to the Breed tribunal when Cassandra Sinclair had asked him if he loved his mate. 

Had he actually suggested he could learn to love her? As if she wanted him to learn anything. 

She stomped into her personal quarters, casting a glare at the door that led to Del-Rey’s. She had started to move her rooms, until the pack alphas had come to her, refusing to allow it as per Del-Rey’s orders. 

Everything was Del-Rey’s orders. At least everything he could get away with. She still hadn’t seen her father, despite his transfer to the United States. He and her cousins and their families now lived in California, having been slipped from Russia by a combined Wolf and Feline Breed mission. 

Because she was now Del-Rey’s mate, her family represented a threat to her welfare if they remained where the Council could easily reach them. 

She was coya of the Coyote packs. Second-in-command when Del-Rey and his lieutenants were off playing heroes. When he was back, she had always been moved to Haven, where she paced and worried and knew all the hard work she had done at the base was being ruined by Del-Rey. 

Coyotes had a tendency to be a little deliberately lazy. Not so much on the job. They could be counted on to do their jobs. But keeping the kitchen in order, the community room free of debris and the reports flowing smoothly weren’t always as easy to ensure. Because Del-Rey let them slack off. 

Sharone piped up. “Maybe we’ll have an official ceremony soon. With the alpha back, he could decide it’s time to seduce his coya. You know you can’t get out of officially accepting your title much longer. Whether you sleep with that bad-assed Coyote or not, that ceremony is serious shit. 

Even the soldiers that came out of Russia with us are looking forward to it.” 

The ceremony. That’s all she heard about was that damned ceremony. It was a wedding, pure and simple. But for some reason it held much more significance to the Breed community than it did to some humans. 

“I’d be satisfied if he’d just learn how to clean the dirty clothes out of his quarters while I’m gone,” Anya snorted. “The man excels at deliberate messiness.” 

“At least he excels,” Sharone laughed. 

“This isn’t going to work,” she stated, swinging around to stare back at Sharone as she closed the door behind her. “I haven’t managed to straighten out the messes he left me last month when he returned. I can’t leave yet.” 

Sharone’s hazel green eyes gleamed with amusement. “You’re going to stay while the alpha is in residence? Oh, Coya, very brave,” she drawled. “And here you’re a day late on hormone therapy injections? Guess you should have gone to see the doc yesterday, huh?” 

There was another problem. That Wolf Breed quack was starting to get on her nerves. There was something wrong with her, she didn’t care what Dr. Armani said. The dreams were coming back. 

Bright, sensation-ridden dreams of sex. The kind of sex where Del-Rey wrapped around her, whispered all the lies women liked to hear and left her aching for release. It had to be the mating heat. Armani had to be wrong about her hormone levels, there was no other option. 

“Contact Armani and tell her I’ll be in first thing in the morning.” Anya worried her lower lip as she thought. “Maybe I can convince her to up the dosage a bit with Del-Rey here.” She looked at Sharone questioningly. “If that worked, then I wouldn’t have to leave every time he got a wild hair up his butt and decided to come back.” 

“Del-Rey? Get a wild hair up his butt?” Sharone snorted. “No body hair, remember?” 

That was Sharone, mocking and sarcastic. 

“Don’t pick on me, Sharone,” she ordered her. “This situation is bad enough with Del-Rey returning as it is.” 

Her emotions were ready to overload. Excitement. Anticipation. She was tired of hiding from something that wasn’t her fault. This mating heat crap was kind of under control. The mating heat hormone levels were steady. She had periods of arousal, but Armani kept arguing they were normal. Baloney. What she was feeling was not normal. It couldn’t be. Otherwise, it meant she was actually missing that wisecracking, lying, mangy Coyote and she refused to do that. 

“So, should Emma and Ashley get the cabin in Haven prepared?” Sharone asked. 

Anya grit her teeth and stared back at the other woman in fierce determination. “I don’t think so. 

Let’s see how long he can actually stay with the coya in-house so to speak,” she bit out. “A hundred says he’s gone in a month.” 

Sharone laughed. “A hundred says you’re knotted again within the week.” 

They shook on it. Anya had no doubt in her mind who was going to win.