Tarous, стр. 22
He laid his hand on my shoulder. “And son, most important of all, try to enjoy yourself at tonight’s ball.”
I could see Tarous roll his eyes, the moment was so touching he wanted to gag.
“Yes father.”
He strolled away leaving me alone on the white marble balcony again. He had disappeared back into thin air the same way he had come.
“For someone who acts like magic is so distasteful he sure uses it with great abandonment,” I mumbled.
In the world of monsters, teeth and claws were respected. Magic was used, but with great distaste. Magic reminded monsters too much of witches and humans. All monsters had a distaste for magic and demons especially hated magic. Many of their kind had been summoned and enslaved by magic users in the past.
I turned back to watching the dancing. So much of our society was an imitation of human society, no matter how much we denied it. The hypocrisy was sickening.
Soon two large men walked up and stood beside me. My father must have told my guards where I was. I finally turned and made my way to the stairs. As Lord Rask’s son I had certain duties. I was required to mix and mingle with the other monsters attending our ball. Tarous followed, and I suspected he knew that staying behind wouldn’t be good for his life expectancy.
Making alliances when I could and being friendly and polite to my father’s guests, such things were expected of me. I was even encouraged to murder a few of the guests, preferably the less powerful or less well connected monsters. Murder was highly encouraged amongst monsters, it was a true show of power. With monsters you must always appear strong. All monsters were naturally disgusted with weakness. Weak monsters tended to get eaten, unless their father was the Lord Rask of course.
My journey to the human world had done wonders for my reputation. Now I could walk with my head held high. I had slaughtered or enslaved hundreds of powerful humans and my family was currently in the process of selling the bodies for gold or political favors.
The Rask power had grown exponentially in a short amount of time. Everyone needed to eat and as the sole owner of an all you can eat buffet, our family was sitting pretty. We just had to remain in control of the portal, though so far no one was dumb enough to cross Lord Rask.
My body guards followed me through the ballroom at a distance. Just far enough back not to be noticed, but close enough to get to me in time if there was trouble. As I made my way through the crowd I drew the attention of several noblewomen and their daughters. I was the eligible son of the most rich and powerful family around. When they looked at me they didn’t see a person, they saw political power, wonderful genetics, and untold wealth. If one of their daughters could attract my attention and then make a wedding contract with my family, they would be set for life.
Most of these noble women would not be considered eligible by my family. Only the daughters of the richest and most powerful noble families would be allowed to form a marriage contract with me. Several of the daughters, at their mother’s encouragement, preened in their beautiful outfits. Many of the daughters had long flowing hair, voluptuous curves, and were covered in sparkling jewelry. At this court, women who are ‘man eaters’ might really be man eaters. I promptly turned in the opposite direction and began walking away at a brisk pace, just under a jog.
Sadly I was unable to escape. I tried to hide the blush in my cheeks from all the women ‘accidentally’ brushing up against me. If these females saw me blush it would only excite them. Similar to the way blood in the water excites sharks.
I noticed an older woman, stooped over with age, sitting at an ornately carved wooden table that sat along the wall with several other tables. She sat at the table alone. I knew her well so I made a bee line for her. The female monsters chasing me would avoid her. She was known for snacking on young female monsters when she became hungry.
“Ms. Margaret, it’s so good to see you here. How have you been?” I asked in a formal voice. She was an old and powerful monster, but grew lonely with age. Most were too scared of her to ever talk to her. A Rask was scared of nothing.
“I’m doing fine. Those whore daughters of mine still haven’t come and visited me lately. I knew I should have eaten them when they were born,” she said with a smile. All her teeth were still pointed as usual. The blood on her teeth was rather distracting though.
“Did you hear about the scandal in the Nix family? Their oldest daughter ran away with one of their corpse eater servants. The father has officially disowned her and set a rather large bounty on her head.”
A corpse eater, usually a ghoul, is a monster that feeds on the dead. Usually long dead and already rotting corpses. Only the lowest caste of monsters fed on the dead, most monsters preferred their food alive or freshly killed. No monster noble would want a corpse eater’s blood to mix with his own pure monster lineage.
I continued to stare into Ms. Margaret’s solid black eyes as she continued on with her little gossip rant while giving the occasional nod when necessary. I found it useful to talk with Ms. Margaret and not just to keep away all of the