Chapter 4

CHAPTER 4

E lliott cast Dr. Kelly one very apologetic look as Aoife ran out the door. "I'm sorry. I just assumed she knew. But if you'll excuse me, I'm definitely going with her."

Dr. Kelly waved a hand as if she'd given up on everything. "Of course you are. Don't you dare let new love mess up my wildlife park, Elliott."

"No, ma'am!" Elliott rushed out the door behind Aoife, wondering how he was going to explain any of this. She'd taken the whole "I'm a lion" thing well, but the follow-up he'd intended, the one that went "and you're my fated mate," well. Dr. Kelly had headed that off at the pass, which maybe hadn't been a bad idea. Maybe you shouldn't tell people they were destined to be with you less than ten minutes after meeting them. Especially, maybe, if they were on the clock.

Of course, technically, he guessed he was also on the clock. He was, after all, a tourist attraction for the next week or so, and if he wasn't reliably padding around his den so people could see him, then he wasn't earning his overnight keep at the park.

Well, that was something to worry about later. Aoife was just at the edge of the gravel-covered parking lot, swinging into a golf cart emblazoned with the wildlife park's insignia. "Excuse me! Aoife! That's such a pretty name! Hey! It's me, Elliott!"

As if there was anyone else even around at 9:22 in the morning. Aoife twisted in the golf cart's seat as she turned it on, and her first expression was one of delight. Elliott's heart leaped. Then her eyebrows pulled down, and Elliott's emotions crashed earthward with them. "Do you need a lift back to the enclosure? Because it's the wrong direction and I'm in a hurry."

"No, I want to come with you!" Elliott skidded to a stop at the cart's side, feeling like a hopeful golden retriever instead of the king of the jungle. Not that lions lived in jungles. They lived on the savannah, generally, unless they were mountain lions, which was an entirely different species than Elliott himself. Tigers were actually the kings of the jungles.

He waited a moment, seeing if any of that babbling had come out aloud or if it was all in his head. Aoife's expression didn't change, so he decided he was safe. After another moment, he said, "Please?"

"Well, get in! Not that you should be going with me, but I've no time to argue about it!"

Elliott was in the cart before she'd gotten halfway through that. "Thank you. I had no idea I'd meet someone like you when I came to Ireland. I knew it was a good idea to come, but not this good."

Aoife pulled out of the parking lot at a speed he hadn't know golf carts could travel at. "Someone like me? Someone who didn't know shifters existed until a big gorgeous guy turned into a lion in the office?"

Elliott beamed. "You think I'm gorgeous?"

Aoife, who could apparently handle a golf cart like a Formula One race car, took a corner fast enough to startle a flock of grey geese, who thrust their heads out and ran like a pack of dinosaurs. Without looking at Elliott, she said, "I'm not dead, am I? Or blind in two eyes? So of course I think you're gorgeous. Out of the way, you blasted birds!"

She honked, and the geese, which had slowed down, put on a burst of speed again, and this time veered off to the grassy park around a small lake. Their arrival startled a pelican, who flapped ponderously a few times before giving up the effort. "So how many of there are you?"

"What? I have an older brother and a much younger sister?—"

" Shifters . How many shifters are here at the park. "

"Oh! I don't know." Elliott clutched the grab handle at the bottom edge of the golf cart's roof as Aoife zoomed around another corner. "There's Dr. Kelly, obviously?—"

" Obviously ," Aoife muttered in a way that suggested it was not obvious. Upon reflection, Elliott thought that was fair. He also thought he might not be making a great impression on her, and he wasn't sure how you fixed that, even if it was your fated mate you weren't making a good impression on. He hadn't even known you could make a bad impression on your mate.

Oh, his lion said wisely, you can always make a bad impression on a lioness.

The only thing to do, Elliott concluded, was keep trying. "—obviously, no, I get that, it's probably not obvious, um, but she's the only one I know about. I haven't met anybody else, though."

"Would you know?" Aoife gave him a quick look, which was great and all—her eyes were incredibly dark, like chocolate ice cream with fudge sauce—but Elliott found he would really prefer it if she watched the road. It turned out twelve miles an hour or whatever it was that golf carts could go at was really fast if a maniac was driving it at that speed.

"Road," Elliott squeaked. "Road?"

"I'm watching the road!" She was, too. It had just been that alarming moment where he'd been drowning in her eyes when she hadn't been, and it was possible that hadn't lasted as long as it felt like to Elliott. " Can you tell other shifters when you see them?"

"Yeah, we know each other. Recognize each other. The same way we recognize—" They'd gone across a little bridge and were now zooming past cheetahs, who watched as if they were distantly interesting snacks.

"—people who are safe to talk to?" Aoife demanded, audibly interested. She sounding like she was trying to learn everything about shifters in the three minutes they had between getting into the golf cart and having to get out of it again. "How did you know I was safe?"

"Well, it's a little complicated, are those kangaroos ?" There were definitely kangaroo-like things over to their left now.

"Wallabies. There's a whole island of them over on the east coast of Ireland."

For a moment, Elliott wondered if he had severely misunderstood Ireland's location on the globe. A little faintly, he said, "We…we are in the northern hemisphere, right? Off the northwest coast of Europe? Five…five thousand miles from Australia?"

"More like ten thousand. Yes." They'd passed the wallabies and the cheetahs alike, and were suddenly at the front gates to the park. "Out!"

"What?" He was definitely not doing a good job impressing her. They'd seemed to vibe, back at the office talking about transference of mass, but things had gone wrong since then. Of course, she was working, and he was probably a terrible inconvenience. No one had ever suggested a mate could find him inconvenient.

This was all much more nerve-wracking than Elliott had expected.

"Out!" Aoife said again. "I have a whole bunch of executives to bring around today and I've got to make a good impression. They're considering a massive fecking grant and the park can't afford to lose it."

Elliott got out of the cart and watched Aoife swing out the other side. "Don't take this wrong, but aren't you kind of junior to be wining and dining the bigwigs?"

Completely to his surprise, Aoife gave him a huge grin, almost a laugh. "I am, but oh my god, you have no idea how bad Dr. Kelly is at giving the tours. It's an embarrassment."

"Come on, it can't be that bad. She's got to know everything she needs to know?"

"Oh, and then some. No, the problem is that she can't believe everybody else doesn't know and starts getting mad at them, frustrated like. Or worse, she starts being condescending, because she really is terribly clever and can't stand it when other people can't keep up. It's desperate altogether. So we just don't let her do it anymore."

Elliott had mostly emailed with Maureen Kelly, and then met her this morning. She had an aura of extreme competence, but also had a brisk, almost sharp, edge to her. He could see how she might be someone who became impatient with people who didn't share her expertise. "How'd she end up running a place like this, then? Usually the people with these jobs are good at glad-handing."

"She's friends with the head of the Gladiator Foundation, do you know it? No? They're brilliant. Loads and loads of money for wildlife conservation but they can't single-handedly fund everything, why am I talking to you, I've a tour to meet!"

"If I pay my tour fee can I come with you?" All he really wanted was to spend the day with her, although he was distressingly aware that at some point he'd have to go back to the enclosure and be on display for several hours.

For now, though, Aoife made an impatient noise that Elliott took as acceptance. She strode to the gates.

Elliott didn't exactly chase after her. He just happened to be going the same direction she was, at great speed. She, however, stopped inside the gates to grab a sign that said 9:30 Tour Group! , while Elliott scurried outside to buy a ticket for the tour. And, as it turned out, for the park, because he didn't actually work there and the kid behind the counter of course didn't know that Elliott was the lion on loan.

There were five people with Aoife when Elliott got back to her: two men in their fifties, a woman of around his own age, and another woman in her forties with a tweenager who looked enough like her that Elliott assumed they were mother and daughter. They were all white, and the three older people were dressed for business, although the woman was wearing flats instead of heels. She had a tablet computer with a stylus at the ready, and a laser-like focus on whatever she was doing.

The younger woman had a bohemian tourist vibe, with her hair in thick, almost matted braids, layers of brightly colored but lightweight clothing, and Birkenstocks that showed off painted toenails. The little girl, who was probably about eleven, was examining her toenails with interest, but looked up when Elliott walked over. "Hi! I'm Molly. You're tall ."

Elliott chuckled. "I guess I am. Hi, Molly. I'm Elliott. Nice to meet you."

The bohemian girl smiled flirtatiously up at him. "Hey. I'm Kanvas. With a K, of course."

"Reall—I mean, uh, hi, Kanvas. Elliott."

She sparkled. "Really, yes. My parents wanted me to embrace the world as something that could leave its mark on me." Her voice went rather sultry in the explanation, filling it with undertones that Elliott had no interest in exploring. He smiled as politely as he could.

"That's very interesting. I'm here with Aoife." He nodded toward his fated mate, hoping he'd put enough emphasis on the with Aoife to clue Kanvas in.

Kanvas-with-a-K glanced toward Aoife with an air of disappointment. "Oh. Well, nice to meet you, anyway." To his relief, she moved several steps away as Aoife clapped her hands, drawing attention.

"Good morning, everybody, it's lovely to meet you. I'm?—"

Before she could say her name, Molly interrupted with, "OY-FEE? Is your name OY-FEE?"

Cords stood out in Aoife's neck for just an instant before she rearranged her expression into a bright smile and pointed to her nametag. "It's Eee-fah, " she said. "Aoife Gallagher, your guide for the morning. I'm going to be showing you around the park today, telling you about our work here and talking about our conservation efforts for the endangered and at-risk species we have at the wildlife park."

"Can I pet a penguin?" Molly asked hopefully.

"Em. No. The penguins aren't fond of being rubbed. Now, we'll be starting with the cheetahs. You're in luck, as it's just coming on feeding time, so you can see our cheetah run. It's an enrichment feeding process, which means it's set up to encourage the big cats to run and interact with their environment. Does anybody know anything about cheetahs as a species?" Aoife paused, then chuckled. "Sorry. I'm used to a younger audience. I should probably assume you do ."

"They're clones, aren't they?" One of the older men, a guy with a military brush haircut and a stubby mustache that reminded Elliott of General Ross in the Hulk movies, looked both pleased and embarrassed as Aoife grinned at him.

"They just about are, yes. They have incredibly low genetic diversity, compared to most feline species. We believe cheetahs were almost wiped out ten or twelve thousand years ago, and that their genetic similarity to one another is tied to that. Anyone else know anything about them?"

"They purr!" Molly piped up. "And you can pet them, right, Oifee?"

Aoife visibly winced and mumbled, "Eee-fah," before continuing with, "The cheetahs you can pet are very unusual. Mostly those ones have been raised with humans for a variety of reasons, and while you're right, they're unusually domesticable for big cats—" Her gaze darted to Elliott, as if she was suddenly wondering if he was domesticated. He had a tremendous urge to show her just how domesticated he could be.

But probably not right now. Aoife went on without an audible hesitation. "—they're also still very large, dangerous predators. We hardly ever think about the fact that even our house cats are predators! Think about how sharp their teeth and claws are, and then ask yourself if it's really a good idea to keep a 'pet' ten times that size in your home!"

Molly clearly did think about it as they approached the cheetah enclosure. "No, I think it'd be good!"

Aoife laughed. "Well, let's watch them hunt and think about it some more."

There was a hundred yard zip line that went from one end of the enclosure to the other on a low slant. As Aoife spoke, a huge hunk of meat was released from the higher end of the zip line. A sudden blur of cheetahs went bolting down the run, leaping for the meat, snagging chunks, and chasing their food with enthusiasm. Molly shrieked. "Is that Bambi ?"

Aoife smiled briefly. "No, it's not Bambi. But it does drive home the idea that these are predators, doesn't it? Now, let me tell you a little more about the enrichment program here, and its importance in creating as natural an environment as is possible for not just our cheetahs, but all of the animals we're fighting to conserve here at the wildlife park."