Stupid princess. Why did she climb the tree again? He kept waiting for the day she would lose her footing and plummet to the ground. If that happened… Well, it wasn’t something he wanted to think about.

He turned those big innocent cat eyes on her and just meowed, sounding completely normal. He wasn’t about to explain his actions to Ishtar – he didn’t have to. She might not have known what crap some of the other humans had put him through, but he felt damn justified in knocking them down a few pegs. He had to get the stupid bat back too, and his former, utterly useless weapon. While he didn’t expect any loyalty from the idiot, he hadn’t counted on her being deadweight either. He should have just left her somewhere to rot, instead of wasting energy to tote around the damn worthless thing.