I draw together my power as, across from me, Asmodeth rises.

“Annihilate.” The curse hisses out of me, hitting him square in the chest.

The demon grunts as he staggers back, but the spell that should have blown him to bits seems to sink into him.

Asmodeth laughs. “I am made of curses, witch. They do not harm me. They fuel me.”

That bit of information would’ve been helpful a while ago.

From the other side of my bond, I feel a burst of pain.

Memnon!

I hear him laugh across our connection. I am fine, est amage. Just fighting a worthy opponent. Hold fast, and give these creatures hell.

While I’m half-distracted, the demon rushes me, his claws extended. His body slams into mine, taking us both to the ground.

Shit. I go for one of my daggers, but the weapon is pinned beneath the silk dress, and the silk dress is pinned beneath the demon.

I grunt as Asmodeth presses his face into my wound. His wet tongue licks up the slit of the cut, and ugh, that is so fucking gross.

He groans. “Haven’t tasted flesh in a long time.”

Beneath us, the ground trembles.

“He did it,” Jacques says way too eagerly. “The demon tasted her.”

“Congratulations,” Luca murmurs. “He’s agreed to the bond. Now we simply wait for him to finish.”

Finish me, they mean.

Asmodeth’s lips curl back to reveal two rows of sharp teeth. The sight is frightening, terrible.

You too are a dark, deadly thing, I remind myself. I gave myself to that earth for two millennia, and now I can easily draw power from it.

Here, deep in the bowels of the earth, at midnight of the new moon, the magic beneath the ground is especially potent. I press my hands to the cold floor, reaching for the buried power, siphoning it up from the earth. My palms prick as magic seeps into my flesh, then my bloodstream. It gathers like a storm in my veins.

Mistress of old, something far beneath me whispers, we’ve tasted your blood and bones before…

The demon pauses, his head cocking to the side.

“The Old Ones speak to you? And they’ve tasted you?” His eyes flit over my body. “How very interesting.” He casually swipes out, his claws cleanly slicing through my dress and the skin beneath.

I jerk, swallowing my scream as my blood wells.

“I don’t often meet curious mortals,” he says. “A pity you have to die. I will enjoy feasting on you though.” Asmodeth leans forward, his teeth and tongue hot on my injured flesh.

I draw my power together, and all at once, I shove my hands and my power at him. “Get off me.”

Clouds of my orange magic blow the demon back clear across the spell circle. I hear the smack of flesh as his body hits the ground.

I force myself to my feet, but just as quickly as I rise, Asmodeth does as well. A low, demonic growl rises from him, and when he glances at me, his eyes flash red.

I raise a hand. “Stop,” I command in Sarmatian, my power rushing out of me.

The demon freezes in place, his body going still beneath my spell. It holds for mere seconds before Asmodeth breaks through it, then barrels toward me once more.

I draw more power from beneath the soles of my feet.

Empress, the voices below hiss out, amage…mistress…queen…how we hunger…

“Explode.” I cast the spell at the demon, aware it will hardly affect him.

BOOM!

It detonates against his shoulder, throwing him against the wall of the spell circle for a moment.

Blood drips down my torso, but I’m too focused on Asmodeth to heal myself. My hand hovers over my thigh, where my dagger rests hidden.

In battle, you cannot solely rely on magic to save you. Memnon told me that long ago.

I will myself to believe it as Asmodeth closes in on me. I draw in a breath, growing calm as the demon reaches me. This time, I don’t cast a spell, and I don’t dive away. I let Asmodeth crash into me, slamming my body against the walls of the circle.

If the demon is surprised by my sudden lack of fight, he doesn’t stop to question it. His mouth opens, and his lips peel back, his gaze fixed on my throat.

All at once, he lunges for it.

Now.

I withdraw my dagger, and just as those sharp canines close around my neck, I sink my blade into his throat.

Asmodeth lets out an unholy cry, releasing my bloody neck. I yank the dagger out, and black blood spatters onto my dress and skin. Once more, I slam the blade into his throat.

The demon shrieks, then falls from me, my dagger making a wet noise as it exits the wound. Asmodeth hits the ground hard, and as he lays there, he weakly places a clawed hand against his neck. Blood rapidly spills out from between his fingers.

The whole building trembles, and someone somewhere is shitting their pants right now that they underestimated my mate.

I breathe heavily as I stare down at Asmodeth. I don’t believe demons can be killed, merely sent back to the Underworld.

I round on the demon’s body. Though every fiber of my being is screaming at me to run from this creature, I move to straddle him, my dagger still loosely held in my hands.

Weakly, he swipes at me, his claws parting my flesh like a knife through butter. The pain bursts to life along my arms and torso, but I ignore it, raising my dagger.

I bring it down sharply, letting my magic guide my movements. The thin blade cleanly slides between Asmodeth’s ribs and impales his heart.

The demon’s scream echoes through the room, the sound terrifying and not of this world.

I draw on both my own blood and the demon’s, the crimson liquid burning up as my power devours it. And then I call on the magic beneath the earth, pulling it into me.

We give you power. Give us something in return.

I ignore the voices and cobble together a spell.

“From blood and air, to rock and flame.” As I incant, I fold my power into the words. “I banish you back from whence you came.”

My magic detonates, filling the space in a massive cloud of pale orange plumes. I can’t see anything, but it doesn’t matter, I can feel my magic pressing in on the demon.

“I assure you,” Luca says somewhere beyond the circle, “she cannot send the creature back.”

Old queen, forgotten queen… the voices murmur.

Harder and harder, my power tightens on the demon. I see the plumes of it push and push against the demon bleeding out.

Asmodeth tries to fight the magic, but he’s lost so much blood, and my power holds him fast.

My body trembles as I continue to exert force, pressing, pressing. I scream at the energy it takes, my limbs beginning to tremble as my power strains.

All at once, there’s a pop, then Asmodeth is gone.

I’m breathing hard as I kneel on the now empty ground, which is scrubbed clean of all the black blood that pooled on it a moment ago. I can hear the steady drip of my own bleeding wounds. Aside from that, the room is deathly silent.

Eventually, Jacques says, “You said she couldn’t send the demon back?”

“That’s…never happened before.” Luca clears his throat. “It doesn’t matter. We can try summoning Asmodeth once more…though he might be too weak to make the journey. I have another demon in mind that might be perfect.” He begins flipping through the pages of The Book of the Damned.

I glare at the pair of them and gather my magic.

I’m too angry and too impatient to study this spell circle for some exploitable weakness. I want out now.

I rise from the floor and draw on my magic remorselessly. One of the most basic aspects of a spell circle is that power moves in two directions along them: clockwise for creation, counterclockwise for destruction.

My blood continues to drip from the wounds on my chest, but for what I intend, I know intuitively that I need more. I drag the knife I still hold across my wrist and let my blood flow freely.