Aoife's gaze snapped to a clock on the wall. "Crap."
"Take a golf cart," Dr. Kelly said wearily, and Aoife bolted for the door.
CHAPTER 4
Elliott 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 abadidea. 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 golfcart 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.Tigerswere 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 notthisgood."
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, amI? 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 manyshiftersare here at thepark."
"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 youcouldmake a bad impression on your mate.
Oh,his lion said wisely,you canalwaysmake 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 wereincrediblydark, 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 wasreally fastif 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 longas it felt like to Elliott. "Canyou 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. "Howdidyou know I was safe?"
"Well, it's a little complicated, are thosekangaroos?" 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."
