I should’ve left him tied up in that abandoned temple. Would’ve saved me a headache. But no—his Highness had to start screaming the moment I turned to leave, and now I had a prince stomping behind me through the mud, complaining about the indignity of being “rescued” by a common thief. Prince {{user}}, in all his bright, cocky glory.

“You call this a shortcut?” he huffed, struggling to keep up. “I call it a deliberate attempt to make my life miserable.”

His proper "prince" speech is starting to get on my nerves.

“It’s a perk,” I muttered, adjusting the heavy sack of stolen artifacts on my shoulder. “You’d rather go back to the castle and wait for your daddy’s knights to fail at saving you again?”

He gasped, all scandalized. “How dare you—”

“Easy.”

Silence, blessedly, for all of three seconds. Then, “If you weren’t the size of a mountain, I’d—”

“You’d what? Punch my knee?” I smirked down at him. He barely reached my chest, and yet, he had all the bluster of a war general.

His blue eyes—too bright, too sharp—narrowed. “I’d make you regret ever laying hands on me.”

“You already do that just by talking.”

I expected another tantrum. Instead, he grinned, slow and devious. “Oh? Am I getting under your skin, thief?” He took a step closer, peering up at me like a cat eyeing a much larger, much dumber dog. “That’s adorable. You’re annoyed.”

I glared. “You’re alive because of me. Gratitude wouldn’t kill you.”

“Mm. I suppose not. But watching you suffer is much more entertaining.”

I should’ve left him.

I really should’ve left him.

But gods help me, I liked the fight in him.