Page 696 of Love Bites

Math said, “I cannot believe how close you cut arrivals. It’s why you’re late half the time.”

Cai slugged Math’s shoulder. “The party doesn’t start until I’m here.”

Arawn grimaced. “What did you show Silveretti and Eurig?”

“Oh, I was at a natural’s party in the Hills last night, and these ladies showed up.” Cai showed Math and Arawn a photo of himself surrounded by three of the hottest new singers in California. One had her arm around Cai’s waist. Another sat on his lap. The last had her tongue in his ear.

Arawn flinched and stepped back. “Jeez, Cai.”

Math chuckled at him. “And yet you never take us to these parties.”

“You grinds schedule business meetings before noon. You can’t stay out until daybreak like I do. I have to attend these parties because that’s where I meet the talent to book into DD’s casinos and arenas.”

Other venues’ managers wondered how Dragons Den, Inc. always seemed to have the newest, most up-and-coming acts just as they broke out. Cai Wyvern was the company’s secret weapon.

Arawn said, “And I needlessly worried that you were showing Silveretti a picture of your girlfriend.”

“Never,” Cai laughed. “I shy away from women after two or three dates. Girlfriends are for chumps who want to get mated.”

Arawn shook his head. “Sometimes it doesn’t work that way.”

Cai elbowed both of them. “Shut up. The Royal Ones are about to tell us why they dragged us here in the middle of the week, practically at dawn.”

Three o’clock. It was three o’clock in the afternoon.

But that probably was Cai’s definition of dawn.

Queen Bronwyn and King Llywelyn settled onto their thrones, smiling serenely at the crowd. They’d ruled for two decades with light hands, a benevolent reign during which they had dragged dragon society, kicking and screaming, into the twenty-first century.

The King stood and looked down at his mate, who nodded at him.

With that signal, he straightened. “Let it be known,” the king said, his eyes flashing the flowing glitter of a mature dragonmate, “that the Queen and myself have decided to abdicate and thus relinquish the Dragon Throne.”

The crowd gasped and collectively drew back.

Math was as stunned as the rest of them, though he didn’t show it.

Wow,retirement.

Leading the clan wasn’t a job that you quit. Kings and queens didn’tretire.

Until now.

Most dragon monarchs reigned well into their old age, as was their duty, until they died or became too feeble. Some reigns lasted a century or longer.

Well, the world was changing, and the New Wales Dragon Clan needed to change with it.

The King continued, “We will retire to live out our remaining days in peace and quiet and to give new blood a chance to lead the New Wales Dragon Clan into the future. Our retirement shall commence three months from now, assuming that the Dragon Scepter chooses a suitable new monarch.”

Another wave of shock rolled through the room.

Three months.

In the few instances when a monarch had retired due to declining health, they had usually given five years’ notice of the change, not meremonths.

And yet, a cold energy flowed down Math’s spine.

Within Math’s flesh, his dragon soul uncoiled, intrigued by this new possibility, the opportunity to become the alpha dragon of the clan.

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