Page 25 of The Last Sanctuary
The tiger ignored her. He sauntered back to his rock, plopped down, and yawned, revealing his teeth. He licked his front fangs as if to remind her who stood atop the food chain.
“Okay, show off. I’ll come back to fill your enrichment ball later, okay?”
Vlad didn’t bother to answer her.
As she drove the cart up the path, she passed one of the peacocks strolling the grounds. He strutted and preened, showing off his sapphire-throated elegance and flamboyant, plumed jewel-green tail feathers.
He squawked at her in annoyance as she drove the cart around him.
“I’ll get to you,” she said. “Be patient.”
He shimmied his feathers at her to show his irritation.
“Yeah, yeah, join the line. Everyone’s pissed at me today.”
She decided to cross the grounds out of order to feed the bonobos next. They’d been screeching their indignation since yesterday.
The four bonobos lounged in the roped netting strung between three trees inside their habitat. Some slept. Others combed nits from each other’s fur. Pepper and Newton chased each other over a tightrope, nimble and sprightly. Their tiny hands and feet clung to the rope as they enthusiastically attempted to shake the other one free.
Cousins of the chimpanzee, bonobos were the smallest and most intelligent of the apes. They were a matriarchal society, with their leader being a female. They were mostly peaceful andfar less aggressive than chimps. They’d been extinct in the wild for a decade.
Zephyr was the matriarch, the oldest and wisest. She was a patient and calm leader, looking out for the others, breaking up arguments, and protecting her small son, Gizmo, from the taunts of Pepper and Newton, both four-year-old juveniles. Pepper was particularly calculated and cunning. She would distract the other bonobos and steal their food—particularly lettuce, her favorite.
Gizmo bounced on his branch, swinging his arms and offering Raven energetic screeches and hoots. He grinned, his top lip pulled over his teeth, his leathery face relieved and joyful.Finally, he seemed to say,You brought dinner!
He reached toward her, gesturing excitedly with his fingers, his black-licorice eyes gleaming. His tufts of black hair were parted in the middle on top of his head, giving him a distinctly human look.
Despite her grief, she managed a grim smile. His exuberance made her chest constrict with a hollow ache. “Nice to see you, too, Gizmo.”
After the bonobos were fed, she moved on to the red foxes. Zoe, Zelda, and Magnus were as energetic as puppies—and almost as tame. They’d let her or her father enter their pen and rub their bellies or brush the burrs from their lush red tails.
Sal wasn’t nearly as obliging. Beautiful as he was, the zebra was vain about keeping his black and white coat pristine, and ornery to boot. He’d sneak up and bite her on the shoulder or butt as soon as her back was turned. He also enjoyed kicking people, so she locked him in his night house when she needed to access his pen.
The bobcat, Electra, was ancient at nine years old. She appeared cuddly as a stuffed animal with her charming bobbed tail, luxurious spotted coat, and perky, black-fringed ears, butshe had fast reflexes and a predator’s instincts. Cute as she was, Electra could kill a grown man with gruesome efficiency.
Raven’s father went into her pen. He didn’t fear Electra, who was known to flip onto her belly for him and bat playfully at his arms with her razor-sharp claws. She’d leave nasty scratches if he didn’t wear his leather jacket, but he didn’t seem to mind.
Or, he hadn’t. Past tense. He’d never again enter this pen and play with Electra. He’d never again crawl around with the wolves or watch Vlad tear into his bull’s head dinner with serene satisfaction.
Raven sucked in her breath and tossed Electra’s dinner over the fence. A whole plucked chicken she loved to eat fully, bones and all. Electra growled in appreciation as she pounced on it.
By the time Raven reached the rear of the park, it was early evening. At the north end, the wolves reigned over two forested enclosures. The first enclosure was the largest and held the six timber wolves. Behind a tall chain-link fence topped with electrified wire, the wolves prowled among the cluster of beech trees in the center of their enclosure.
She knew these wolves the best. They were her father’s favorites. She remembered sweltering afternoons spent outside the fence, watching her father inside the enclosure with the wolves.
He would sit with them, frolic with them, sleep with them. It had taken months of patience, but little by little, the pack had accepted him. Raven had watched it happen with a complicated mix of envy, awe, resentment, and admiration.
Normally shy and wary, the wolves typically kept to the cover of the trees during the day. They recognized her scent and the smell of food. One by one, they appeared between the trees and drifted into the clearing. Slowly, they approached the double-fence line.
Titus and Loki came the closest. Loki loped up to the first fence, tongue lolling goofily. Loki, the god of mischief, was aptly named. He was the smallest of the wolves but made up for it with abundant energy. Curious and mischievous, he had a spring to his step, always the one ready to play.
Titus stood tense, ears pricked, fur raised along his spine, and his tail stiff behind him, not induced by aggression, but rather in a protective stance. He was the beta. Four years old and in his prime, he was a bruiser: tall, thick-chested, and bulky. The beta was the bouncer of the pack, the alphas’ enforcer, and the first to snap at any wolf out of line.
“I brought dinner,” she said.
Suki whined eagerly and took a tentative step forward, her tail lifting. She was the shyest wolf as well as the youngest, a yearling. Suki was sweet and gentle, the peacekeeper, the one who broke up arguments before Titus had to get involved.
Suki’s name was Japanese for “beloved.” Her dad named her when he nursed her from a pup after a she-wolf from the Chattanooga Zoo had rejected her young. It was the only sentimental thing Raven had ever seen him do.
