Bound By Darkness by Alexandra Ivy Page B

where vampires had fed on their tainted blood.
    She crossed toward the bar at the back, allowing her senses to flow through the building. The fighting pits were beyond the bar as well as the cubbies for those demons who preferred a bit of privacy for their sex. Beneath them she could sense several locked cells where a troll, two ogres, and at least three curs were sleeping off their numerous injuries.
    Her attention, however, was trained on the male imp behind the bar. With his long golden hair pulled from his narrow face and slender body encased in skin-tight leather, he should have been handsome, but there was a hard cunning in his green eyes and an unpleasant curl to his thin lips.
    Reaching the bar, she stiffened as a half-breed troll stepped out of a cubby, his rough features almost human if one didn’t look too closely at the beady eyes that glowed red in the overhead lights or the double row of teeth that were razor sharp.
    â€œVampire,” the creature growled, hitching up his filthy pants that matched his too tight T-shirt. “Tasty.”
    She returned her gaze to the imp even as she felt the disgusting mongrel move to stand at her side.
    â€œI need a room,” she said.
    Predictably the mongrel troll leaned close enough to gag her with his putrid breath.
    â€œYou can share mine, pretty bloodsucker.” He grabbed her hand, pulling it toward his crotch. “So long as you suck on—”
    His words broke off on a high-pitched scream as she allowed her fingers to wrap around his aroused cock, squeezing until she threatened to make him a eunuch.
    â€œTouch me again and I’ll fillet this tiny dick and serve it to you for breakfast,” she drawled in sweet tones. “Got it?”
    â€œGot it,” he squeaked, his round face flushed as he danced on his tiptoes.
    For a minute she considered simply carving out the bastard’s black heart. Trolls, even those of the mongrel variety, possessed an insatiable appetite for rape and she didn’t doubt he would have thrown her to the floor and forced himself on her if she hadn’t fought back.
    Then, with a disgusted hiss, she shoved him away, barely noting his glare of hatred before he was scurrying toward the door.
    The imp flashed a mocking smile. “That time of month?”
    Jaelyn narrowed her gaze. “You next?”
    â€œHere.” The man slapped a key on the counter before pointing toward a narrow door carved into the paneling. “Vamp rooms are down the stairs, last door on the left.”
    â€œHow much?”
    â€œOne hundred pounds for the room and another hundred for a host.” He nodded toward the pathetic humans. “Top of the line.”
    She rolled her eyes. “More like scraping the gutter.”
    The imp shrugged. “Take it or leave it.”
    Jaelyn reached beneath the neckline of her spandex top, pulling out a folded bill.
    â€œFifty American bucks for the room.” She dropped the money on the bar. “I brought my own host.”
    The green eyes glittered with a sly greed. “Seventy-five and I don’t let every demon in the place know there’s a female in the basement.”
    Jaelyn smiled as she moved with a blinding speed, pressing the edge of the dagger against the imp’s throat before he could blink.
    â€œTwenty-five and I don’t cut off your head.”
    â€œDeal.”
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    An abandoned church west of Chicago
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    The neglected ruins on the outskirts of the ghost town only hinted at the once-proud beauty of the Victorian church. Now the stained-glass windows were shattered and the hand-carved pews empty, while the attached graveyard was a pitiful shell of tumbled crypts and tenacious weeds.
    Beneath the piles of stone and forgotten corpses, however, the vast catacombs had been tended to with scrupulous care.
    Or at least the majority of the tunnels, Tearloch acknowledged.
    Weeks ago the lower chambers had been nearly destroyed by a