Tiger Queen: A Reverse Harem Romance Read online

  Ashley was right. I needed something to make my resume stand out among the crowd.

  I didn’t like the idea of snooping around at a sleazy private zoo. I preferred to focus on direct animal work, not the politics of it all. I didn’t necessarily agree with the tactics of groups like PETA, but it just wasn’t my style.

  But if it was a way to make a name for myself, maybe get some viral attention and some news coverage…

  Driving up I-95 gave me plenty of time to think about it. Getting some sneaky photos or video of Crazy Carl’s Zoo scared me, but not as much as going home and being around my parents. Staying at home for weeks, waiting for a job that just wasn’t going to come. Seeing their disappointment in their daughter grow. The realization that they had spent a small fortune on an education that was never going to pan out.

  In the early afternoon, just after passing the exit for Fayetteville, I saw a billboard for Crazy Carl’s Zoo. His disembodied head was front-and-center, red mohawk extending above the normal rectangular shape of the billboard. Two tiger faces stared out serenely on either side of him. Just one mile away, exit sixty-one.

  Come on, Ashley’s voice insisted in my head. You’ll be back on the road home in no time.

  The exit appeared up ahead. At the last minute I swerved over and took it.

  “I’ll just swing by and check it out,” I said out loud. “If I feel afraid, I can always leave.”

  It was easy to find my way thanks to all the colorful signs on the road. The first one had a panther on it and said:

  Stalk Your Way

  To Crazy Carl’s

  The next one featured a flurry of toucans:

  Toucan Do It

  Turn Left Ahead!

  After that was a chimpanzee:

  Stop Monkeying Around

  You’re Almost There

  “Chimps aren’t monkeys,” I muttered to myself. “They’re great apes.”

  Playful signs aside, the drive to the zoo grew more ominous with every mile. The quality of the roads got worse, and the forest seemed to press inward toward my car. It felt like I was getting farther and farther from civilization.

  I drove through a small town called Blue Lake just before I reached the zoo. It was the definition of a one-road town, with a single gas station, a bar, a diner, and a boat marina that looked like everything was covered in ten years of rust. Half a mile later I turned down a final road, which emptied me into an optimistically-large gravel parking lot shaded by the surrounding trees.

  I parked the car in the back of the lot and looked around. The lot was completely empty. If not for the enormous CRAZY CARL’S ZOO sign above the entrance archway, I would have assumed I was in the wrong spot. Gravel crunched underfoot as I got out of my car and approached the entrance. The gate was closed and barred with a massive padlock that was as rusted as the marina back in town. Through the gate I saw a walkway, and an individual cage about fifty feet into the zoo. There was movement as an animal stirred.

  My heart soared. It was a white Bengal tiger!

  I tried to get a closer look but it moved out of sight.

  “Oh, come on,” I whispered as if it could hear me. “Come back and let me get a look at you…”

  “Can I help you?”

  I whirled and came face to face with the sexiest man I had ever seen in my life. He wore khaki pants and a tight grey t-shirt that hugged the muscles in his chest and arms. His tan skin glistened with sweat, which darkened his short-cropped brown hair. His eyes were impossibly blue, like they had been photoshopped on the spot. All in all he looked like an Instagram fitness model. Totally different than the Crazy Carl I was expecting to see. Plus, he was my age.

  “Hi,” I stammered, remembering why I was there. “I’m Rachel Koenig. From the email…”

  The man stared at me skeptically, then pulled a walkie-talkie off his belt and raised it to his mouth. “Hey, Anthony. What’s the new vet’s name?”

  “Rachel,” came the reply with a burst of static. “Rachel something.”

  “Thanks.” The man put the walkie-talkie away. “Sorry about that. We were expecting you later in the afternoon, and the Virginia plates on the car threw us off. I’m David Haines.”

  “Nice to meet you,” I said as I shook his hand. His grip was strong and his hand enveloped mine. His last name was the same as Crazy Carl Haines. They must have been related.

  “Come on around back to the employee entrance,” he said. “Again, I’m sorry for not giving you a proper welcome. This place attracts a lot of crazies, so we can’t be too careful.”

  The crazies are already inside this place, I thought as he led me inside.

  3

  Rachel

  David led me around the side and through another gate, which he locked behind me. We followed a dirt path around the rear of a building which appeared to be the visitor’s center and gift shop. I couldn’t stop looking at David’s back. He was sweaty between the shoulder blades, which gave me a view of the muscles rippling in his back as he walked. And the tight, round ass in his khakis…

  He turned and gestured. I quickly returned my gaze to his face.

  “Our offices are in here. We have all the paperwork drawn up, but if you want to discuss your contract fees we can do that, too.”

  Since I had no intention of taking the job, I didn’t prepare or rehearse what to say. “Um, the contract,” I said. “It’s only for a few months?”

  “That’s right. We only need a zoo vet for three months.”

  I remembered what Ashley had told me about this place. They cut corners, neglecting the animals wherever they could save a few bucks. A place like this should have had a veterinarian on-site permanently, not just a few months out of the year.

  I stifled my anger. “Can I, um, get a tour of the place first?”

  David cocked his head. “You’ve never been here?” He seemed surprised.

  “I’ve never had the pleasure.”

  David nodded thoughtfully. “I guess I assumed you knew all about this place already. No, that’s good. You’ll get a fresh perspective rather than having your opinion tainted.”

  For a brief moment I allowed myself to feel hopeful. David seemed nice, so maybe the Crazy Carl thing was just a gimmick. Like a mascot. Maybe this place wasn’t as bad as its reputation.

  Then he began the tour.

  “The layout of the zoo is pretty straightforward. We’ve got forty-one big cats, including eighteen tigers. They’re all on the east side of the park. Here’s one of them, um, a Siberian tiger…”

  “That’s a Bengal tiger,” I said. “Siberian tigers have thicker coats.”

  “Oh,” David replied. “I guess I assumed it was Siberian since it’s white.”

  “There are white Bengal tigers,” I explained. “There are more important differences than the color.”

  “Right, right,” he said. “Well, here it is.”

  My heart soared again at the sight of the majestic animal. He was at least six-hundred pounds, and was laying down as if he were a normal house cat. The coloring on his face was exquisite, a white base-coat with darker stripes framing a prominent snout and pink nose. His eyes were blue, almost as blue as David’s, and examined me the way a king would examine a peasant who had come to pledge fealty.

  It would have been an incredible moment… Except that the cage was far too small for an animal his size. It was hardly larger than the interior of my car. He would barely have enough room to pace if he wanted.

  Sadness gripped my heart and squeezed.

  “Is that his permanent enclosure?” I asked in an even voice.

  “Yeah, I guess so,” David replied. “We’re moving some stuff around, but it seems happy enough. Come on, let me show you around.”

  I tried to ignore how he kept calling the tiger it instead of he. As if he were an object rather than an animal. David didn’t seem terribly interested in the condition of the animals or their well-being, either.

  I felt the tiger’s ser
ene gaze follow me as we walked down the next path.

  That tiger’s cage may have been small, but at least it was sanitary. We came to a larger tiger enclosure with a lake in the middle and a ring of grass around the outside. It was about the size of a school playground, and six orange Bengal tigers were lounging lazily in the sun. There were animal droppings scattered everywhere, and the ground sloped down into the lake in the middle. That appeared to be the only water source for the tigers, one of which was lapping at it presently.

  “How often are the enclosures cleaned?” I asked.

  “Oh, you know. Whenever the crew gets to them. We’ve been short-handed this past week.”

  Once again I suppressed my anger. If this was how bad they kept things in the public-facing section of the zoo, the parts customers couldn’t see must have been really bad.

  We spent twenty minutes touring the zoo. Most of the large enclosures were built from cheap chain-link fencing and were overrun with weeds and tall grass. Three black panthers in one enclosure looked like they had gotten into a fight recently—one of them had a cut above its eye, bright red against the black coat. The wound was minor, but the fact that it had not received medical attention was another red flag. The reputation of this place was proving to be true.

  David showed me the chimpanzee exhibit, then the large aviary—which he called the bird cage. There were also a pair of wolves in a long enclosure, which were both huddled in the back corner in fear. The fingers gripping my heart squeezed tighter. Soon it was hard to breathe. I considered taking my phone out to take photographs, but David kept looking back at me.

  “Everything okay?” he asked.

  “Yeah, sure,” I said. “Just getting a feel for the place.”

  “It’s something, isn’t it?” he said.

  “It sure is,” I replied, though we meant it in two completely different ways.

  As angry as I was becoming, it was tough to direct it at David. He was too good-looking. Every time I glanced at him I felt the queasy butterfly feeling in my stomach. Instead, I kept focusing my mental frustration at Crazy Carl. Surely he was to blame for all this, since he was the owner. David was just an innocent employee. Right?

  “That’s the zoo,” he told me when we finished the loop and returned to the visitor’s center. “If you’re ready to sign the paperwork…”

  “Can I see the veterinary facilities?” I asked. “The entire employee section of the zoo would be great, too.”

  “Sure, sure. The vet’s office is this way.”

  The vet’s office turned out to be an old building that looked like it was one strong wind away from being blown over. The inside was humid and smelled strongly of mildew. Dust motes drifted through the air, and when I tried turning on the lights one of the halogen bulbs in the ceiling crackled and went dark. It looked like it had not been used in years.

  “It needs some attention, sure,” David said. “But it’s got the basics. An old X-ray machine and a machine for doing blood work. We can talk about renovations and supplies after you sign the paperwork. The food processing building is next door…”

  If I had been horrified by the vet’s office, the food processing building was the equivalent of a horror movie. It was as big as a garage, with concrete floors and a wall of industrial freezers. Upon entering I was bombarded with the smell of rotten meat. Black flies swarmed throughout the space, and the ground was stained red where meat had been processed and not cleaned after. There was a table with a butcher’s band saw, and the blade was caked with dark red. I struggled not to choke, and even David had to cover his mouth.

  “We need to do a better job of sanitizing the place,” he admitted. “But everything in the freezer is fresh. We get two deliveries a week from our supplier.”

  “There’s no safety guard on that saw,” I pointed out.

  “Huh.” He frowned at the machine. “Guess you’re right. Might need to fix that.”

  “David,” called a man outside. “You in here?”

  “I’m showing her the food processing,” David replied, walking toward the door.

  I followed him, certain that I was going to meet Crazy Carl himself. The voice sounded identical to the one in the commercials. But the man outside couldn’t have been further from the zoo’s crazy persona. For one thing, he was younger by at least twenty years. He was around the same age as me. He looked a lot like David in the face, except his brown hair was longer and a little messier, and he wasn’t as jacked as David. He had soft blue eyes and long eyelashes, and he was a few inches shorter than the other man.

  “This is my younger brother, Anthony,” David said.

  “I’m the one you emailed with,” he said as he shook my hand. Unlike his brother, he wore jeans and a blue button-down with the sleeves rolled up. Like he had just come from casual Friday at the office. He was as handsome as his brother, but in a less muscular way. Although the way his clothes fit him hinted at a good body underneath. “Welcome to our zoo. It still feels weird saying that. What do you think of the place?”

  “It’s… something,” I said with a forced smile.

  Anthony smiled, and then turned to his brother. “Hey. I wanted to talk to you about the social media stuff…”

  They put their heads together and started discussing something about Facebook. I covered my nose and returned to the food processing building, side-stepping inside the door so they couldn’t see me. I pulled out my phone and began taking photos.

  My internal rage was ready to boil over. It was one thing to keep the animals in cages, and to do a poor job of maintaining them. I had seen that before, and I was mentally prepared for it when I came here today.

  But the food processing building drove me over the edge. This was totally unsanitary. Big cats had tougher stomachs than humans, but you still had to keep the food preparation areas sanitary. The amount of flies in that room was abhorrent, and the visible bacteria growth on the tables and ground…

  It made me furious. These people didn’t care about animals at all. They couldn’t even be bothered to do the bare minimum to treat them well. How could people do this to these amazing, graceful, beautiful animals?

  Everything Ashley had told me was true. This place was terrible.

  The two brothers were still chatting outside. I pulled my cell phone out and began snapping photos. Of the ground, the tables, and the flies buzzing in the air.

  I heard snippets of the conversation outside, but one sentence caught my attention. “…with the breeding, and all the cubs sold away…” Anthony was saying.

  It was the final straw. I marched outside and confronted the two men. “Breeding! You’re admitting to the breeding and sale of tiger cubs?”

  Anthony frowned at me. “Well, it appears so. Tiger cub sales are a large revenue stream…”

  David pointed. “Are you taking photos?”

  Thinking quickly, I switched to a video and hit record. “Everything I’ve heard about this zoo is true! The enclosures are poorly maintained, sanitation is a problem, the food prep area is a disaster… this place isn’t about taking care of animals. It’s about making money at their expense.”

  The two brothers looked at each other. “No argument here,” Anthony said with a chuckle.

  David held up a hand. “How about we put the phone down and talk about this…”

  I practically screamed at them. “People like you do more harm than good. Breeding tigers in captivity, selling the cubs to private owners who have no idea what they’re doing, sedating the animals so teenage girls can take selfies with them to put on Instagram. I’m going to show this to everyone!”

  “I don’t think you understand,” David said, taking a step toward me.

  I backed up while keeping the video rolling. The two of them were blocking my way out of the zoo. I probably should have come up with a better exit plan before going off on them. Neither of them had any visible weapons, but if Crazy Carl suddenly appeared with an assault rifle…

  “Come on,
Rachel,” David said with a charming smile. “Let’s go inside and discuss this.”

  I moved sideways, circling them until they were no longer blocking my path. Then I took off at a dead sprint for the car. I pumped my arms and flew down the gravel path. Their footfalls sounded behind me, boots crunching as they followed.

  “Rachel! Wait!”

  I reached the employee entrance gate… And found it locked. Fueled by fear and adrenaline I leaped into the air, feet scraping on the fence and my hands grabbing the top. My phone was still in one hand, which made it difficult, but somehow I managed to scramble up and over. I dropped down to the parking lot on the other side and sprinted the rest of the way to my car.

  They had just come through the gate and were running across the parking lot toward me, waving their hands. I turned the car on and floored the accelerator, my tires sending gravel and dirt flying as I peeled out of there, leaving the two men behind.

  4

  Rachel

  I flew down the small road away from Crazy Carl’s Zoo. When I drove through the small town of Blue Lake I realized I was going fifty in a twenty-five, so I slowed down until I got out of town and then sped up again. I kept glancing in the rear-view mirror, waiting to see some huge monster trucks or something chasing me.

  Only when I was ten minutes outside of town did I begin to relax. They weren’t following me.

  I replayed the scene in my head. Turning on my camera, confronting the two men, and then running away. I couldn’t believe they had admitted to everything on camera. It was illegal to buy and sell tigers without a permit, which Crazy Carl’s Zoo certainly did not have. Yet Anthony had just blurted it out without fear.

  It made my skin crawl. Were they that confident that they wouldn’t get caught?

  Hopefully my photos and video looked good. I could report them to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, as well as any state agency. I wasn’t familiar with North Carolina’s wildlife resources commission and how strict they were about this kind of animal trafficking, but my evidence was fairly damning. They would have to do something.