Page 6 of Guy (House of Frazier #4)

“Mr. Wilkins said the same thing when I told him. He told me that I was a good man who had been hurt by her and that I shouldn’t allow it to get into my head like she’d done.

” He sat down in the chair next to the fireplace.

“She told anyone that would stop by to see her that I’d raped her as my wolf and that I had come up with the plan to kill her husband.

He did end up getting killed, but by her, not me.

But she put so much blame on me that I was arrested after a while.

” She asked if his brothers had known about what had happened.

“No. They…I didn’t have a great deal to do with them while I was growing up, for one reason or another.

Mostly, I was working as much as I could to make ends meet, or I was hiding someplace writing.

Mostly the writing part. I published my first book when I was eighteen, so I’d been busy. ”

“So this woman, who will forever be known as ‘bitch,’ pesters you to the point you finally give in to her and go out. You then find out that she wants to have sex with your wolf while you no doubt nip and scratch at her so that she can get off. She wants you to kill her husband, because she believes you’re either too immature or too stupid to think beyond your dick with any kind of sense that you’ll just blindly do what she asks of you because to her, you’ll be too infatuated with her to do anything but what she says.

” Amber scoffed. “I hope she got life without parole for this stunt. And for the record, I might have sworn off humans, too. Especially if someone treated me that way.”

Guy couldn’t help it. He burst out laughing.

He didn’t know what he had expected, but full acceptance of what had happened wasn’t even close to anything he’d thought.

The more he thought about what she had said, the more he laughed.

It was something that he’d not done in longer than he could remember, and that sort of made him sad.

“The police believed me because they knew my brothers.” Amber looked ready to do battle for him.

Or to him, he couldn’t tell which. “I worked with the police by wearing a wire, and that’s when I figured out that she only wanted to have me go to prison.

I guess as a young kid, I didn’t want to think that she was using me.

I should have spoken to my brothers, but by then it was too late. ”

“How did they not know?” He told Belinda that he had no idea, but they were also wrapped up in the things to do with their parents.

His dad had only just been killed, and their mom was saying that they’d done it, killed him, and was trying to blame it on them.

“Okay, I can see that. They were so wrapped up in what was going on in their own life that they might not have noticed what was—I hope you plan on telling them. I don’t doubt that she hurt you, Guy, but you have such a wonderful family that I can’t believe that they wouldn’t have helped you a great deal with your issue as well. ”

“My father was human, too, remember? And our mom was half human. The very fact that it turned out that all of us were able to shift is a miracle. Also, we didn’t tell our parents at all that we could shift.

They would have used us as our wolves to get us into trouble that would have cost us our lives.

Either going to prison or just getting killed.

We didn’t tell anyone but the Wilkins, and they would have died before telling anyone.

” Amber said she heard about his parents.

“They weren’t the best of the lot, but I’m to understand from people, humans again, that they shaped us into what we are.

What I wouldn’t give for one of them to have lived the nightmare that we lived with them.

Then they’d know we didn’t get shaped more like we got beaten into submission to be the people that we became. ”

“I’m so sorry that you had to go through all of that alone, Guy.

I truly am.” He’d been told that all his life that people were sorry for his lot in life, but he felt like Amber had meant it.

He nodded to her, the lump in his throat stuck there because of his emotional turmoil that he was going through.

“I bet once you tell your brothers what happened to you, they’ll give you the best hugs.

I’ve noticed that, that your family gives a lot of hugs.

Oh, to have one of them when I’m down and out.

Which seems to happen to me a great deal of late with my brother and sister around, trying to hurt me. ”

“Right. About them. I’ll make sure they understand that you’re no longer a target for them.

Then if that doesn’t work, which I see no reason to think that it will, I’ll have to show them that I mean business when they step out of line.

” She asked him why he’d do that. “You’re my mate, and I want to make sure that nothing happens to you.

I don’t know that I’ll ever get over being rude to those around me, but for you, I’ll try my best. I swear to you on the heart of Mrs. Wilkins that I’ll keep you as safe as I can, as will my family, from now on.

I just have to make the time to tell them. ”

“Don’t you have that mind melt thing?” Again, he laughed, not sure why he thought that was funny.

“You should tell them now so that when you take me home, they’ll know if I am in trouble that I’m someone they should be helping.

” He asked her what she meant. “I don’t know why I put it like that.

Your brothers, even you, help anyone who needs it, including my mom.

When I think of the things that had to line up to make sure we were together, it boggles the mind, don’t you think?

You got hit in the head, which made it so that you could see ghosts.

Belinda might not have been able to get me contacted in time if you hadn’t purchased this house.

Then you wouldn’t have figured out I was your mate until you had to save me.

Just the little things that work through the daily life of us has made me think that we were fated to be together.

Isn’t that what you think too? That the fates put us together? ”

“It’s either the fates that put us together or someone who has a dark sense of humor put us together.” He didn’t want to ask her which she believed in. He was actually afraid of the answer.

He knew that he’d been dumping on others more than he needed to.

Things had worked out in a strange way for him to have met her.

And not that he was with her as her mate, he wanted to do better than he’d been doing lately.

When she asked him if he’d take her home, he suggested that she stay here until the cameras were up.

She agreed too readily. And for some reason, he was happy for that.

Guy didn’t get to be happy about too many things, but this was one of them.

He was a happy man right now, and it had been so long that he had completely forgotten about how it felt to be that way again.