23: Drunken Witch

WINIFRED'S POV

It was a beautiful Tuesday night, and after the morning I'd had, I needed a drink.

Several, actually.

I had made the elixir for Luna Ava and left it cooling on my kitchen counter. It had to reach a specific temperature before I could bottle it and send it off with my hawk, which meant I had a few hours to kill.

And apparently, I had decided to kill them with alcohol.

I needed some pussy too.

Unfortunately, my Wednesday bitch had broken up with me. Something about me not being able to commit, not taking her seriously and forgetting her birthday.

I remembered her birthday.

But when you lived a busy, dangerous life like mine, a relationship was off the books. I had witches to deal with, Alphas to avoid, spells to cast and, most recently, an abused Luna and her six-year-old daughter to smuggle halfway across the supernatural world.

Where exactly was I supposed to fit romance into that schedule?

I might have been a couple of centuries old, but people thought I was in my early forties.

Thirty-nine if I was wearing makeup.

"I need another one, Evie!" I slurred at the bartender.

Evie looked at me from behind the bar as though she was contemplating whether serving me another drink would qualify as attempted murder.

She was a witch like me, although she mostly did spell casting. A witch by day and a bartender by night. Personally, I thought the bartender part was far more important.

"OK, but this is the last one. You've been at it for four hours, Winnie. You're a witch, not invincible."

She was right.

If witches got too drunk, we temporarily lost our powers until we sobered up again. Someone like me normally had to drink about three times as much as a regular witch to reach that point, while weaker witches got drunk about as easily as humans.

Unfortunately, I had spent the last four hours treating that fact like a personal challenge.

"I don't care, Evie. Serve me more poison."

"Suit yourself."

She slid another drink towards me.

I drank it.

Then another.

And another.

By the time I was somewhere around my twelfth glass of beer, I could barely remember why I'd come here in the first place.

And I wasn't talking about human beer either. This stuff was brewed on the bear shifters' reservations. Bears made the best and strongest alcohol in the entire supernatural world. I didn't know what the hairy bastards put in it, but I was fairly certain one bottle could knock a human unconscious.

Soon, my bladder was threatening to explode.

I needed to piss.

I slid off the stool, held onto the bar until the room stopped moving and then staggered towards the bathroom.

I had barely made it halfway there when two enormous men in armour nearly knocked me over.

I stumbled sideways and caught myself against the wall.

Knights of the Werewolf King.

Well, the late Werewolf King. The poor bastard had died five years ago, and judging by how these two were stomping around the place, his guards hadn't discovered manners in the years since.

"Watch it, witch!" one of them barked.

I raised my middle finger. "Fuck you, assholes."

They glared at me.

I smiled sweetly and continued towards the bathroom.

"Have you seen her?" I heard one of them ask a woman sitting at a nearby table.

I glanced back.

The knights were moving from table to table now, questioning people and looking around the crowded bar.

Interesting.

Not interesting enough to stop me from pissing myself, though.

I pushed into the bathroom and handled the more urgent problem first.

A few minutes later, I walked out of the stall, fixed my dress and nearly jumped out of my skin when I saw Opal standing beside the sinks.

"Goddess!" I shrieked, pressing a hand against my chest. "What, are you stalking me now?"

"Of course not."

I squinted at her.

It was only a couple of minutes to eleven at night, and Opal was standing in a bar bathroom staring at me like somebody had died.

Which, considering the kinds of people we associated with, wasn't exactly impossible.

"I need to talk to you," she said.

"You know I don't hook up with the same chick twice in a row. And how the hell did you find me?"

"Location spell. I went to your house, and you weren't there."

"Hmm." I looked her up and down. "Impressive."

"Winnie, please just listen." She grabbed my shoulders, and whatever joke I'd been preparing disappeared when I saw the desperation in her eyes.

I sobered slightly.

"Talk."

"Look, I know I promised I wouldn't say anything about Luna Ava's plan to anyone, and I kept that promise, but something happened tonight that may have complicated things."

"Spit it out."

"Luna Ava came to Sharptooth for dinner tonight, and..."

And she told me everything.

By the time Opal finished, I was no longer thinking about alcohol.

Or pussy.

Or my Wednesday bitch.

I stared at her. "Holy crab shit!"

"Winnie..."

"No. Do you have any idea what you're asking me to do?"

"She can't stay there."

"I cannot ask the Elders for any more favours. Do you know what I had to do to get them to agree to take Ava and her daughter into Mount Hecate? I had to practically sell my soul to them."

"Ashley will die if she doesn't get out from under her father's thumb."

I opened my mouth and then closed it again.

Fuck.

That was the problem with having a conscience. It was incredibly inconvenient.

"Please, Winnie."

I wiped both hands over my face. "Shit. OK. I'll ask them when I get home. I have a direct link to Mother Ursula, but I'm not promising anything."

Opal's shoulders dropped with relief. "Thank you, Winnie. I owe you."

"You already owe me."

"I know."

"You owe me a lot."

"I know."

"And I'm collecting."

For the first time since she'd appeared in the bathroom, the corner of her mouth lifted.

Then something moved behind us.

A tiny sound came from the stall to the right. Opal's smile disappeared, and so did mine.

Shit.