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sentinels. A limited amount of seating and suites had also been made available, for an exorbitant price, to any of the other races who were willing to pay.
    And they were all willing to pay. Dignitaries from all the other Elder Races, along with many human nationalities, would be attending.
    People would watch the Games for a variety of reasons. Some would be evaluating the strength of the Wyr demesne and making notes of the personalities involved. The week would showcase a lot of talent, so no doubt some, including Cuelebre Enterprises, would be headhunting for a selection of opportunities that lay outside the sentinel positions.
    Also, many Wyr would gain a sense of security from knowing their demesne remained strong and capable of handling any threat. Still others would watch for the blood sport, which was barbaric, of course, but Dragos had never made any bones about the fact that the Games themselves were barbaric. They were supposed to be. PETA members were completely outraged and utterly confused.
    The weeklong event would also be televised on pay-per-view cable worldwide, which would help to defray some of the massive cost, but the bottom line was the Games still remained the single most expensive project he had personally sponsored in generations.
    In this case, profit was not the point. This was governance, a calculated, lavish display of wealth and an exercise of raw, brutal strength.
    Just as humans had many different countries splattered across the globe, all the other Elder Races had different demesnes—in the continental United States, in Europe, Asia, Africa and other places.
    All except for the Wyr. The Wyr had different communities, such as the gargoyles in northern Scotland, the wolves of the Great Steppe in southwestern Russia, the gazelles of the African plains and the mysterious, ancient kraken of the North Atlantic who rarely interacted with others or came to land.
    But there was only one Wyr demesne, one Wyr ruler.
    Cuelebre, the Great Beast.
    And there had been only one event like this in the last thousand years. That had been the first Sentinel Games, when his original seven had fought their way to their current positions. Then, he had recruited the most Powerful of the Wyr throughout the world. They had come together to establish who was the strongest amongst them, and they had fought for the chance to rule by his side.
    He had been working toward this point since Tiago and Rune had left their positions last summer. This time the worldwide recruiting and screening effort had been conducted electronically. Notices had gone out, job application forms had been posted, and an entire team of recruiters and HR personnel had spent the last several months screening and checking references for all the applicants.
    They had arrived at a short list of 448 contestants, and most of those were predator Wyr. There were any number of lions, of course, and several gargoyles. Dragos liked the gargoyles. They were community minded, and when they changed into their Wyr form, their stone-like surface was almost impossible to penetrate in hand-to-hand combat.
    There was one of the two other known thunderbirds in existence aside from Tiago, a clash of harpies, and a very interesting, rare individual who was mixed race but whose Wyr side was strong enough that he could shapeshift. Most interesting of all to Dragos, there was a rare pegasus. While Powerful immortals, as herbivores pegasi were peaceful creatures, and it was unusual for one to seek out such a public, potentially violent position.
    All-predator sentinels made for a hawkish group, a fact that was brought home to him when Pia, with her more peaceful outlook, began to sit in on conferences and voice her opinions. It might not be a bad thing to have a pegasus as a sentinel—as long as he could establish his prowess in physical combat. If he couldn’t fight worth shit, there was no point. The pegasus could go push some pencils in a bureaucratic position