Free Ravaged by Her Weretiger Prince (Steamy Paranormal Weretiger Shifter Romance) by Meghan Archer Page B

I noticed the collar.
     
    “What is that?” I asked, turning to the supervisor. “Was this tiger kept as a pet?”
     
    “No, no,” the man said, his smile widening slightly. “That beast was no man’s pet, but I have instructed your employers that this collar should never be removed. It is very dangerous, and I promise that so long as that collar stays around its neck, then you will have no troubles.”
     
    “We can’t keep a collar on its neck,” I protested, turning away from the tiger to stare at the foreign man. “It has to come off.”
     
    “That would not be a good—how do you say—career move, on your part,” the man said, that greasy smile stretching enough to show one golden tooth poking out from beneath his lip. My heart began to pound again.
     
    Calm down, Amber. Calm down…
     
    “Now, we must be leaving you,” the man said, clapping his hands once and saying something in a language I couldn’t recognize for all his rapid-fire commands. All of the men who had accompanied him vanished in only a minute, moving double-time into the van they had arrived in and driving off into the night.
     
    I watched their van disappear into the looming darkness, nothing left of their visit save for their cargo and a set of deep tire tracks made in the gravel path leading back to the zoo’s main access road.
     
    “This is such bullshit,” I muttered, turning back to my new charge and shutting the heavy metal door to the loading dock with a resounding clang.
     
    I stood at the observation window, staring into the eyes of the enormous cat that had waltzed unwillingly into my life. Something told me that Harvey would make this tiger my personal responsibility, and something about that seemed right. I had been here for him—and he was definitely a boy—when he first arrived. I was the first member of the staff he’d seen. It only made sense that I took care of him, I supposed.
     
    I made my way to the metal gate that he had been loaded from, his eyes following me the entire way as he paced restlessly in a constant circle. Every time I stared into those eyes, something plucked at the chords of my heart, and I knew that this poor creature had been through things I couldn’t even imagine.
     
    I set the back of my hand against the slats in the metal gate, prompting the tiger to slowly and cautiously make its way toward me, the muscles of his body moving in such harmony that it almost left me mesmerized.
     
    “I’m going to take care of you,” I whispered to him. “I won’t let anyone hurt you ever again.”
     
    If you had asked me at that moment, I would have sworn that that tiger had understood me, had listened to every word that I had said and taken them to heart. If only I’d known how true that was.
     
    After I had made my promise, something incredible happened: the tiger made a low huffing noise deep in his throat before roughly rubbing its head against the spot in the gate where my hand was resting. I couldn’t help but smile, letting my fingers slip through the gaps in the metal to scratch at its thick fur.

 
    A few days passed and I was—as expected—kept on call to deal with anything to do with the tiger. Not that I was complaining.
     
    Over those couple of days, I’d begun to develop a kind of bond with him, a deep connection that I never thought I’d feel while working in a dump like that. When the other keepers had left for the night, I would sit next to the gate with him and talk, those eyes staring deeply into mine whenever I spoke, listening, and dare I say it—understanding—every word I said. That tiger had become the friend I had never been able to find while working at that horrible zoo.
     
    “You don’t seem too dangerous to me, I said with a smile one night, my fingers diligently scratching behind his ear as he rubbed his head against my hand. The truth was I’d never met a more affectionate animal my entire time working as a zookeeper, and every time I saw him, I