“Bit of advice, witch. Yelling, ‘I’m going to kill you’ takes the surprise out of the attack.” He grunted as I landed a swift blow to his stomach. My punches were slowing and he didn’t look any worse for the wear. “You won’t succeed in killing me, but it would be a vast improvement in skill.”

“Maybe I can’t kill you, but I’ll find other ways to make you suffer.”

“Trust me, your very presence is accomplishing that.” Blood drops hissed within the circle. That strange searing under my skin was growing unbearable, but I was too mad to pay attention. “What spell did you use, witch?”

I stopped, breathing hard. “Vaffanculo a chi t’è morto.”

I wasn’t sure if he knew exactly what the curse meant, but he must have deduced it had something to do with fornicating with dead family members. He looked ready to drag me back to Hell now. He suddenly staggered away, cursing. “What spell did you use?”

“Well, considering you’re standing here, angry and unable to attack, I’d guess summoning spell, demon.” I crossed my arms over my chest. “And one for protection.”

Out of nowhere, gold light flashed over my arm before disintegrating into pale lavender. A tattoo in the same shade of purple—twin crescent moons laying sideways within a ring of stars—appeared on my outer forearm, burning almost as violently as my wrath.

I stood there, panting, until the searing in my arm finally ceased. I watched as he looked down at his own arm and gritted his teeth. Apparently he was also experiencing that awful pain.

Good.

“You demon-blooded witch. You marked me.”

A pale tattoo had appeared on his formerly bare left forearm. Double crescent moons laying in a circle of stars. For a moment, he looked like he could hardly comprehend that I’d managed something so impossible. Honestly, I wasn’t sure why he and I now had matching tattoos, either, but would rather die than admit that to him.

It must be the cost of the dark magic I’d used to summon him. I almost laughed. When Carolina told me the spells would summon a lesser demon, I’d had a hard enough time believing her. I wondered if I was having a nightmare—there was no way I’d actually summoned a prince of Hell. It would take more magic than I possessed to control a creature like him for any good length of time.

“This is impossible.”

“On that much we can agree.” He thrust his arm at me. “Tell me the exact phrasing of this spell. We need to reverse it before it’s too late. There’s only precious minutes left.”

“No.”

“You have no idea what you’ve done. I need to know the exact phrasing. Now, witch.”