by Amy Star
The city was arranged in tiers. At the lowest tier were the beaches, the docks, the marina, the amusement park, and the casinos. Next highest were the shops and mall, bakeries, and restaurants; the galleries and theatres; the museums; the hotels; the apartmetnts and homes of the locals; and the administrative center. Above them were the luxury apartments and condos, mostly owned or rented by visitors and part-time residents, and the convention center.
Highest up sat all the ski resorts. On a day in the summer, such as when Justin, Suzanne, and Mack arrived, one typically saw aquatic weredragons swimming with necks raised like Nessies among the boats. Throughout the year, winged weredragons climbed and swooped through the air up and down the faces of the mountains and across the surface of Lake Ambrosia.
Early in the morning, Justin took himself, Suzanne, and Max aboard his private jet from L.A. up into Canada. When they arrived at the small airport outside Ambrosian City, the Jaguar that Justin had rented for them was waiting on the tarmac: a luxury car named for a big cat, rented by a man who was a bear. Once their luggage was in the trunk of the Jaguar, Max took the wheel and drove them from the airport to their destination.
As they entered Ambrosian City, she sat gazing out at their destination, fascinated to see how many metamorphs casually walked the streets in two-legged animal half-forms, something that morphs seldom did elsewhere. But Ambrosian City, she realized, was not like most places—even as the man who had brought her here was not like most men.
Quickly and efficiently they checked in at the five-star Ambrosian Premier Hotel and went to their accommodations on the top floor, Max taking a room and Justin and Suzanne occupying a suite. Justin took the three of them to lunch at the elegant restaurant on the ground floor, then excused Max for the rest of the day and took Suzanne back upstairs.
Alone in their suite, Suzanne and Justin undressed for bed. Everything came off—except the ring. Their clothing littering the floor, they stood naked before the mirror and Justin kissed, licked, and put love bites on her neck and shoulders. With his face buried in her golden waterfall of hair, Suzanne kept the hand wearing the ring lifted before her face and gazed into the sapphire as intently as she might have studied herself in the mirror. The stones sparkled at her, suggesting the world of possibilities that they represented—or would have represented if the whole thing were not an act. Only the tremble-inducing feeling of Justin’s fingers rustling at her muff and grazing the flower of her sex while he kissed and sucked at her neck distracted her from staring at that ring and contemplating what it could have meant under other circumstances.
Justin turned her around facing the mirror. He swept her hair to one side and had at her neck with his lips once again, while encircling her with his colossal arms. One hand cupped her breasts and squeezed and hardened her nipples, while the other continued to roam through the honey-colored thicket between her legs and probe at the cave of honey beneath it. A wildfire of pleasure burned its way through her when he put the thick shaft of his cock in the cleft of her buttocks and began to dry-hump her that way—well, almost dry, with his man-nectar seeping onto her skin.
Even with the tremors running through her body at what he was doing to her, Suzanne could not concentrate on the erotic sight of Justin feeling her up and playing with her reflected in the mirror while those rocks sparkled on her finger. It was only when, from the corners of her eyes, she looked up into the mirror and saw him staring, bemused, at her partial distraction, that Suzanne a bit sheepishly offered: “Oh. Sorry.”
He spun her around and pulled her into a hard kiss that set off a stronger tremor inside her. “Keep your mind on work, please,” he said, mock-scolding her. “Between now and the dinner tonight…,” he gave her bottom a squeeze, “you’re on the job.”
“Yes, Sir,” she sighed, and let him kiss her again and sweep her from the carpet and into his arms. Justin carried her to bed and spread her out on it, and dove face-first between her open thighs. His lips and tongue wetly consuming her lady parts made Suzanne’s mind and heart glow as brightly as the gems mounted on her finger, which she still could not resist holding up and peering at while he ate her out. The waves of pleasure made her shut her eyes and open them again, dividing her attention between what Justin was doing to her and what sat upon her hand.
Only when Justin mounted her and drove the voluminous trunk of his dick inside her did all thoughts of the spurious engagement ring flee her mind. She simply threw back her head, held on to him, and received his urgent and wicked pumping, at last giving herself completely to what would take up the hours between now and this evening. She submitted to him, yielding up her body and reveling in his, filling herself with a pleasure far greater than any mere piece of jewelry could ever bring.
As evening approached, they tore themselves away from bed for sex in the shower (they definitely needed a shower, as they would be spending their evening in a place where they would be surrounded by shifting people who would smell the way they had spent the day) and dressed for dinner. It was when they were dressed that a sight greeted Justin Gates’s eyes that took his breath away as nothing else he had ever seen in his life had done.
Suzanne had slipped into her best black party gown. It was open-backed, bare-shouldered, with a slit all the way up her leg on one side. She accented it with a necklace of tiny pearls—real ones that she had bought herself with her earnings from one of her higher-paying clients. Her hair fell down one shoulder to the bust on one side like a waterfall of starlight. And, of course, she wore the ring. “His” ring.
Seeing her that way stopped Justin in his tracks. He was rooted to the spot, truly speechless at the way she looked. He had been to bed with more women than he could remember, but in all his years he had never set his eyes on any female, his own kind or human or any other breed, who looked anywhere near as wondrous as Suzanne Sutton looked tonight.
Suzanne looked him up and down as the man who was a black bear inside stood before her in a black suit and tie, looking every bit the gentleman that he was not when he had her in bed. With the tiniest of shrugs, she asked, “Do I look all right?”
He answered her in a partly hushed voice of complete awe. The feeling that now had possession of Justin was something beyond the desire that he had felt every other minute they had spent together. Something else was taking hold of him now, something that was very much out of place in the relationship that they had established. This feeling did not belong here, but here it was and it was not going away. “You look better than all right. You look…more beautiful than I ever thought it was possible for a woman to look.”
She smiled softly at that, her toes curling a bit in her most expensive black party shoes. She returned in her mind to the way she had felt looking at him for the first time when she opened his files on her Mac. Suzanne hoped that what Justin felt now was something like what she had felt then. She sensed that it was.
“Are we ready to go?” she asked.
He stepped over to her and offered her his arm, which she took. “We are ready.”
They went to the door to the suite and let themselves out. Yes, they were definitely “ready.” As they strolled together down the hall in the direction of Mack’s room, Justin told her, “After the Ceremonial Howl tonight, when I get you back up here, I’m getting you out of that gown and then I’ll have you howling.”
She allowed herself a little laugh at that, pleased to find that no matter how much of a gentleman he made himself, inside he was and would always be a beast. A lust-filled, dirty-minded, and incredibly gorgeous beast.
_______________
The evening’s activities, like the deliberations of the rest of the week, would take place at the convention center. It was a cavernous place of tinted glass and stainless steel set into a mountainside overlooking the lake. The lower floor was taken up with a ballroom, a huge dining room, and concert, performance, and exhibition spaces. On the upper floor were meeting rooms, conference rooms, an inner observation space, and an outer
observation promenade from which one could look out at the lake and the adjacent mountains. The old Ambrosian Chalet was visible from there.
A client once took Suzanne to a performance of My Fair Lady as the “date” part of their evening. Coming into the ballroom on Justin’s arm with Mack by their side, Suzanne felt a bit like Eliza Dolittle coming to the Embassy Ball with Professor Higgins and Colonel Pickering. Of course, Justin was the farthest thing from a “Higgins.” That character was a closeted old fussbudget of a Queen who had channeled his stifled libido into an obsession with English and diction and wondered aloud why women could not be more like men.
Justin was youth, handsomeness, muscle, hair, and raw, relentless sex, subdued for the evening in his expensive suit. He walked her around the room, displaying both her and the ring on her finger to everyone in his line of sight. If his cordial greetings and introductions had been subtitled, the subtitles would have read, Yes, this is the human female I’ve been screwing and I’m marrying her; eat all your hearts out.
Suzanne smiled dazzlingly and performed her part in the charade, saying all the right things to everyone to whom Justin introduced her. Much to her surprise, she was actually taking pride in all this, and not just the pride of a job well and skillfully done. Suzanne wondered at the fact that she was feeling proud to be in this place with him.
She was proud to pass herself off as Justin Gates’ trophy fiancee, not because she knew how to play the part of the trophy for maximum effect, but because she was presenting herself as his trophy, the one that he, with his excellent taste and his ability to have any female he wanted, had chosen. It wasn’t her ability to do the job and “sell” the bogus engagement that made Suzanne proud. It was the fact that she was doing it for him. And the fact that with every introduction and every conversation, Justin seemed genuinely, honestly proud of her. They were both acting their roles beautifully, with true conviction, true motivation. There was an inescapable feeling of truth about the whole affair.
At one point they saw an older couple standing before them, dressed to the nines. The man was grey-haired and grey-bearded, the woman dressed in a pale blue-green gown. Suzanne guessed they were in their sixties. She also guessed from the wide, broad body frames of the two of them that this older couple were of Justin’s own breed: senior werebears.
The pair began to walk toward them, and Justin leaned over and whispered into Suzanne’s ear, “These are the Morants. They’re my kind. He’s in banking and they’re at least as rich as I am. Their money is even older than they are. And he’s a Marshal.”
“Understood,” Suzanne whispered back.
The Morants drew near them and pleasantries and niceties were thus exchanged. Cordially, Justin said, “Suzanne Sutton, I’d like you to meet Jordan and Veronika Morant. Jordan, Veronika, this is my fiancee, Suzanne Sutton. She’s in the party planning business. We met when she hosted one of my functions for me in Los Angeles.”
The older couple took her hand in turn, suitably taken in as everyone else had been by Justin’s little lie. “How do you do, Ms. Sutton?”
“Charmed, darling,” said Veronika, demonstrating her accent, which Suzanne placed immediately.
“Mrs. Morant…you’re from Russia, originally?” Suzanne guessed.
“Moscow,” Veronika confirmed.
“How very nice,” said Suzanne. “I’ve never had the pleasure of visiting your country.”
“You must, my dear,” said Veronika. “There’s no place lovelier.”
“And there’d be no one lovelier to be in it,” Justin said, giving Suzanne’s hand a convincing little squeeze.
“Then I’m understanding correctly, Suzanne,” ventured Jordan, “that you’re actually making an honest bear of Justin?”
Justin held up the hand on which the rented jewelry perched. “You can see for yourself, Jordan.”
“But after all these years, Justin, and always someone different every time we’ve seen you…” He offered to Suzanne, “No offense, young lady. But if you’ve had anything to do with Los Angeles society, Justin’s reputation must have preceded him with you.”
“I do all my homework on all my clients,” said Suzanne, coolly, unruffled. “Of course I knew everything about Justin, the same as I know everything about everyone I work for. I can serve them better that way. And I really don’t judge.” She looked up at Justin with an admiration that was truly more than a pretense. “Justin and I have a relationship of mutual understanding. We know who each other is, and we accept each other.” And she linked her arm with his for emphasis and practically drilled her smile into the older couple.
“You accept everything, then?” asked Veronika with a surprising bluntness. The unspoken meaning of the question was clear. You have no qualms about marrying a bear man who has bedded his way up and down the Pacific Coast?
“What’s not to accept?” Suzanne answered. “Everyone has a past.” She looked back up into Justin’s eyes with a meaning that only they shared. “Everyone. Isn’t that right?”
With the same meaning, Justin said to his old friends, “That’s right. Everyone.” And, unspoken, he added, If only you two old grizzlies knew…
“What’s more important to me than whom Justin has done things with,” Suzanne continued, “is whom he’s done them for. You know about his works outside of business, don’t you? The contributions he makes to the arts, to education, not just for your community but the other breeds, and humans too. And he makes sure all of his employees have living wages, and health benefits, and pension plans. Justin has always enjoyed his life, and he’s always thought of others. Everyone should have the sense of balance that he has.”
“Yes, of course,” said Jordan, almost blushing, and glancing out of the corners of his eyes at his wife, who was nearly pink as well. “I’ve always considered a balanced life a virtue.”
“Then you know that I know exactly what I’m getting in this man, and I couldn’t be happier.” Suzanne felt triumphant, watching the older couple stifle their amazement at the quality of the woman on the younger werebear’s arm. She had no doubt that she had just held her own with one of the most formidable couples in the room, and done it with poise and grace.
“And we’re very happy for you, darling,” said Veronika, putting her smile back in place. “We must take lunch together during the week while these men are having their deliberations.”
“Yes, we must,” Suzanne replied, pretending to look forward to it.
“I believe there are some other greetings we need to make before dinner,” said Jordan, gently but insistently tugging at his wife’s arm. “If you’ll excuse us…”
“Of course,” Suzanne grinned. Gladly, she added, unspoken.
Once the old banker bear and his Russian mate were out of earshot, Justin took Suzanne by the waist and pulled her to him as if he were going to French-kiss her, strip the two of them, and mount her right here in the ballroom. “You are brilliant,” he said, beaming a sexy smile down at her.
“Loved every second of it,” she grinned back up at him. “I really did do my homework. I didn’t want to leave any room for doubt that I’m the kind of wife Justin Gates deserves.”
“Trust me,” he said, “you’ve left no room for doubt at all. Not one bit.” And he wondered, though he did not say it, how he had gone all these years humping every beautiful female he had ever met, and never once hearing anyone speak of him that way or having anyone make him feel as proud as he felt at this moment.
And just now, Suzanne wished Justin actually could French-kiss her, strip the two of them, and mount her right here in the ballroom. That would really give the community of wealthy metamorphs something to talk about.
After the meet-and-greet in the ballroom, everyone adjourned to the grand dining room for dinner. Then it was back to the ballroom for the post-dinner dance, and then all there werewolves in the room excused themselves. Once the lycanthropes were gone, everyone else took the elevators and stairs to the upper level and the
outer promenade for the final part of the Leaders’ Gathering Gala.
The view outside, with night fallen, was magical. Against a velvety indigo sky, splashed with stars, the mountains were silhouetted in black, and the convention center at the city set at the mountain face was now a spread of golden lights. The streets were now rivers of dancing orange radiance, flowing towards the shore of the lake. The torchlight parade through Ambrosian City was getting underway. Up and down both sides of the mountain face, the lights of other fires glowed and flickered and flashed against the blackness. The torches of the lycanthropes who had left the gala announced the finale of the evening. In the torches’ glow, the forms of the lycanthropes, transformed from human to half-wolves on two legs or full wolves on four, took their places. A hush fell over the mountainside—until at last the werewolves began to howl.
The howling rose up from the lighted spots on the blackness-shrouded slope. The sound of it wafted up towards the summit of the mountain and the stars above, and floated down the slope towards the city. They were the howls of the young and the old, joined and mixed in chorus, all loud and strong; high-pitched with youth and lower-pitched with age. The howls mingled and joined in an ancient harmony, as old as wolves and older than man. It was a song to tingle the skin and make the spirit light up like the torches, a sound reaching back beyond the dimmest times in human memory and up and out to limitless dreams and a limitless future.