Page 1 of Sweet Inferno

Chapter

One

Ihad my SoundPods in to free up my hands while talking to my cousin Nee. I was in the process of restocking the intention papers and ritual kits and she was doing her weekly catch up. For some reason, people believed burning intention papers to break habits or manifest desires was a quick way to reach their goals; so the intention papers and ritual kits were my top sellers. In a sense, it was possible. However, their success was always lacking because there was very little intuition attached to the process.

Wanting resolution and believing in change manifested through your beliefs were two very different things. Honestly, I didn’t care because their laziness made most of the people return customers. There were only a small few who frequented my store with the trained focus and beliefs to make the items purchased at Sweet Inferno useful.

“I want to go to Blood Lust tonight.”

My eyes rolled at the mention of the feeding club.

“Then you should go.”

I had no interest in allowing a vampire that close to me. They were addictive and dangerous. Having one feed from you while you were tripping from the cocktail of dopamine and endorphins might be pleasurable, but it also made you vulnerable.

Dopamine was like a narcotic and the endorphins bypassed your fear, creating a type of ecstasy the average person would never experience without fangs piercing their skin.

I did not know personally because I refused to place my life into the hands of anyone or anything yielding that type of control. I had seen too many lose too much because of the power vampires possessed. Their allure was proven by the success of Blood Lust, a club that doubled as a feeding house for the vamps. The lines were always long with humans and supernaturals wanting to experience the high for the first time or revisiting it.

“We should go.”

“No we should not.”

This girl was really tripping.

Once the box I stocked from was empty, I lifted it from the rolling cart and swapped it with the one sitting below, filled with my Sparks and Embers tea blends. There were also a few replacements of the activated charcoal elixirs, which were both high sellers. The elixirs were botanical syrups and drinks with a moody magical appearance which I flavored with spicy ginger, apple, cayenne, and smoked vanilla. My blends tasted good and were infused with a pinch of magic that provided a harmless high.

“Why not?”

“You know why not. That shit is dangerous.”

“It’s not. Do you think so many people would be raving about it if it were a bad thing?”

“Are you forgetting the crack epidemic? They raved about that too.”

She burst out laughing. “Bitch, stop. It’s not even close.”

I turned my head to the front of my shop when I heard the front door. I smiled at the two young girls who came in. They returned the smile before giddily whispering to each other. They seemed harmless, so I went back to restocking and my conversation.

“You’re right, not close, worse. A bite type of high can’t be classified.”

“How do you know if you’ve never done it?”

“You don’t have to touch fire to know it’s hot, Nee.”

“Says the witch born of fire. You touch fire all the time.”

“I create it. There’s a difference.”

My father was a warlock and a pure blood descendant from the Circle of Embers coven, making me a fire witch. We were feared because of the history of our ancestors’ coven. Magic was light and dark. Those with blood connected to our ancestry navigated the dark. Our fate wasn’t absolute but it took effort in order to not be consumed by the darkness flowing through our veins. My mother was human, making me a hybrid, so only half of me was threatened by dark shadows. That half was still enough because there were days when I felt the darkness hovering around me, threatening to pull me under.

“Uri, please. Just go. Even if you don’t indulge, go with me.”

“You don’t need me there. You’re grown.”

“I want you there. It will make me feel better,” she whined. I sighed, knowing my baby cousin had a way of tugging at my heart strings. She was two years younger and the wild one. It was just the two of us, well three, technically, since our other cousin Toyin was also here in Hollow Grove.

Toyin was tied in with the Bennett pack after marrying a shifter. Her husband Xander was the eldest brother who controlled one of the packs here. Toyin had invited us to come live at their tower, but I was a bit of a loner and liked my independence. There also wasn’t anything about living with a bunch of shifters that appealed to me.