Page 17 of A Malicious Menagerie (Fangs & Fables #1)

As I leave the enclosure, I can’t help but turn back and look at the wolf. At his glistening black fur and gemstone eyes that shine out from the gloom like twin moons. At his strength and the cunning in his gaze. He doesn’t belong here, languishing like a collectible gathering dust on a shelf.

“You should be free,” I tell him wistfully, and his ears perk up at the words. I can almost imagine that he looks a little wistful, too.

As I pick my way back around the iron bars and through the undergrowth to the main road, a familiar voice stops me dead. “Hello, Anna!”

Wincing, I take a moment to school my expression into something welcoming before turning to my boss. “Hello, Mr. Mathis.”

The older man is coming up the path from the direction of the carousel, more casual today in chinos and a white button-down shirt.

Instantly, nerves assault me—did he hear me talking to the wolf?

But he appears relaxed and, based on his trajectory, looks to have only just arrived from the menagerie’s front entrance.

“Taking care of my wolf, I see,” Mathis comments as he joins me in front of the exhibit. “He can be a prickly one. Has he been giving you much trouble?”

“Not at all,” I hedge. “I’ve been using the divider.”

Well, until my mistake today, but he doesn’t need to know that.

“Good, good,” Mathis hums with an approving nod. “I’d hate for anything to happen to my newest employee. After all, who would take care of your grandmother?”

I tense at his words. His tone is still cheerful, but this time, I’m even more certain that that was a threat.

“Do you know how I made my fortune, Anna?” Mathis asks abruptly, startling me from the panicked static in my brain.

“No, sir.”

“I was a young man on a diplomatic trip with my father,” Mathis begins, his gaze turned toward the dense woods but hazy as if he’s somewhere else.

“He was a prominent man, known for his ability to soothe ruffled feathers in a time when Africa was racked with civil war and chaos. Despite being a powerful man, he was not a rich man… well, not by my standards, anyway.” Here, he gives me a sharp grin.

“In any case, as a boy of seventeen, I did not want to be in Africa.

I wanted to be back home spending time with friends and chasing girls.

And so, with little else to do, I explored.

The locals had a legend they liked to tell, and especially if they could shock the wide-eyed son of a diplomat.

They called the beast the Grootslang, a massive serpent with the head and trunk of an elephant.

It was rumored to guard a hoard of diamonds the likes of which no mere mortal could possibly fathom.

The way they spoke of this creature, they believed it to be something supernatural, or maybe even divine.

And so, of course, I was hooked. I wanted to see this beast for myself, and, maybe even more so, I wanted to see its treasure. ”

Mathis is silent for a minute, lost in his memories.

I try not to fidget, feeling that nothing good can come of his story.

He finally continues, “It took me weeks, but I finally found the cave the locals had hinted to in their stories. While my slight build had earned me the ridicule of some of my classmates as a youth, it was to my benefit now. It was a tight fit through that cavern, but I managed to slip all the way down to the heart of the grotto. And there, I found it. The Grootslang.”

“What did it look like?” I blurt, drawn into his story in spite of myself.

“It was as described, its scales as sharp and glittering as the diamonds it guarded. And there were diamonds—so many that it boggled my young mind. I had never seen anything so beautiful as the riches before me. But the Grootslang would not let its collection go without a fight, which is how I ended up in a death match with a fifty-foot serpent.” Mathis pauses to roll up his sleeve, revealing a round scar on either side of his forearm.

“Nearly lost my arm. But I was quick, and I had my father’s rifle.

In the end, I took it down by attrition.

Suddenly, the diamonds were all mine, and my fortune was secured.

Still, do you know what I thought in that moment? ”

“What?” I ask, enthralled.

He smirks, his dark eyes glittering like the diamonds he claimed all those years ago. “I thought to myself that the serpent might have been the bigger prize than its hoard. To possess such a creature, to have all its strength under my thumb… More than money, that would have been true power.”

“And so you built the menagerie,” I surmise, bile burning my throat.

“And so I did,” he agrees, meeting my gaze. “And true enough, these beasts are the most precious treasures I own. So you see why I take their care—and their secrecy—so seriously.”

“I do, sir,” I agree, with the sudden sinking certainty that I am in way over my head. What’s the life of one young woman and her grandmother to a man who has slain a legend in the name of greed?

“Then you understand that I will eliminate any threat to my very own Eden?”

I tense at his words, my muscles still but my mind racing. Did he hear what I said to the wolf? Not that he could possibly think I have the guts or the resources to free a dire wolf, but his warning is clear. “Yes, sir.”

He smiles now, the dark cloud haunting him lifting abruptly. “Good. Then carry on. I’m sure you have much to do.”