Page 11 of An Empress of Air & Chaos

She still wasn’t sure if they were here to help or if they were going to rip her to shreds like the other creature had planned to.

Before she could think any more about creatures, blood, and crimson eyes, the dark sea swallowed her body whole and drank her to the bottom of the blackest pit.

Blood red eyes, skin thick like leather, talons as sharp as a razor, and the smell of sulphur.

Gideon Blacksteel confirmed the demon was dead. It had taken his brother one swift swing of his sword to behead the demon that had attacked this home. Quick and easy.

The element of surprise seemed to have been on their side this time. The demon looked like a high demon, a powerful one, but it had been too distracted by the girl’s blood to notice them. Higher demons normally put up a better fight than a lesser demon, but tonight it has been painless. For them.

As he assessed the room, he held his bow upright in case there were any more vile creatures that needed to be slain in here. It was unclear how many had come to Mossgrave but the clan wouldn't be long in finding out. Looking around, it looked clean, apart from the two victims.

He lowered his weapon of choice, taking a breath. Down the dirt track leading into the estate, the Blacksteel hunting clan—an army of demon hunters—was completing the same tasks given to them by their commander.

Get into Mossgrave, save as many humans as possible, kill every demon, get out.

Normalcy.

He knew it was coming. Only on a night like this when the apex of the moon was so strong could demons gather enough magic to portal from the underworld to the human lands. It was always worse in the lead up to a full moon…

Gideon was a member of the Blacksteel hunting clan, by blood and by oath. Being the son of the commander of the clan meant that he had been thrust into the world of demon hunting since he could walk. He was a warrior; this was his purpose by blood right, and he knew how to do his job efficiently and effectively, alongside his brethren.

To his father’s delight, his mother had borne three boys. Torin was the eldest of the three. He was as tall and broad shouldered as any warrior should be, which made it easy for him to toss around his favourite swords like they weighed nothing. He had the crystal blue eyes of their mother, but that was all. His father’s sharp features dominated his face, making him look like he was a younger version of the commander and older than his age of twenty-two.

Gideon was the middle child of the Blacksteel boys; he was fairer and had softer features than Torin. He came in just shorter and slimmer, being a year younger. What he lacked in strength in comparison to his older brother, he made up for in speed and agility. His father, Viktir Blacksteel, never allowed for weakness. Gideon had taken the lucid green eyes of his father, piercing and oval like a cat’s. His bow was like a second limb to him, having been trained in weaponry since he could walk or hold the damn thing.

The youngest of the brothers was Kellen—the baby. For being over six feet tall at the age of sixteen, Gideon struggled to see why his mother still called him that. For a child he was not. Kellen was a mixture of both parents—a split right down the middle; his face held one emerald eye and one sapphire.

Where Gideon was from in the kingdom of Caledorna (Huntswood City), the healers would tell tales of those with different eyes born from magic blood, calling them special ones or ones that could bring hope to the world. However, Kellen had never shown any signs of magic other than his Hunting blood. And that was a good thing in this father’s eyes.

Kellen was just old enough to finish training and he had completed the selection—a grisly and extensive process that every hunting-blooded man had to endure—a few moons back. Therefore, he was ready to hunt with the clan.

His mother, on the other hand, had done everything she could not to have him involved in the blood battles and direct fighting. She had tried to find him another role more suited to his disposition, like a treasurer or an office bearer. But Viktir Blacksteel had seen this as a direct weakness of the clan and forced Kellen to train harder. Just shortly after the Selection, Viktir removed their mother from the tower, advising it was necessary for the unit to be stronger.

Gideon tensed as he allowed himself to think of her—his beautiful, kind, and adoring mother—before he turned his attention back to the job at hand. He glanced at the girl on the floor, sprawled out over a mixture of her own vomit and blood.

His nose crinkled.

It wasn’t the worst thing he had ever seen or smelled. Torin was one step ahead and had already lifted the blonde girl into his arms, her body still limp as he left the room.

Gideon assessed the injury on the arm of the girl with the raven-coloured hair.

He drew a breath through his teeth. “That’s a deep one,” he muttered to himself as he positioned her to lift her up. He gently scooped her into his arms without hurting the injury.

No human infirmary would be able to heal a wound that was triggered by demon magic. He would need to get her to the infirmary at the hunting tower where a healer could look over her. A healer of his world. One with magic.

As he walked through her home with the girl in his arms, he turned his thoughts back to what he had seen as he entered the threshold of the bathing chamber. He had been surprised that the girl had still been upright when he and Torin found them. They had heard their screams even before getting into the house.

Their awful, heart-wrenching screams.

No matter how many times he had heard them from humans who were attacked, it never got easier.

When he had gotten to the room, right before Torin had sliced the head from the demon’s neck, he had seen her. It was never easy to see someone look like they had accepted their death, but she had. Her head had been against the wall, eyes shut, welcoming the angel of demise. She had clearly put up an impressive fight beforehand, given the state of the house, but a human like her couldn’t kill a demon. Not one of higher class.

And then she had passed out, once seeing what his brother had done to the demon and noting her wounded arm. The demon wound had probably taken its toll on her human body. She had lost a lot of blood and Gideon now feared she had poison seeping into her bloodstream. He had to act fast to make sure she survived. She didn’t have blood from the Gods running through her veins like he did. Although he looked human, he wasn’t.

Catching up to his brother in no time, taking long and precise strides along the hallway, he tried to keep his rough hands from marking the girl’s delicate skin. Even after everything she had endured tonight, she was still glowing—the complexion of her skin was remarkable. Her hair tumbled over his arm like black silk woven from the black widow witch herself, and he couldn’t help but acknowledge that she was wearing practically nothing.

He swallowed down the frog in his throat and looked ahead. Undergarments as black as her hair covered what it needed to, and to avoid her being completely exposed, a dark, thin overdress was fashioned around her shoulders and tied at her waist.

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