Key of Magic: An action-packed Urban Fantasy (The Key Collector Book 1) by LJ Night

Author:LJ Night [Night, LJ]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2022-01-05T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 23

Betrayal Revealed

I was getting too close to Bastien. It made me nervous in the twitchy, questioning every word I said kind of way. After the encounter at the mansion in Great Neck a week ago, Bastien continued to look into our suspect at The Guild who'd been asking around about me and my father. He said he was trying to get a word in the right circles that he wanted to meet him. I didn't really get how that worked, but it wasn't my style.

I worked alone for a reason; I couldn't do team jobs where someone could witness how I used the key to time travel, and that was my greatest resource in pulling the jobs I did. I still wasn't sure if The Guild knew about the key or not; I was equally unsure about my attacker. He hadn't tried to steal the key, but he had followed me into the past. There was no way he didn't realize it. So what did he want?

I had a sneaking suspicion he was after the key, but didn't realize what he was walking into that day. Perhaps he was just trying to follow me and see if he could figure out where the key was. When he charged after me through the portal he probably just freaked out about getting trapped in the past—which again only made sense if he knew how the key worked. That he didn't hurt me—black eye notwithstanding—was also puzzling.

But even more worrying was the growing amount of time I was spending with Bastien. We were friends, hanging out. And the last time we'd been friends and hung out...

I was fighting an internal war. I remembered the shocking sense of betrayal when I found out what he'd done. The nagging voice in the back of my mind had spoken up gleefully and reminded me I shouldn't have trusted him. After losing my father, it took me a while to open up to anyone. And then there was Bastien: The Golden Boy with sunshine in his hair and sparkling sapphire eyes, whose smile could defrost the crustiest of hearts and disarm the most battle-hardened warrior.

I had zero experience with boys. I spent my formative teenage years handling swords and axes and daggers, not dances and movies and parties. And I was lonely.

Easy pickings for a guy like Bastien with a chip on his shoulder and something to prove, apparently. I thought I was so tough, so independent. He sought me out like a heat-seeking missile and melted my hard outer shell, revealing the marshmallow fluff of a lonely girl inside. Not that I hadn't put up a fight; I'd told him to buzz off in more than one arrangement of colorful language and even pulled a blade on him at one point. But he worked his way through the chink of my armor and it rendered me defenseless.

I wanted to be loved and admired. There, I admitted it. I wanted someone, just one person, to see me as something other than a master thief or a skilled warrior.

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