Tiger Queen: A Reverse Harem Romance

by Cassie Cole

“I’ve been busy. I can’t believe you’re here!” Then I remembered that I hadn’t told them where I worked. “How did you, uh, find this place?”

  Mom pursed her lips the way she always did when she was about to tell a long story. “Liz Thatcher called me the other day. You remember Mrs. Thatcher? The nice widow who lives down by Mary Washington? She was at the university visiting her old colleague and got to talking about private zoos. Her colleague mentioned a place down here, and showed her a video of a page to donate money… And wouldn’t you know it! You were on the page! When Liz showed me I almost couldn’t believe it. But there you were, holding open a tiger’s mouth and brushing the teeth. Wasn’t it incredible, Frank?”

  “It was something!” dad said.

  Mom’s expression changed as she gazed around. “Rachel, when you said you were working at a zoo I imagined a real zoo. But this place?”

  “It’s not as bad as it looks!” I quickly said. “It was much worse before I got here. We’ve been making improvements and taking better care of the animals.”

  I had forgotten Anthony was standing next to me until he cleared his throat. “Hi! I’m Anthony Haines. I’ve been working with Rachel for the last few weeks. I have to say, she’s a huge asset for the zoo. We’d be lost without her.”

  Dad shook his hand and frowned. “Haines? Wasn’t that the name of the weird guy who owned this place? Psycho Steve or something?”

  “Crazy Carl,” Anthony said with a chuckle. “And yeah. He’s my dad. Was my dad, I should say, seeing as he passed away a couple weeks ago. Just about a month now. Wow, has it really been that long?”

  “I guess so,” I said.

  Anthony ran a hand through his hair and laughed nervously. “Well. I guess I’m going to see how the gift shop is doing. You two have a nice stay.”

  “He seems nice,” mom said as he walked away. “Better than that Crazy Carl in all the videos. But Rachel… I can see why you didn’t tell me where you were working. This place isn’t at all what we expected…”

  “It’s not what you think,” I began.

  Dad leaned in close. “Honey. Are you working against them? You can tell us. We saw the videos posted by that animal rights group, and when we realized you were working here secretly… Well, it would explain a lot.”

  I sighed impatiently. “I’m not working against the zoo. We’re trying to fix this place! Crazy Carl’s sons inherited it and want to do the right thing. I convinced them to shut it down, and we’re trying to move all the animals to proper zoos and sanctuaries…”

  They both looked around skeptically. “It looks awfully busy for a zoo that has been shut down.”

  “Well, it was shut down. But then we had to re-open to get some money. We had a cash-flow problem and needed to be able to feed the animals. It’s only temporary until we can find homes for them.”

  “How many animals have you moved?” I asked.

  “Eight.”

  Dad narrowed his eyes. “Just eight? In almost a month? Honey, I think you’re being hoodwinked…”

  “It’s not too late to come home,” mom insisted. “You can apply to real jobs instead of just settling for the first place you found.”

  Their disappointment was crushing. Especially since I had not seen them since graduation. For them to suddenly be here, telling me to come home…

  It was more than I could bear.

  “I have to go clean Caesar’s enclosure,” I said in a rush. “I’ll be busy all day, but we normally close up around six if you want to stick around and talk then.”

  “Honey…”

  I stormed off to Caesar’s enclosure. He was basking in the sun, probably full after gorging himself on his morning meal. Brandon was already inside the enclosure, listening to music and shoveling droppings into a wheelbarrow.

  “You can take a break,” I told him as I snatched the shovel. “I’ll take over from here.”

  He looked confused, like it was a trick. “Uh, okay, boss, if you say so…”

  I didn’t see mom and dad for the rest of the day. I wondered if they were sitting in the parking lot, waiting for me to get off work. I imagined the argument, telling them that fixing a place like this was far better than simply helping to maintain an existing zoo. I was doing some real good here.

  Yet as I practiced the argument in my head, I began to second-guess myself. Was I really doing the right thing? Should I have come here at all? My job prospects had seemed grim the night before moving out of Florida State, but maybe I was selling myself short. Maybe I had settled for this job when a better one was out there.

  I ran into Mary Beth by the visitor’s center after lunch. She quickly looked away and tried to walk by.

  “Mary Beth?”

  She stopped and turned toward me, but stared at my feet.

  “I’m sorry about last night. I was out of line. I should not have said what I did. You didn’t deserve that, and I allowed my anger to get the best of me.”

  She sheepishly mumbled thanks, then quickly walked away. I watched her go. Apologizing didn’t make me feel any better, not least of all because I was still suspicious of her.

  That night when I got off work, I didn’t see my dad’s truck in the parking lot. I tried calling mom but it went to voicemail. They must have gone home. Nine hours of driving and they had only stayed long enough to have a single conversation. They must have really been disappointed in me.

  After dinner Anthony and I got into my car and watched Mary Beth’s trailer from a distance with binoculars. Her lights were on, and we could see her silhouette moving in front of the windows by the kitchen. Making dinner, probably.

  “Your parents seem nice,” Anthony said.

  “They are,” I said.

  He looked sideways at me. “Why do you say it like that?”

  “Like what?”

  “Like you don’t mean it. Did you get in a fight or something? They drove all the way down from Virginia…”

  I sighed. “I don’t think you would understand.”

  “They’re disappointed in you, aren’t they?”

  I gave a start. “How did you know?”

  “I mean, I totally get it. You’re a legit veterinarian. You should be at a big zoo in a major city, and instead you’re here…” His sweeping gesture encompassed the entire zoo complex.

  “I didn’t want to say it, but yeah. They’re less than impressed with this place.”

  He patted my thigh. “Speaking as a child who is also a disappointment, I feel your pain.”

  I snickered. “You’ve got a great job. You’re a computer programmer. And you can work anywhere you want, as long as you have your laptop. Compared to most guys in their twenties, you’ve really got your shit together.”

  He shrugged one shoulder. “That’s not what he wants for me, though. I could be the Governor of North Carolina and he would still claim I was wasting my potential.” He blew air out his nose. “I keep speaking about him in the present tense.”

  “All three of you have been doing that,” I said gently. “It’s okay that it hasn’t sunk in yet.”

  Anthony paused to look through the binoculars. “You know the funniest part of all this?”

  “Besides the photos of your dad on every wall in every room of the house?”

  He smiled. “David, Jake, and I hated growing up here. We dreamed of leaving. Fantasized about it. But now that we’re back, working in the zoo together? It actually feels good. Being around them, and working with the animals, and everything else. It has made me realize that the thing we hated was dad and his bullshit. Is that a shitty thing to say? That I’m happier with him gone?”

  “Not at all,” I said. “I think David and Jake feel the same way.”

  I tried to put myself in Anthony’s shoes. It was tough because even imagining Crazy Carl as my dad was impossible. Growing up with him as a parent must have been awful.

  It also gave me perspective about my own parents. Their disappointment and confusion about this job c
ame from a good place. They cared about me. They wanted the best for me.

  Out of all the problems I had seen lately, that was a good problem to have.

  I picked up the binoculars and gazed through them. Brandon was standing outside his trailer. He flicked a lighter and lit a joint in his mouth, then puffed softly.

  I handed the binoculars to Anthony so he could see. “If only casual drug use was our biggest problem around here.”

  “I know right?”

  The walkie-talkie on the console squawked with Jake’s voice. “Rachel? Are you there?” He sounded upset.

  “I’m here. What’s up?”

  “It’s Caesar. Something’s wrong with him.”

  33

  Jake

  I didn’t worry easily. In my experience, most problems could be solved simply by ignoring them until they went away. Yeah, that was a shitty way to wander through life. But had worked well for as long as I’d been old enough to have problems.

  So when Big Caesar started acting weird, I tried not to dwell on it. He slept all morning, and hardly moved in the afternoon. His breathing seemed fine, so maybe he was just chilling in the sun. Big cats did that, and Caesar was older than most.

  Then around four in the afternoon he got up and started eating grass. Cats did that too, even the big ones. Helped with digestion or something. Totally normal and not a cause for concern.

  But there was something in his eyes that worried me. Like he wasn’t quite right. So after dinner I carried my book out to the zoo and rested up against his fence to hang out with him. Make sure he was alright.

  That’s when I heard him dry-heaving. Just like a house cat trying to cough up a hair ball, except Big Caesar went at it for close to twenty minutes. He ate some grass, tried to throw up, then ate some more grass. Finally he laid down against the fence, his back to mine, and started making the most pitiful moaning noises I’d ever heard in my life.

  This wasn’t a problem that was going to work itself out by waiting.

  I called Rachel on the radio and then went inside Caesar’s enclosure. I scratched his fur and rubbed his stomach, doing all the things that normally helped him calm down. But when my hand touched his belly, he snarled at me.

  I jumped back, more afraid than ever—but for Caesar, not of him.

  Rachel and Anthony came jogging up the path and joined me in the enclosure. I quickly told her what I had noticed about him.

  “Probably just a stomach ache…”

  “It’s not a fucking stomach ache!” I snapped. “Something’s wrong.”

  “Okay, okay,” she said soothingly. “Let me check him out.” She ran her hands over him, pausing on his belly. She pressed inward with her fingers, and Caesar snarled at her the way he had done with me.

  Rachel took her hand away and calmly said, “I need you to go get the Mule. Make sure the jab stick and the box of Telazol are with it.”

  Anthony jumped up and ran off.

  “What is it?” I asked. “What did you feel?”

  “I’m not sure yet.” She sounded like a doctor telling a patient’s family bad news. “We need to sedate him so I can give him a proper examination. Then we’ll take him to the medical office.”

  “This isn’t like him,” I insisted. “Caesar’s never snarled at me in my life.”

  “I know. That’s why we’re going to take care of him.” She put her hand on my chest, and her touch was enough to make me relax. She was a veterinarian and she was going to fix this.

  Anthony returned with the mule. The gate to enter the enclosure wasn’t big enough for the Mule to fit; when I had built the fence dividing the enclosure in half for Caesar, I had left the utility gate on the other side with the two remaining females. Rachel prepared a syringe on the end of the jab stick, then gently pressed it into his hind leg next to his tail.

  Rachel counted out thirty seconds—thirty long, dragging seconds—and then bent to the tiger again. This time he didn’t respond when she touched him. His huge, hulking form rose and fell gently as he breathed peacefully.

  “I’m pretty sure it’s distended,” Rachel said after a few minutes of poking.

  “What’s that mean?”

  “It means we need to get him back to my office. Now.”

  We had to call David to come help us. I was ready to bite his head off if he took his sweet time, but he jogged down the road, treating it like the emergency it was. We placed the animal stretcher on the ground, then tried to drag Caesar onto it. It was like trying to move extremely heavy dough. Once he was on the stretcher, moving him was another difficulty. He was the biggest animal in the park, and carrying the stretcher over a hundred feet was tough as shit.

  I berated myself for not installing a utility gate. Rachel was right: I shouldn’t have done things on my own without asking for help.

  We got him on the Mule and then drove to the medical office. Then we carried him inside and, at Rachel’s direction, placed him on the x-ray table. The rest of us stood around helplessly as she tried to get the machine to work.

  “Piece of junk,” she cursed while pressing buttons. “Knew I should have done a more thorough test than just making sure it powered on.”

  “Do you need it?” Anthony asked.

  “I don’t need it. But it would be nice to get a peek of what’s going on inside before I cut him open.”

  I just about tripped over my own feet. “Cut him open!”

  “He requires surgery,” she said in her doctor’s voice again. “There is no other option.”

  “Forgive me for how this question is going to sound,” David said. “But how many surgeries have you performed on a tiger?”

  “I have assisted in four big cat surgeries.”

  “Assisted? No way. That’s not good enough,” I said. “Caesar’s not the time to lose your surgery virginity.”

  She gave up on the X-ray machine and faced me. “The nearest place that can operate on an animal his size is the North Carolina Zoo up by Greensboro.”

  “Okay, good, then let’s do that,” I said. “That’s less than three hours away.”

  She held my gaze intensely. “I don’t think Caesar will live that long. I need to cut him open now.”

  David put a hand on my shoulder. “She’s the vet. This is her job. We should trust her.”

  I couldn’t remember the last time David had spoken to me in such a soft tone. It was jarring, and it hammered home the importance of his words.

  I nodded.

  The three of us sterilized the examination table with a special solution while Rachel scrubbed up. Then we moved Caesar onto the table. Rachel handed David an electric razor and instructed him on where to shave Caesar’s belly. While he did that, Rachel prepared an IV drip and inserted it into Caesar’s leg.

  “Alright. Everyone out.”

  “You don’t need any help?” Anthony asked nervously.

  “I’ll yell if I do. But you guys will only distract me by being in here with me.”

  I nodded, but my feet refused to move. I wanted to stay next to Caesar. Leaving his side felt like abandoning him.

  “I’ll take care of him,” she told me softly. Her mouth was covered with a surgical mask, so all I could see were her eyes. They looked sharp and professional. “I promise.”

  It was what I needed to hear. I went into the adjacent room to pace, putting all of my trust and faith in this woman.

  34

  Rachel

  I was terrified at the beginning, especially when I made the first incision. I had taken several classes at Florida State on emergency animal surgery, and had dissected several cadavers, but it was nothing compared to the adrenaline of putting a knife to a living, breathing animal.

  I allowed myself to be scared for ten long seconds, then pushed it away and got to work.

  It was a long three hours, but the problem was easy to identify and fix. When I was done I stitched Caesar back up and covered the wound with a bandage. I removed my gloves and protective equipmen
t, and began to return to my office where there was a shower. But then I remembered Jake. I wanted to give him the news as soon as possible.

  He was sleeping in a chair in the next room. His cotton beanie was pulled down over his eyes and his arms were crossed over his chest. As soon as the door closed behind me he leaped out of the chair and pulled his beanie back.

  “How is he? Is he okay? Is he… alive?”

  “Everything is fine,” I said soothingly. “I just finished sewing him up, and he’s resting. He should remain asleep for the next three or four hours.”

  “Did you fix him? Un-distend his stomach?”

  I held out my palm. Two round metal balls were stuck together.

  “His stomach wasn’t distended,” I explained. “These are neodymium magnets. I found them in his upper intestines. He would have died if we did not act so quickly.”

  Jake shook his head. “I’ve been finding all sorts of stuff in the enclosures. Even with the signs, people keep throwing stuff inside. So he’s really okay? He’s not going to die?”

  I grinned. It was satisfying giving good news. “He’s going to be just fine.”

  Jake hugged me so tightly I thought my ribs might crack. Then he cradled my face with both hands and kissed me.

  It was just like the kiss from the other night in his car, but a thousand times better. This time Jake was sober and leaned into me eagerly, kissing me like he had been fantasizing about it for weeks. His lips were warm and pressed against mine perfectly, and I sighed into his grasp.

  “I’m filthy,” I told him when he stopped kissing me. “I’ve just had my hands deep inside a tiger’s insides.”

  “There’s a shower in the office,” he said, dark eyes sparkling.

  Hand-in-hand, we hurried into the office bathroom. We continued kissing while stripping each other’s clothes. Jake’s skin was hot to the touch, and his fingers dug into my ass as he squeezed me tightly.

  We fumbled around blindly to turn the shower water on, and again to get the temperature just right. Then Jake pushed us back into the stream. Steam rose all around us as we kissed and pressed our wet bodies against each other. His cock was stiff between us, as long and thick as I remembered when I saw its outline in his jeans the other night. I grabbed hold of it and stroked him as the scalding water ran over our bodies. His fingers touched my belly and slid down between my legs, making me moan as he rubbed my outer pussy lips and teased me with a finger. All the while our lips remained locked together, tongues dancing with mutual joy and relief.