"Four thirty. Right. Gotcha. Thank you," Tara said fervently, and the girl smiled.
"No bother. Go on, mind yourself." She went back to her window, and Tara, suddenly staggering with exhaustion, left the little entrance building. Walking would wake her up. She knew it would. She just had to get moving, get her blood flowing. Or maybe find food, which her nose told her lay ahead somewhere. There was a playground to the immediate left of the entrance, and just beyond it, on the right-hand side, a green single-story building that proclaimedHot & Cold Snacks.Tara bet 'coffee' fell under a 'snacks' heading, and right then, she didn't even care if it was terrible. She went inside, got coffee and something that the packaging called a flapjack even if it didn't look anything like any flapjack she'd ever seen. It had a protein bar vibe, instead, and when she tried it, it seemed to mostly be an oat bar with fruity stuff in it. Not bad. A little weird, definitelynota flapjack, but not bad, especially after being up for thirteen thousand hours and an overseas flight. She emerged from the snack shop, burned her tongue on the coffee, and stood there a minute, getting the lay of the land.
There was a lake over to her right, and a pond to her left, with capybaras in it. Tara drifted that way, following the footpath until it veered farther from the capybaras than she wanted it to, so she tried the muddy green beside the path. It seemed pretty dry, so she walked forward cautiously, smiling at the big fluffy golden rodents. Well, maybe not really fluffy, but they were so chonky they had a sort of fluffy vibe to them.
They, like alotof other animals in the area, seemed to be free-range. They kept to their side of the pond, but it looked like they could wander through the whole park, if they felt like it. There were lemurs over next to the lake, and something small and golden-grey darting through the trees above them. She could see a massive pelican standing in the lake, and with a startled shiver, heard a big cat roaring somewhere in the park. "They're not free-range, right?" she asked the capybaras. Oneof them turned its soulful brown eyes toward her, then shook its head with a few heavy swings, like it had actually heard and understood her. Tara gave it a thumbs-up, finished her flapjack and her coffee in that order, and found a garbage can before taking herrealcamera out for some photography.
A genuinely amazing array of animals seemed to be just wandering around loose. She saw a handful of beautiful little things that looked like a mix between rabbits and capybaras, with long slender legs, large ears, and blunt faces. They were shy, which was tragic: Tara wanted to pick one up and snuggle it. Although that would probably get her thrown out, so, no. She took pictures instead, and smiled at a handful of peacocks strutting around before working her way toward cheetahs and a huge open area where zebras, giraffes, some kind of antelopes, and, weirdly, wallabies lived. "Because wallabies are so well-known in Africa," she said to them as she took pictures. At least they, too, were also behind railings, and not strictly free, although she bet both the giraffes and the ostriches could jump the fence effortlessly, and possibly the other animals could too.
She paused to take a picture of a baby giraffe fluttering its eyelashes at her, then found a map that told her she'd covered less than half the park's pathways. It was almost four by then—she really hadn't been making very good time—and this was too good a wildlife park to rush through. She promised a lazing cheetah that she would be back tomorrow, and turned to retrace her footsteps.
That actually seemed like a bad idea, just a few minutes into her walk back toward the train station. Going over new territory had kept her awake. Now keeping her feet moving was a borderline impossible task, because she'd seen it all before. Even a flock of little dinosaur-like geese rushing by didn't help much. Maybe she didn't need to stay up a whole five more hours, after all. If she could check into her hotel, she could just face-plant until tomorrow. She yawned, yawned again, and then with a tired chuckle, gave herself permission to follow a peacock as he sauntered across the greenery. If she got any good pictures, she could call the series 'The Peacock Parade,' or something.
Besides, he was heading in the right direction, and following him was more interesting than staying on the actual path. Tara stayed quite a ways back, not wanting to spook him, and switched to a longer lens so she could get close-up pictures without bothering the bird. After a while, he led her back to the snack bar, where another three or four peacocks were roosting. Peacocks and peahens, Tara supposed: one had the glorious tail feathers of a male, and the others were browny-grey with only a bit of iridescent color at their throats. "Right?" she said to one of them. "The dudes should absolutely go all-out to impress us. At least you've got that going for you. You should meet human dudes. Hang on, I'm going to go take a couple more pictures of that fancy fellow."
The peacock she'd been following had gone around the back of the snack shop, where tourists probably weren't supposed to go. On the other hand, no one stepped up to stop her, so Tara snuck back there just in time to watch the peacock transform into the most gorgeous man she'd ever seen.
Chapter 2
The Shamrock Safari Wildlife Park was a godsend for shifters like Declan McCarthy.
For all shifters, probably, but foxes and golden eagles might be able to at least stretch their legs or their wings in the wilds of Ireland. There were even a few forests left that larger shifters—wolves, deer, even the occasional tiger or bear—could trust the leaves and underbrush to hide them in.
There was absolutely nowhere to hide a brilliant blue peacock. If a tiger was glimpsed in the woods, well, that was mental, as the Irish would say. Madness. No one wouldbelieveit. But there were enough peacocks strutting around the various zoos and parks that a stray would be seen as an escapee who had no business in the wild. Worse, its gorgeous plumes might make it a target for either the aforementioned-foxes (although hopefully notshifterfoxes; Declan couldn't imagine the horror of being hunted by a fellow shifter!), or humans with worse intentions than 'return lost peacock to zoo.'
So any time he wanted to strut his stuff—and he had to face it, he was a peacock; 'strutting his stuff' was baked into the contract—Declan would hop the train out to Anavee Islandwhere the wildlife park was located, and spend the day preening and showing off to the tourists. He even had an annual pass to the park, to save on costs, although there were enough shifters out there that he bet he could find somebody who would let him in for free.
It was a good cause, though. Like any zoo or wildlife park, Anavee could always use whatever little bit of income they could find. An annual park fee was more than worth being able to shift safely whenever he needed.
He had not anticipated that an off-season afternoon at the park would lead him to his fated mate.
In fact, if there was a 'last thing' he expected, it was that. He'd come to the park today to stretch his feathers, yes. But more, there had beenhijinksaround the place lately. Seamus, one of his fellow shifters, had lost a handful of tail feathers at the weekend, and had ranted about it at the pub last night. Declan, being a free sort of spirit with no day job to tie him down, had taken himself out to Anavee this morning to have a look into the whole mess.
Because on the one hand, shifters healed from most minor injuries with a shift or two. That meant, for shifters, somebody breaking off peacock tail feathers wasn't an injury. It was anindignity. But true peacocks didn't recover from that kind of heartless behavior nearly as quickly as a shifter would. Seamus had no idea who was behind it. He knew somebody had yanked a handful of his feathers out while he'd been showing his tail off, but turning around to find a guilty party was a big deal when you had that much tail to work with. It wasn't like he could just look over his shoulder and see anything except his glorious feathers. So by the time he managed to get turned around, there were at least a dozen people nearby and none of them looked guilty, or had a tail feather sticking out of their shirt or anything. Seamus also overheard some of the staff talking about how they kept aneye out for lost feathers but hadn't seen any in days, which was unusual. They thought somebody must be picking them up.
But it wasn't like he could go to the police about it. Somebody should, because trafficking in real peacock feathers—even collecting them—was full-stop illegal. But a shifter couldn't feck off to the guards and say some langer had robbed his tail feathers, now, could he? So Declan reckoned it was up to himself to sort it out.
Except there she was, his fated mate, distracting him from the matter at hand in the most wonderful way possible. She was at the cheetah area, leaning on the fence and taking pictures with a long lens on her camera. When she lowered the camera, it was with the slightly blank gaze of somebody who had been traveling a lot, although from time to time she would smile and lift the camera again to take more pictures. There were cubs right now—Anavee had a spectacularly good breeding program, to the point that they often had more cheetahs than they knew what to do with—and a few of them were messing about, bouncing around on each other and taking off in short bursts of speed before tripping over their own feet. His mate was entirely absorbed by them.
Which was grand, because it meant she didn't notice the peacock staring intently at her from around a shaded corner.
She was absolutelylovely, Declan thought. Yes, she had a bit of the unwashed hair and weary pallor of somebody who'd gotten off a plane recently, but that didn't stop her from being justlovely. Not too tall, he thought; it was hard to tell from a peacock's vantage, especially when he was trying to stay more or less normal-peacock-sized so as to not draw attention. But not too tall, and a lovely soft roundness to her whole figure. She had incredibly thick honey blonde hair pulled back in a ponytail that dripped down her spine to mid-back. A round face with a pointy chin, a quiet smile, and dark eyelashes so long they had to getin the way when she looked through the camera's viewfinder. He couldn't tell what color her eyes were without getting closer, and he didn't want to be weird about it.
Of course, he was a bird right now, and it wasn't weird for the peacocks at Anavee to wander up to people in hopes of food. Bolstered by this realization, Declan fluffed his feathers and marched around the side of the cheetah enclosure.
Fluffing? his peacock asked, outraged.Fluffing? Onlyfluffing, for our mate? We shouldsingfor her!
Before Declan could stop it, the bird let out an unholy shriek and spread its tail feathers, then shook them wildly and gave another huge scream.
His poor mate gave a startled little shriek, flinching in his direction, then dissolved into a giggle. "Oh, aren't you pretty," she said in a distinctly American accent. "Showing off for me, huh? Well, that's very thoughtful, but I've got the wrong lens on this camera right now. You want to hang on a second while I change it?"
She's talking to us,his peacock informed Declan with smug delight. Then it screamed again.
It was just as well Declan couldn't die of mortification, because he wanted to. Peacocks were beautiful birds, but they didnothave nice voices. He said,Shut up,desperately, but instead his peacock shook his tail again and began a strutting, bouncing dance in a circle as feathers rattled around him. Their mate laughed again, and by the time Declan turned back around toward her, she'd put a smaller lens on her camera and was taking pictures. His peacock shrieked happily and shook its tail even harder.
"You really are gorgeous," his mate told him after a few minutes of photographing him showing off, then turned her attention back to the baby cheetahs, one of which was trying to stick its face through the wire fencing.
His peacock gasped in disbelief.Our mate isignoringus? Don't worry. I'll fix this.
