Aoife finally managed to say, "Thewhat?" and jerked her gaze toward Dr. Kelly. "Is this the guy who's brought the lion in? How are you doing this? There was no notification, there haven't been any preparations made, do you havefoodfor that poor beast? Are you some kind of animal trafficker? Oh, God, are you a billionaire who thinks hauling awild animalaround from country to country is some kind of power move? Do you think you're super hot and sexy?—"
Her green gaze went dark as it raked him from head to toe and back up again. If her lip hadn't curled disdainfully at the end of it, Elliott might have thought he'd come out of that furious examination well. Unfortunately for him, she spat, "—because you can flout international law with yourmoney? Well, let me tell you, mister, you won't be pulling that shite aroundme?—"
"Aoife," Dr Kelly said in a gently despairing voice.
Aoife,Elliott's lion said in an awe-stricken purr.Our fierce lioness.
Their fierce lioness, Elliott thought, was going to punch him right in the face if he didn't figure out a good way to explain this, and fast.
So he shifted into a lion, and sat down in the middle of the office.
CHAPTER 3
In comic books and other visual mediums, people who were very surprised or choking were sometimes depicted as going "*", to show their distress.
Aoife was fairly certain she went *.
It felt like a small, soundless squeak in the back of her throat, as if a mouse had lodged there and put up a weak protestation of the situation. It also felt like all of her breath was lodged on the wrong side of that *, although logically there wasn't a correct side of it, if air couldn't get either in or out.
There was a lion in the office.
More specifically, Elliott Harkness, theincrediblyhot maybe-billionaire-animal-trafficker, had…turnedintothe lion in the office.
He was now sitting very, very still, except the fluffy tip of his tail twitched lightly. He'd wrapped that tail around his front toes, just like any cat, and gazed at her with enormous dark brown eyes. He was a beautiful lion, well-fed, glimmering gold in his tawny fur, his mane thick and dark, and Aoife said, "Oh my feckin' god, you're the lion in the enclosure. Not in the enclosure.You're the lion on the loose?" Her voice rose and rose and rose until the last word was another mouse squeak.
Elliott turnedbackinto a human. He was still wearing his clothes. Aoife had no idea how that worked, since theliondefinitely hadn’t been wearing any clothes. He stood with his hands in front of his crotch, shoulders caved and a sheepish expression on his face. It somehow lookedexactlylike the human equivalent of a cat wrapping its tail around its toes in embarrassment.. "I'm the lion on loan," he said again in a rather small, apologetic voice.
Dr. Kelly put her forehead down on the desk and groaned.
Aoife rotated her head toward Dr. Kelly so slowly she could hear the muscles in her neck creaking. "You knew." Her voice remained up there in mouse-squeak-territory, but then dropped suddenly, surprising even herself. "Youknew. You knew! You knew he was a lion! You know—oh mygod. Are they all lions? I mean are they all—whatever he is? Do they all do that? The bears and the elephants and thegolden eagle, Dr. Kelly, how does ahuman beingwho weighssixty kilosturn into a birdwith a mass offive kilos, Dr. Kelly, how does that work?"
Dr. Kelly groaned again, and shook her head against the desk. Elliott raised his hand to about shoulder height, and in the same rather small voice, said, "I have a theory about that."
Aoife swung toward him. Well, she wanted to swing toward him, but she'd only moved her head to look at Dr. Kelly, which meant she didn't really have the option for a whole-body thing going on for a proper swing. Still, she whipped her head toward him so vigorously she thought she might actually spin her entire body around anyway. "Well, go on then!"
"It's the magic, of course," Elliott said with a nervous smile. It was absurdly cute. Aoife didn't want it to be cute, and also inhaled to tell him that was a useless answer, but he went on hastily. "No, I know, of course it's the magic, but besides that,it's like a cat shifting its mass. You know how a cat steps on you and?—"
"Yes," Aoife said impatiently. "Sometimes they have the weight of a thousand suns driving into your boob with one paw, and sometimes they creep across a bridge of tissue paper without disturbing it. What does that have to do with anything?"
Elliott took a rather eager step forward, his dark eyes bright with enthusiasm. "So I think shifters are like that. We borrow or release mass when we need it. Bird shifters release alotof mass, obviously, but it's all there in the ether for us to use then. And a lot of us are bigger than true animals—you should see shifter wolves—so it, itadds up, but it's always available if we need it."
Aoife stared at him. After a while he moved from one foot to another, uncomfortably, so she stared at him some more, and when he began digging his toe against the floor, she said, "That doesn't make any sense."
"But itsortof does," he protested hopefully. "If you can buy into the idea that cats shifttheirmass…"
"Well, but they don't!" Aoife started strongly there, but faltered. Technically, she knew they didn't. Emotionally, though…
She bared her teeth, and Elliott beamed. "See?See? It does make sense! I mean. It's the magic. But I think there's a cosmic balance to where the mass goes!"
"Okay, but what about yourclothes?" Aoife, dismayed, heard herself ask the question, which meant she was fundamentally accepting Elliott's premise. "And if there are bigger shifters and smaller shifters doesn't that mean a big one has to shift at the same time as a small one to deal with the mass exchange?"
"No, no." Elliott took another eager step toward her. He was close enough for her to catch his scent now, and he smelled remarkably good. Not like a lion. Although Aoife didn't know what a lion smelled like up close and personal, to be fair. She'dnever smelled one. Which was obvious, because she was still alive. Elliott smiled again, even more hopefully. "See, itwaits. It goes, like…where Highlander swords go."
Aoife, after another long silence, said, "The Highlanders used claymores," and after an even longer one, sighed. "No, I know what you mean. The movie immortals with the conveniently disappearing swords. Did you know in the old cartoons, Optimus Prime's truck bed used to do that too?"
"See?" Elliott said triumphantly.
"That was acartoon!" Aoife wailed.
