Chapter 12

CHAPTER 12

" Y our destiny is from Iowa," Elliott said, as if they hadn't covered that already. He felt like he suddenly had no idea how to talk to her, though. She'd taken the news about fated mates so well, and now he was just a big dumb lunk from Iowa. "Land of corn and potatoes."

"My kind of state," Aoife said with a laugh. "What made you decide to come to Ireland?"

"The corn and potatoes," Elliott replied solemnly.

Aoife laughed again. She had a deeper laugh than he would have expected, almost furry in its softness. "Well, I have bad news for you on one front, then, but Ireland will never disappoint you in potatoes. C'mere to me now, do you want to go out to the pub after we've eaten? There's a trad pub up the street and there'll be music tonight."

"A ‘trad pub?'"

"Where they play traditional music and have céilís. A party," she said before he asked. "And it's spelled C E-fada I L I-fada but pronounced kaylee."

"Ee-fada?" Elliott asked hopelessly.

Aoife's grin suggested she'd done this to him on purpose. "It's just the accent mark over the letters. It means the E and the I are pronounced A and E, in this case."

"It's like a foreign language," Elliott said, wide-eyed, and Aoife snorted.

"It is, pet. It's Irish."

They ate their way through a remarkable amount of Chinese food, although when Elliott finally pushed his plate away, Aoife examined her own, then, straight-faced, said, "Looks like you ate the lion's share."

He felt an expression of complete dismay slacken his face. Aoife threw her head back and pealed laughter at herself. "All right, come on, let's pay and go for a walk, it's too early yet for the céilí."

"It's almost eight o'clock!"

Aoife gave him an amused, almost pitying look. "You Americans and your early nights. It's an hour before half of them will even show up, and more than that before the party really gets going."

"Hey, cats like to sleep!" Elliott rose and managed to pay for dinner before Aoife could object, then, feeling pleased with himself, accepted the fortune cookies they were offered, and followed Aoife out into the city. He'd follow her anywhere, he thought, and not just because watching her walk was a revelation in how sexy a small woman could be. She simply made his heart sing.

Lions don't sing, his lion objected. They roar. Ferociously .

Yeah, buddy. She makes my heart roar.

The lion was satisfied with that, and Elliott, happy, smiled even more widely when Aoife took his hand. "River or, em, not-river? Although I won't lie to ye, this city is a load of little islands paved over between them, so really it's river, river, or river? We just can't see most of them."

"Is it really?" Elliott looked down, as if he'd see the river beneath the street.

Aoife nodded. "It is so. It floods every time the tide comes in."

" Really ?"

She laughed. "No, but it does flood a lot. I grew up here, you know? And I love it. I went to Germany for uni, and got my masters, but I always knew I'd come home to Cork. I'm lucky that there was a job opening at the wildlife park just when I needed it."

"Incredible," Elliott murmured, and he meant it. "I'm less directed. I always wished I had a vision of what I wanted to do, but I barely made it through college. I did tech support for a while after that, but it wasn't enough to pay off my student loans, so I ended up getting an apprenticeship with an electrician. I don't mind it, but it's not a passion, like you've got. It just pays well."

Aoife laughed. "Well. There's something to be said for that. The wildlife park doesn't underpay us, but I'm not sure there's any job in conservation that pays well . I probably should have gone into welding or something."

"Now that sounds fun." They'd reached the riverside, walking down it hand in hand. It was still cloudy, amber streetlights reflecting orange into the sky and bouncing it back down into the river to be caught in the eddies and swirls of its surface. "I could get behind doing stuff with fire."

"You might have to cut your hair. Ooh, would that make your lion's mane shorter?"

"I don't know," Elliott said with amused horror. "It'd kill me if it did. It's very proud of that mane."

It's the finest mane any lion has ever had!

Since it was, in fact, an exceptionally good mane, Elliott nodded reassuringly at his lion as Aoife's eyes widened. "It can't, though, right? I mean, it can't kill you, that'd be suicidal, right?"

Elliott snorted. "No, you're right. Instead it would whine and whimper and snivel at me until it grew back. It'd be intolerable."

I do not whine! In its defense, the lion didn't whine, not then, at least, which made Elliott grin as Aoife gazed at him with interest. "So, what, does it talk to you?"

"Often," Elliott admitted. "Sometimes helpfully. Usually not. It does want me to tell you, right now, that I don't appreciate it and probably can't appreciate you, our fierce lioness queen."

The lion sniffed. That is true.

"Ooh. I could get used to that. Please tell it I appreciate it, anyway."

His lion swelled with delight, and Elliott, grinning, reported, It's now completely puffed up with pride. You have no idea what you've done. Not to change the subject, but there's an opera house ?" His voice rose and broke with surprise as they approached the opera house on the south of the River Lee. "I've never been to the opera. Do you think one's playing?"

Aoife shook her head, smiling. "Probably not starting at half eight, no. They usually start around seven, I think. I've never been, either. We could go on another night, if we get out of the park earlier."

"I can sneak out the human entrance," Elliott offered. "I mean, I don't have to stay all the way until closing. Although if anybody comes around to check on me, that's a problem."

"I assume…" Aoife slowed, obviously thinking. "Anybody whose job it is to take care of the day trippers must be in the know, like. Though I'd have thought Peader might know, then! He deals with herbivores, and that does technically include elephants! Although I think he really only deals with the ungulates. We've never had any weird ungulate visitors, unless you count the elephant." Her eyebrows drew down, then lifted again. "But, no, I don't think Peader was responsible for the elephant. I think they had a keeper with them. Oh my God!" she blurted. "Their keeper was probably the elephant, too, wasn't it?"

"Oh that's why Dr. Kelly wanted me to meet some of the staff," Elliott said wisely, then winced. "Of course, I probably blew that with the whole bison-riding stunt. I'm a lion-keeper and a circus acrobat?"

"That'd be illegal here now, but you could've been, not all that long ago. I mean, we were probably about ten when it stopped, but…"

"I was a runaway to the circus at age six," Elliott said expansively. "I spent the formative years of my life training as an acrobat and lion-taming, only to be thrust out of my chosen profession when they rightfully changed the laws about animals in circuses, and I've wandered the world, looking for the opportunity to use my singular skills to the benefit of all humanity, ever since…"

Aoife laughed, then made a pleased sound as bells across the river began to ring. "Ah, there we are! Back around to the pubs now, the music will be starting."