“There are worse things than happy endings.”

Alex looked up from her book to find Kai watching her from one of the fireside chairs. He’d changed since the salle, and was nursing a glass of something that smelled faintly of blood and ginger. “Your definition of happy ending needs some work.”

“I don’t see why.” Make that blood and mulled wine. “I get what I want, you get what you want–”

“And what is it you think I want?”

“To be left alone.”

“Trapped here.”

“You can always leave,” he leaned back in the chair, not quite smirking. “After.”

“The minute they scent you, I’d be dead.” Alex tuned back to her book. “And you know that. Your happy ending is only happy for you.”

“And your happy ending is?”

She gave up on the book and sat-up to face him directly. “Going home: back to car payments and litter boxes, and freshman parties that turn the volume to eleven. And not–” she pointed the book at him, “vampires and curses, and magic castles. I want things to go back to normal.”

“Normal.” He raised an eyebrow. “The local werewolf pack turned you over to me to die, there is a distinct possibility that you may have offended a rather powerful earth elemental, and you just want to waltz back home as if nothing had happened?”

“As opposed to entering into an unbreakable blood-pact with someone who doesn’t seem to think it’s anything more than a curiosity? YES.”

“It’s not ‘unbreakable’–”

“See? No. No, no, no, no. I want,” she snapped, “to go home.“