Chapter Twenty
“Let's make a fire down by the lake,” Garret suggested as we walked into the house. “We could roast marshmallows like kids.”
“We've already had dessert,” I said.
“So-o-o-o?” he drawled out the word. “You don't want marshmallows?”
I chuckled. “Only if we can make them into s'mores.”
“I'm pretty sure we have chocolate, but I don't know about graham crackers,” Gideon said.
“We've got croissants,” Gage said. “I can throw a few in the air fryer to crisp them up.”
“Croissant s'mores?” I asked, almost giddy with excitement. “Uh, yes, please!”
“Oh, marshmallows weren't good enough, eh?” Garret asked. “But Gage adds croissants and suddenly it doesn't matter that you've already had dessert.”
“Yup,” I said, imitating his drawl.
“Oh, I see how it is.”
There was a flurry of activity as my packages got lined up along the stairs and our coats thrown onto the hooks of the huge bench near the door. It was one of those pieces with a high back, hooks for your coats, and a space below for shoes. It looked like it was from the 1800s. Burdens deposited, we headed back to the kitchen.
“I'll grab some blankets,” Garret said and split off from us.
“I'll handle the croissants,” Gage said.
“I'll get the chocolate and marshmallows,” Gideon said.
“And I'll make some coffee,” I said.
With our tasks assigned, we went about them in a rush and had a tray assembled in only a few minutes. By the time Garret returned with a pile of blankets, the coffee was sputtering to a stop. I grabbed the pot and, as I filled them, slid filled mugs to each man on the counter. We fixed our coffee the way we liked and put them on the tray. Gideon took the tray, Garret grabbed the blankets, and Gage took my hand to lead me out the kitchen door and behind the house. On the way out, he flipped a switch and lampposts came on in the yard, illuminating a path. The hounds led me down the lit gravel path, past the workout yard, and toward the water on the left side of the peninsula.
We passed that extra house, and I waved at it. “Does anyone live there?”
“Nah, that's just a guest house,” Garret drawled. “We use it for storage.”
“So, this whole peninsula is yours?”
“Yup,” Gideon said. “Isn't it nice? We got the first pick of properties since we were here before the rush.” He winked at me.
I chuckled. “Before the rush” was literal. He meant the gold rush, when people flocked there from all over. “Why would Hades post you in such an uninhabited town?”
“Helena is in the center of the state,” Garret said. “Hades wants a Cerberus in the middle of each state in case he needs to deploy us to help another team nearby.”
“Ah. Okay.”
“That's the Missouri River over there.” Gage cast his arm up and back toward the right side of the peninsula. “And this is Hause Lake.” He brought his arm forward to wave ahead of us.
All I saw were a few glints of water until we descended some steps and wound downward to the end of the path. Then I saw the shoreline, the last lamppost stretching its light to brush the lapping lake. A half circle of wood-slat chairs sat facing the water with little tables between them and a ring of stones before them. Gage went to a table and lifted its hinged top to take out some lighter fluid, tinder, and a lighter.
There were four chairs. Even in the dim light, I could see that one chair showed less wear than the others. It reminded me of my guest room. I stood in front of that fresh chair, its paint brighter and less chipped than the others, and sipped my coffee.
“Indigo?” Garret handed me a blanket. “Is everything okay?”
“This is for your mate, isn't it?” I asked him. “Just like the bedroom I'm sleeping in. You've prepared for her. Like parents-to-be making a nursery and baby-proofing the house.”
“Yes, we've been preparing for her arrival for a long time,” he said softly. “We want everything to be perfect for her when she finds us.”
“Finds you? Isn't it the other way around?”
Garret shrugged. “Our mates are supposed to be drawn to us. But I don't care how we get together, as long as we do.”
“Come on,” Gideon said. “Enough talk about mates and magic. Let's just relax for a while and look at the water.”
“And the fire,” Gage said as he lit the logs that had been waiting in the stone ring. The flames burst up, highlighting his face and turning it demonic.
I set my coffee down on the table beside my chair, pulled the blanket around me, and sat down. All without saying a word. When I looked at the men again, they were staring at me.
“Well?” I asked. “Do we have skewers for the marshmallows?”
As if they had been waiting for a command, the men launched into action. A few minutes later, we were hunched in around the fire, our marshmallows extended on long metal skewers to roast over the fire. It was fun. So simple, but fun to be out there doing something I'd never gotten to do as a child.
“Oh, shit!” I shrieked when my marshmallow caught fire. I jerked it out of the flames and blew it out. “Dang it. It's burnt.” I grimaced at the black flakes.
“That's not a bad thing,” Gideon said as he held half a croissant open for me. It already had a piece of chocolate on it.
I put the marshmallow atop the chocolate, and he flicked a bit of the blackened bits off the marshmallow before he closed the lid on the croissant. Then he deftly used the croissant to pull the marshmallow off the metal skewer.
“There. Try that,” he said.
“Oh, I get to be the guinea pig?” I smirked. But then I took a bite and groaned. “Oh, my God. This is amazing.”
The men rushed to make their own croissant s'mores, and then we groaned together. If anyone had been listening in, they would have thought an orgy was going on. It occurred to me that sound carried at night, especially across water, and I giggled, wondering what the neighbors across the lake were thinking.
“You like that, huh?” Gage asked. “Is it like being a kid again?”
The question was odd. I answered it honestly. “I never did stuff like this when I was a kid. What about you?”
“I wasn't a kid in this life. Hades made us fully grown. And I can't remember my last life. Although, I doubt it involved s'mores.”
Gideon snorted a laugh. “No marshmallows back then.”
“Whoa,” I whispered. “I didn't consider that you had previous lives before this one. Lives that were probably lived in ancient times.”
“Easy now,” Garret drawled. “We don't know if it was ancient times.”
“Well, when were you created?” I asked.
“In the eighteen hundreds,” Gage said. “I don't remember the exact year.”
“You don't remember your birthday?” I asked in horror.
“We weren't really born, Indie,” Gideon said. “And there was a lot for us to learn in the early days. We were like baby giraffes.”
“Baby giraffes?” Gage asked, then chortled. “What the fuck?”
“Baby giraffes have to walk as soon as they're born,” I said, both surprised and pleased that I understood Gideon's reference. “And mama giraffes are brutal. I once saw a video of a mama giraffe who climbed over a fence, but her baby couldn't make it over. She just kept walking. Never even looked back when it cried for her.”
“Holy shit!” Garret exclaimed. “That's beyond brutal. That's fucking cold. Callous. I had no idea giraffes were such bitches.”
I laughed. “It's just how they evolved, I guess. They have to escape predators. Those who can't keep up get left behind.”
“Even the babies?” Garret asked in a horrified whine.
Gideon motioned at him and Gage. “That's how it was with us. I mean, Hades wasn't callous, but he kind of tossed us to another Cerberus for training and took off right after our creation. We didn't see him again until we were ready to go to Earth.”
“So, you were abandoned too,” I whispered.
The men went still.
Gage reached over and took my hand. “No, sweetheart. You were a baby, while we were grown men with full lifetimes under our belts, even though we couldn't remember them. We were mature souls who had agreed to work for Hades in exchange for eternal life. He's our creator, but not our father.”
“Don't tell the OG Cerberus that,” Garret huffed.
Gideon snorted. “No shit. Those guys think Hades is their daddy.”
“Whatever he is to us, he didn't abandon us,” Gage went on. “Hades expects a lot from us because he selected our souls himself. He knows what we're capable of. More than we do, actually. It was when we entered our new bodies that we lost the memories our souls had held of our past lives. We were adults but with no past, only a determination to forge a new future. Hades leaving us to train with another Cerberus was an act of faith, not abandonment. We can only sympathize with what you went through. I'm sorry, Indie. As much as I want to relate to you, I won't twist things to create bonds between us that aren't there.”
I stared at him. It felt so real. So honest. Was it the truth? If it wasn't, Gage was a hell of an actor. But if what Silas said was true, then lying would be second nature to these men. Still, I fell into the moment and couldn't crawl back into skepticism. They were just too genuine. Those eyes. There wasn't a hint of deception in any of them.
“I'm glad you don't share that past with me,” I said. “It's not something I want to bond with someone over. It's something I want to forget.”
“Why?” Garret asked. “It made you who you are. Do you think you would have worked so hard and gotten to where you are if they hadn’t left you in that hospital?”
“I'll never know. But I'd give up every one of my achievements to have known my parents.”
“Yes, of course,” Garret said. “Still, you've done well, and I like the woman you are. Who knows what your parents faced? It must have been terrible to prompt them into giving you up. People are not giraffes, Indigo. It's never easy for a mother to give up her child. I promise you that wherever she is, she still thinks about you, and prays that you're safe and happy.”
I bent my head to swipe at my eyes.
“Well done, asshole!” Gage growled as he jumped out of his chair and knelt next to mine to put his arm around me. “Come here, Indigo Darling. It's all right. You're with us now. You'll never be abandoned again.”
I swiped at my eyes and leaned away from him. “Don't make promises you aren't sure you can keep, Gage.”
He stared at me for a long moment, his lips parting as if to speak, but then he just nodded.
“More sugar!” Gideon declared. “Enough of this heavy bullshit.” He handed me my skewer with a fresh marshmallow on it.
“Thank you.” I took the skewer and looked at the three of them.
Masks or not, they were amazing. I decided to enjoy the hounds for the night. I could wonder if they were monsters in the morning.