Chapter 3

A listair was an alpha. He'd been born to lead, had been in countless circumstances over the years where he'd had to think on his feet and defend his people from various dangers. Just recently he'd helped to defend the park shifters against a group of jackals that had tried to take one of the gorilla's soulmates.

In those situations, he was completely at ease.

But right now, he was as nervous as a teenager on a first date.

And it was because of the brunette beauty he was certain was his soulmate.

Maggie.

He'd followed his heart right to the picnic area and found himself drawn to her immediately. The pull was so strong that he had trouble holding onto his elephant and keeping his trumpet call of joy from erupting.

She was petite and curvy, with a dark chocolate waterfall of hair that was curled around her shoulders. Her emerald-green eyes sparkled with interest when he spoke to her, and he couldn't stop staring at the curve of her lips.

He'd never wanted to kiss anyone so badly in his entire life, but she was a teacher and there were a couple dozen young kids in the area, so he kept his lips and his hands to himself.

While the group finished eating, he moved back to the others who'd been tasked with escorting the kids through the park.

Rhomi and Lucy were the main tour guides, and there were a few other males nearby, ensuring no one wandered away, including Rhomi's mate Mercer, who was a lion, and Lucy's mate Tarquin, who was a bear. Lucy herself was an albino doe. Her sister, Luna, was in the norms' paddock in her doe shift.

Joss, the wolf alpha, appeared with Caesar, the lion alpha, and Alistair moved a few yards away to speak with them.

"Mercer gave me a heads up and I called Joss," Caesar said. "We heard the good news. Which female is your soulmate?"

Keeping his voice low so it didn't carry past their trio, Alistair said, "The brunette. Her name is Maggie."

Joss hummed. "Human."

"Yep," Alistair said.

"We assume you'd like to stay with the group," Caesar said.

"Definitely," Alistair said. "But I want to appear as if I belong." He didn't want Maggie to think he was some creep hanging around without any reason to be there.

"No problem," Joss said. "You can replace Alfie, who was going to be the tour guide in the third Jeep. We'll just make sure that you're the guide for whichever Jeep Maggie gets in."

"Have fun answering six thousand questions from the kids," Caesar said with a grin.

Alistair was well versed in the spiel the guides used on the tours and wouldn't have any problem sharing the facts about the animals in the paddocks and answering the kids' questions, if they had any. He hoped, anyway. He didn't want to look like an idiot in front of his soulmate.

But he wouldn't mind whatever questions the kids threw his way if it meant he could be with Maggie. Even if she was going to be busy watching the kids and he had to pay attention to the tour. "It'll be worth it."

Joss and Caesar wished him luck, and he moved to stand with Lucy and Rhomi. By that time, the kids had finished eating and were disposing of their trash in the big bins. The teachers and adult volunteers corralled the kids away from the picnic area and through the park to the safari tour staging area, led by Rhomi and Lucy.

Alistair followed at the back of the group with Mercer and Tarquin.

"Happy for you," Mercer said.

Alistair nodded. "I was beginning to wonder if it would happen for me."

"What, because you're in your forties?" Tarquin asked.

Alistair snorted. "I'm not in my forties, I'm forty. It's different."

"Sure, sure," Mercer said, then laughed, with Tarquin joining in.

"You're both jackasses," Alistair said under his breath.

He didn't mind the teasing, though, because his beautiful soulmate was ahead of him, helping kids get into the large tour Jeeps and smiling sweetly at them.

She was really so stunning he couldn't quite believe his luck.

The larger issue loomed ahead of him—how the hell was he going to tell her the truth of what he was? They had their own rules that every shifter had to follow, namely that they didn't share the truth of their shifting nature with their soulmate until they'd fallen in love. It was a way to ensure that the human wouldn't go telling anyone else what they learned.

Many of the soulmates who'd come into the park one way or another were human. Sometimes they learned the truth in a startling way, like Rhomi, who'd accidentally witnessed Ginny shifting from jackal to human, or Lexy, who'd fallen asleep with Win and he'd shifted to his gorilla while they were sleeping.

Talk about a wake-up call.

He'd just have to take his time and win Maggie's heart, and then he could tell her everything. Until then, though, he wasn't permitted to stay overnight with her outside of the park, and if he took her on a date, he'd have to have an escort, which would most likely be a couple of the lions from the security team following at a distance.

He sighed and rubbed the space between his eyes.

He had a hell of a lot to do—move into one of the apartments topside so he had a place to take her that appeared to be his home, and oh yeah, figure out how to get a human to fall in love with him.

Mercer clapped him on the shoulder. "See you at the end of the tour. Good luck."

"Thanks, man."

Alistair jogged to the third Jeep, which held eight kids and Maggie. Benjamin, one of the wolves, was behind the wheel. He smiled at Alistair as he stopped next to the passenger side.

"Hi, kids," Alistair said. "I'm Alistair and I'm going to be your tour guide. Are you ready to see some animals?"

The kids cheered and Maggie smiled at him, her cheeks turning pink.

While they waited for the other Jeeps to make their way from paddock to paddock, he played twenty questions with the kids trying to figure out which animal was his favorite, and then they tried to figure out Maggie's favorite.

His was elephants, of course.

His elephant was a little bummed that her favorite was the bears.

We'll change her mind .

Once they were on their way, they stopped at the elephant paddock first, and all the kids got out of the Jeep with Maggie and Alistair. He took a group picture with the kids in front of the paddock as Cael lumbered over and trumpeted loudly for them.

Alistair shared some facts about elephants and let the kids ask questions.

They made their way to the rest of the paddocks one by one, stopping for a photo and chat before heading to the next.

When they returned to the staging area, Alistair helped the kids out of the Jeep and then offered his hand to Maggie.

"Thank you so much for the tour," she said. "The kids loved you."

He smiled. "I had fun. I hope you did too."

"I did." She cleared her throat and chewed on her bottom lip. "I'd like to…ah, shoot. Hold on."

One of the kids had spilled their water bottle, and she moved to help.

"We're ready for the next part of the tour," Rhomi said loudly. "The carousel!"

Maggie moved the kids along, and he fell into step next to her at the back of the group.

"What did you want to say?" he asked.

"Oh. Uh…um…" she stuttered, and didn't say anything, which he thought was adorable. After a long pause, she stopped and faced him. "I'd like to get your phone number. If you don't…have someone in your life? Like you're married or in a relationship? Ack! I sound like a loon." She put her head in her hands and breathed out an exasperated chuckle.

His elephant was fully enchanted by her.

"You're not a loon, I promise. I was going to ask you for your number too. It was just tough with the kids around. I'm not married or in a relationship. You're not either, right?"

She dropped her hands. "Nope, I've been single for a while."

He pulled out his phone, and she gave him her number and he sent her a text. Her phone pinged and she smiled at him.

They caught up to the kids, who were now in line for the carousel, which had been recently restored by August and his mate Ginny. Ginny told the kids the history of the carousel and invited them to take turns riding as much as they wanted for the next hour, and then they'd each get to take one of the special large cherry suckers the candy shop had prepared for them.

Alistair leaned on the iron fence around the perimeter of the large ride next to Maggie.

"The kids have had such fun today," she said. "The park really pulled out all the stops."

"Did you have fun too?"

"Definitely."

When she smiled at him, her eyes crinkling at the corners and a dimple forming in one cheek, he wanted to rush her off someplace private and see how soft her lips were and if she tasted as good as she smelled.

He managed to once more keep his hands to himself.

"I'm free tonight," he said, trying to sound casual but feeling like he sounded anything but casual.

She glanced at him. "Oh?"

He cleared his throat. "Yeah, if you were…also free, I could maybe take you out to dinner?"

She hummed softly but didn't say anything.

He immediately began to doubt whether he'd misread the situation. He knew they were soulmates, but she was human and sometimes humans thought things moved too fast.

"I'd love to go out with you," she said. "School ends at two-thirty and I have to clean out my desk, so I probably won't be home until four, but we can talk after that and make plans if that's okay."

He opened his mouth to say it was fine with him, when he realized what she'd said. "You're cleaning out your desk?"

"I'm a substitute. The regular teacher is coming back Monday, so this is my last day with this class. I don't have a job lined up yet, but hopefully I'll get an assignment soon."

While the kids spent an hour riding in circles on the colorful horses and the music just about drove him insane, he and Maggie talked quietly about her being a teacher and him being a vet tech for the park's animals.

"That sounds amazing," she said. "I always wanted to work with animals, but I didn't want to spend all that time in college to become a vet."

"It's a lot of schooling," he mused. "I didn't want to be a vet either. I like being an animal handler, though, because I get to work with all the animals."

"Has Tank ever caused you any problems?"

"Well, he did break my wireless earbuds," he said with a chuckle. "But generally if he's not in the mood to be friendly, we can usually coax him around with carrots. They're his favorite."

"I love that."

They spoke for a little while longer, and then the kids were getting their suckers and saying thanks to the tour guides as they marched away to the parking lot where the bus was waiting.

"I'll call you after four," he said. "I'm so glad I met you today."

"I'm glad I met you too," she said. "See you soon."

They said goodbye at the gate, and then he stood with the other tour guides while they waved at the kids until the bus was gone.

His elephant let out an annoyed grunt at her having to leave. But soon enough, he'd be on his way to see her for their date.

"She's really sweet," Rhomi said. "It's so neat how fate works out."

"It really is," he said. "Now if you'll excuse me, I need to move into one of the apartments and get ready for a date."

"Good luck!" Tarquin called after him as he jogged away from the parking lot and headed to the employee cafeteria. In just a few hours, he'd be on his way to pick up his soulmate and take her out on the best first date of her life.

He didn't know what that would look like, though, but he'd figure it out.

She was the most important person on the planet to him now and he was going to pull out all the stops to make it a memorable night.