Tiger Queen: A Reverse Harem Romance

by Cassie Cole

  “Where are you going?” David demanded.

  “The zoo was attacked last night. Someone needs to make a statement to counter whatever nonsense the AFF is claiming.”

  Anthony chuckled. “About that…”

  I didn’t want to hear what the AFF had claimed, so I walked out the front door and down to the waiting reporters. Cameras swiveled on tripods and the reporters rushed forward to bombard me with questions. I held up my hands and waited for silence.

  “My name is Rachel Koenig, and I’m the primary veterinarian here. I’d like to issue a statement on behalf of the zoo,” I said. I had never done something like this before, so I wasn’t sure how to begin. “Last night our zoo was sabotaged by a member of the Animal Freedom Front posing as an employee of the zoo. They released over a dozen animals into the zoo grounds. They also fed neodymium magnets to one of our tigers, who we had to perform emergency surgery on. Aside from that no animals were harmed, though many are shaken up after being tranquilized and returned to their enclosures. The zoo will remain closed today, and probably tomorrow, until we can ensure the animals have recovered from this trauma.”

  I turned to go back inside. The reporters all shouted questions at me, and one of them stuck out.

  “How do you feel about the strong public reaction to the social media post?”

  I stopped. “Whatever the AFF is claiming…”

  “This is the video of you,” another reporter added. “The one of you weeping and holding the tiger you performed surgery on.”

  “Rachel! Is that blood on your shirt from the surgery?” another reporter asked. “How many surgeries have you performed in your career?”

  I was becoming overwhelmed by the questions, and I didn’t know how to answer them, so I quickly went back inside.

  “What are they talking about?” I asked the boys.

  Anthony tapped on his phone and handed it to me. “I tried to tell you before you rushed out there…”

  It was a video from early this morning in the medical office. Caesar was laying on his side on the examination table, showing his shaved belly and the stitches from his surgery. I came into view and hugged the tiger while weeping.

  “I’ve worked so hard to give them a better home!” I insisted on video while sobbing. “To keep them healthy while we move them to other zoos… and then the AFF comes along and endangers their lives! I’m so sick of people misunderstanding what we’re doing here. We are the good guys! We’re trying to do the right thing for the animals! We’re better than Crazy Carl!”

  I winced at the video. I hated how I looked, with sweat staining my shirt and my hair all frizzy. Not to mention the fact that I was ugly-crying.

  “You posted this to our Facebook page?” I asked.

  Anthony gave me a weak smile. “I know. I should have asked. But you’re so passionate, and it does a better job showing what we went through than any formal statement could. Do you hate me?”

  “Of course not,” I sighed. “Just ask me next time.”

  “It’s a good thing you’re not mad,” David said. “Because the video went viral.”

  The video ended and I switched over to the details tab. The video already had 2,544 comments and 10,989 shares. And it had been viewed over a million times! I clicked on the comments and scrolled through some of them. Most people were sympathetic toward the zoo. Lots of comments about how the AFF was endangering the animals, and how we were the good guys in the situation.

  “All of this because of a single video of me crying?”

  “Well, we also have a video of Brandon confessing to the whole thing. That swung public opinion in our favor too.”

  “How did you get that on video?”

  “I wasn’t much use in catching Brandon,” Anthony admitted. “I mostly got kicked in the dick and then rolled around on the ground in pain. But I did record the whole thing.”

  I kept scrolling comments. “Who’s the Tiger Queen they keep mentioning?”

  David and Anthony glanced at each other.

  “That’s the internet’s nickname for you,” David said.

  “What!”

  “The video ended with us hugging you,” Anthony added. “Three brothers and you. Everyone has drawn their own conclusions from there. That you have your harem of men.”

  “From one hug?” I replied. “I mean, granted, they’re right. But they shouldn’t know that!”

  “Everyone wants a good story,” David said simply. “And you? You’re like a hotter, nicer, female version of Joe Exotic.”

  “I’m literally nothing like him! I’m a vet, not the owner. And I care about the animals more than making money…”

  “There’s more,” Anthony said.

  I groaned. “Do I want to hear it?”

  He pulled up his laptop and logged into GoFundMe. “Going viral has had an effect on our funding page. Do you remember what we were at the last time you checked?”

  “Just over two grand, I think?”

  Anthony turned the laptop screen to face me.

  I almost died of shock at the number on the screen.

  “Two hundred grand!” I shouted.

  “Two hundred and eighteen thousand,” Anthony said proudly. “And rising fast.” He hit the F5 key to refresh the page. When it came back up, the number was three thousand higher.

  “We were the tenth-highest trend on Twitter earlier today,” David said. “Everyone wants to help now. We went from being the bad guys to being the poor underdogs overnight.”

  I put a hand on the wall to steady myself. I was feeling lightheaded.

  “I think I need some of that food now,” I said.

  Anthony rushed off to the kitchen to make me an omelet. David’s phone rang and he went to the other room to talk. I pulled out my own phone to look at Facebook and Twitter, but my lock screen was full of notifications. I had forty-nine texts from my mom, Ashley, and various friends and professors from Florida State. I also had six missed calls. I pulled up the texts from Ashley.

  Ashley: Tiger Queen?!?!

  Ashley: Girl, you’re famous now!

  Ashley: Did you seriously perform surgery on a Bengal tiger all by yourself? I’m super jealous. Call me as soon as you can so I can hear all about it!

  Ashley: TIGER QUEEN! I can’t get over that name, lol

  There was a new noise outside. I peeked out the window at the reporters, who were now surrounding someone new.

  Mary Beth.

  I groaned. I was afraid of what she would tell them, so I opened the window to hear.

  “…one of the most dedicated zoo vets I’ve ever met,” Mary Beth was saying. “I mean, she’s the only zoo vet I’ve ever met, if I’m being, like, totally honest. I worked at a dog kennel, but the lady who ran the place wasn’t really an expert. She just liked dogs. What was I saying? Oh, yeah. Rachel is amazing. She works twelve or thirteen hour days to keep these animals healthy. It’s so much better than the way it was under Crazy Carl. Granted, I didn’t work here while he was in charge, but from the videos I’ve seen…”

  I blinked in surprise. It was strange suddenly becoming a viral hero to everyone, but hearing Mary Beth sing my praises really hit home.

  She spoke to the reporters for a few more seconds, then came running up the porch and through the front door.

  “Whew. That was exciting!” she said with a huge smile. “I’ve never talked to reporters before! How are you doing? Get some sleep finally?”

  I threw my arms around her and hugged her tight. “I owe you an apology, Mary Beth.”

  “You apologized early this morning! I guess you probably don’t remember that since you were exhausted. It was crazy. I’m still running on adrenaline too, and I missed the whole thing. But yeah, you already apologized.”

  “I feel like my apology wasn’t adequate,” I replied. “The way I treated you…”

  She giggled and shrugged. “That’s the thing—you were totally right! Someone was sabotaging the zoo from the inside! It sucks th
at you thought it was me, but I can see why you were so paranoid. I’m just glad the animals are all safe.”

  David returned from the other room quietly. He was still holding his cell phone at his side, and he had a dazed expression on his face.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked. “Who was on the phone?”

  He blinked twice before answering. “That was the director of KWS. The Kenya Wildlife Service. They’re creating a new national park near Lake Victoria. They saw all the attention around our zoo today…”

  “Really?” I gasped. “Do they want to accept some of our animals?”

  “No, not some,” David said slowly. “They’re willing to take all of our animals.”

  38

  Rachel

  The negotiations went surprisingly smooth. The Kenya Wildlife Service was eager to get something official hammered out so they could make the announcement. We suspected that they were trying to piggy-back on our viral fame to get some media attention for their new park, but we certainly didn’t mind.

  The announcements went out to a lot of excitement and fanfare. KWS was taking all of our big cats for their new national park, which would span five thousand square kilometers. Furthermore, they were accepting our chimps, birds, and various other animals for one of their other parks. The only hiccup were the two North American Wolves, which weren’t suitable for Kenya. But KWS pulled some strings and found a sanctuary in Montana that was working on a wolf reintegration program, and they were willing to take ours.

  Sometime in the next six weeks—pending the completion of other prerequisites and supplies—the animals would all be transferred to permanent homes.

  As soon as the papers were signed and faxed over to them, the four of us screamed and cheered and hugged in the office.

  Now that we had a GoFundMe account with donations totaling seven digits, we didn’t need to keep the park open. But David convinced me to open it for one last day to give visitors a chance to say goodbye to the animals. We let everyone in for free and reduced the prices on our gift shop items by ninety percent to try to get rid of the inventory. By the end of the day we were giving them out for free as visitors left the zoo.

  The GoFundMe donations slowed down after the initial rush from our viral video, but the money kept trickling in. Which was good, because the new park in Kenya needed financial assistance transporting the animals halfway across the world. That was a shockingly expensive process, as it turned out. An order of magnitude more expensive than simply moving animals from North Carolina to Florida.

  Despite those cost estimations, we were left with more money in the GoFundMe account than we knew what to do with. “Anyone have any ideas?” David asked one night during dinner.

  “We could donate it all,” Anthony suggested. “To the KWS, or some US charities.”

  “I think we should reimburse the two of you,” I said, pointing my fork at Anthony and David. “You two put a lot of your own money into this place. You should get that back.”

  “Even if we do that, we’re left with close to a million dollars,” David replied.

  “Shit. Let’s buy an island,” Jake said.

  “Most islands cost more than a million dollars,” David replied dryly.

  “What about a small island?”

  “We’re not buying an island,” David said.

  “I have an idea!” Anthony suddenly said.

  David slammed his fork down. “Not an island! We don’t need an island!”

  “It was just a joke,” Jake said, then gave me a wink.

  “My idea is not island-related,” Anthony announced. “I was thinking we could create some sort of scholarship. That’s something people do, right? Create a scholarship and take applicants every year, then award it to the person with the best essay or whatever? It could be a scholarship for someone working in veterinary medicine. We could put dad’s name on it.”

  “The Carl Haines Veterinary Scholarship,” David said. “I kind of like the sound of that.”

  “That would help undo the reputation he had,” Anthony continued. “Build up a little bit of good karma for once, you know?”

  Everyone glanced at Jake. He pushed food around with his fork.

  “I like it,” he finally said. “That’d be real nice.”

  “He would hate it,” David said.

  Jake barked a laugh. “He would. All the more reason to do it.”

  “That’s really sweet,” I said. “I think that’s a great use for the money.”

  We ate in silence for a few minutes while absorbing the idea.

  “So,” Jake said after a while. “What’s it like being the Tiger Queen?”

  I laughed. “I hope they stop calling me that. I’ve had at least twenty friends from college email me about that.”

  Jake turned to his brothers. “I don’t think I told you.”

  “Told us what?” David asked.

  Jake nodded at me. “Rachel and I fucked.”

  I almost spit out my food.

  “You guys were right,” Jake went on. “It’s just like it was with Lara, only better. Sharing a girl, I mean. I wish I’d have listened to you sooner. I think I just needed to accept it on my own terms.”

  “Yeah, you’re stubborn as shit,” David said with a chuckle.

  “I bring it up,” Jake said with a sly grin, “because I wanted to call dibs on her tonight.”

  “Why do you get her tonight?” Anthony asked.

  “Because that’s how dibs works. I called it before you did.”

  “Maybe I called it an hour ago when nobody was around,” Anthony complained. “How do you know I didn’t do that?”

  “Did you?”

  Anthony frowned. “No. I didn’t. But I could have.”

  “Then you should do that next time.”

  “I call dibs for tomorrow!” Anthony said. “And the night after that.”

  David groaned. “This is getting ridiculous.”

  “Isn’t anyone going to ask what I want?” I said sweetly.

  The three of them looked at me as if they had forgotten I was even there.

  “What do you want?” David asked.

  I shrugged and rose from the table. “I don’t know. Maybe the three of you should clean the dishes and then come upstairs to find out.”

  I felt their eyes on me hungrily as I left the table.

  I went upstairs and took a shower, scrubbing myself clean from the day of work and making sure I was ready for what I intended tonight. When I returned to my bedroom wearing only a towel, I found the three of them waiting for me.

  “That was fast,” I said. “Usually it takes you guys half an hour to clean up after dinner.”

  “We were properly motivated tonight,” Anthony said.

  Jake rolled his eyes. “They’re like trained animals.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “You’re here too, I see.”

  “I called dibs. And I’m curious about what you want.”

  I pulled my towel away and let it slip to the floor. “I think you know what I want.”

  The three brothers smiled as one.

  Jake pushed forward and took me in his arms. It was the first time we had kissed since the medical office two nights before, and this time I could feel how hungry he was for me. His thin auburn scruff rubbed against my cheek as he kissed me harder, pulling my body against his.

  David grabbed me and pulled me away from his brother. His lips went to my neck, nuzzling that sensitive place where it met my shoulder and making me sigh with pleasure. Other hands moved on my body, Anthony’s hands, and then he was kissing my back between my shoulder blades.

  “You need to respect dibs,” Jake growled, pulling me away from them again. I felt like a piece of meat being fought over by three tigers, and it turned me on in a way I couldn’t explain. Jake pushed me down onto my belly on the bed, then did something I really didn’t expect.

  He spread my butt cheeks apart with both hands and buried his face in my ass.

  “Oh
!” I yelped with surprise, but it quickly changed to a noise of pleasure. I had never had a rimjob before. Now Jake was holding me down on the bed, his nose and mouth firmly planted into my behind. His tongue wriggled up and down against my asshole, sending tickling, erotic waves of pleasure through my body. It was different than getting eaten out… but it felt good in its own way.

  Suddenly the mattress shifted as Anthony and David got on the bed. They were on their knees in front of me, cocks already out and as hard as the steel bars in an animal cage. David grabbed a handful of my hair and pulled my face up, then used his hips to guide his dick into my mouth. I moaned around his tasty flesh as his fingers tightened in my hair, just enough pressure to let me know he was in charge. Between that and Jake’s hand on my back holding me down on the bed, I had the sensation of being totally powerless before these three men. They were in charge and were going to do whatever they wanted with me.

  I tingled with excitement at the thought.

  David pulled his cock out of my mouth and turned my head toward his brother. Anthony gripped his cock with one hand as he guided it between my lips, pushing it deeper until the tip was rubbing against the inside of my cheek.

  A new sensation suddenly made me gasp with my mouth full. Jake had stopped licking my ass and had made his tongue rigid, and was now wedging it into my asshole. I moaned and squirmed as it plunged deep into my derriere, as far as he could go. The scruff on his jaw that had rubbed against my cheeks when he kissed me now rubbed against my ass cheeks as he fucked my ass with his tongue, moving it in and out steadily in a way that stimulated an erogenous zone I didn’t even know I had.

  The other two brothers took turns fucking my mouth. David kept a grip on my hair and moved me back and forth between them, from one cock to the other, only a few seconds at a time before switching. I wrapped my lips around each of them and did my best to suck them off like the good little fuck-toy that I was. These three sexy, gorgeous, chiseled men were in charge and it was my job to please them.

  Getting fucked by two men at the same time was intense. Getting fucked by three? It was so much more amazing.