Page 44 of A Sinful Trap
“Why was it a tragedy?”
Stax studied him. “Some people are cursed by their own intellect. They make decisions that go against their instincts. Think instead of feel. A businessman like you can relate. Though to be fair, your particular brand of self-mastery is rare and admirable. It’s one of the things I appreciate most about you.”
Cam frowned and Stax continued. “For this ruler, however, it wasn’t self-control but politics that had him turning from his heart. He chose an alliance over the sisters and, enraged and broken hearted, they lost their minds and destroyed everything in their path until they had to be taken down.”
Cam swallowed roughly, thinking of Davide’s great-grandfather. “Because he resisted their mark, but they were still tied to him.”
“There’s a little more to it than that, and to be fair to him, I don’t think anyone told him he could release them, because he was human and therefore suspect. But yes.”
“You think he would have?” Davide asked.
“No one gave him the chance, so we’ll never know. Most shifters are so focused on what the need to mate does to them that they don’t think about what it does to their other half. Particularly if that other half is human. First comes the shared feelings. Then the dreams. The lust, always, but also secrets you barely remember yourselves. Your fears and hers, which are more dangerous right now, in my opinion.”
“What do you mean?” Cam was confused, but Davide grabbed his hand.
“She’s been feeling everything we have?”
“Not everything.” Stax tapped his walking stick on the floor with a frown. “You really know nothing about this? At least you have an excuse, pack full of orphans, but someone should have educated you. Generations of ignorance,” he muttered. “This is why I turned the others away.”
“What others? What the hell are you talking about?”
Stax sat down on the wide couch with a sigh. “We have a lot to cover, Alpha Locke. And not a lot of time.”
Alpha Locke again. His grandfather had been given that title before he left his people rudderless. “That’s not who I am.”
“It’s who you were supposed to be before you were born,” Stax said argumentatively. “Indulge me for Bailey’s sake. She’s going to need you soon, and she’ll need you ready.”
Cam sat down in the easy chair across from Stax while Davide perched on the armrest, both of them on alert. “She’ll need us? Is she in danger?”
“That’s always her question. Why do you think she clings to her plans? Loves her garden? Makes sure everyone is happy in her world?”
“She doesn’t feel safe?” Davide sounded as if the realization had come as a physical blow.
“It’s a bit out of our way, but…she was sixteen when she showed up in Sedona.” Stax leaned forward, elbows on his knees and walking stick across his lap as he told them the basics about a girl who’d walked into town with less than nothing.
Cam ached as he listened. It didn’t matter that he’d struggled himself in the beginning, before Davide and the others. She deserved better. This dazzling spirit who made time for everyone else had asked for nothing but a roof, and she’d made it into her home. He thought about the night they met, when she’d been on her own, working up the nerve to fall because no one was there to catch her.
I’m it. Me, myself and I. And Slugger.
“She can’t see how important she is,” Stax finished. “Even with Dani, Kaya and half the town at her side. But she’s vital to more threads than I can count. It’s like Dani’s favorite holiday movie,” he said suddenly. “The one where the man wishes he wasn’t born.”
“It’s a Wonderful Life?” Davide suggested.
“That’s the one. She even has the same name.” Stax chuckled. “Maybe that’s why I thought of it, but it doesn’t change my point. Without her, no one offers Dani an under-the-table job so she can get away from her would-be murderer and spend an unforgettable night with me.” His smiled turned slightly wicked at that. “Which would be sad for everyone, whether they’ll admit it or not. Without her, Kaya has no social life, works her fingers and powers to the bone out of guilt and loses her chance for happiness. And for that, her grandfather would probably blame yours truly. There’s more, but I believe you see where I’m going with this.”
“What about Bailey?” Cam asked. “She’s vital to other people’s happiness, other people’s stories, but doesn’t she deserve some of her own?”
Stax scowled. “What do you think I’m doing here? And she was fine until you two lovebirds came swooping in looking for… What were you expecting to find here? You saw an old picture and thought it was a clue leading you to a written confession? An apology from Calvin for being a deadbeat? A magical medallion of leadership he neglected to pass on to you?”
“Are you a seer?” Cam asked harshly. Shifters with the sight were rare, but they existed. “How do you know about my grandfather? How do you know why I came here?”
It seemed like fate, the day he’d stumbled on that photograph. There’d been a pile of potential property files with a specific list of criteria on his desk, and that picture had fallen out of one of them, as if by magic.
That was all he had to go on. A crumbling photo from the nineteen-forties. Two women blurred but obviously laughing on the barely recognizable porch of the recently opened inn. And in the foreground, sharp and clear, was his grandfather. Calvin Locke. He’d been smiling at the women as if he didn’t have a care in the world. As if he were happy and hadn’t left his wife and children, or his newborn grandson, behind.
“He felt it, like you do,” Stax said quietly. “The pull to make this place his own. He fell for a woman, like you have. But there were differences that couldn’t be denied. Things about his past,” he added meaningfully, “that led me to believe he wasn’t worthy of the responsibility. He wasn’t the one I needed, so I sent him on his way.”
“You did?”
