Queen of Ruin(Book three of the Immortals Series)
CHAPTER FORTY THE HEXOM’S

With the weight of all those eyes burning through him, it made it a bit hard to chew, but Teddy simply gave his signature grin and enjoyed the homecooked meal. Growing up with Haldir's poor attempts at cuisine and a string of paid chefs made having a sweet, loving mother like Kathy Hexom fix his dinner so much better. The Lycan mate he found himself failed to mention she had twin fathers and twin brothers and, despite his charms, they all stared straight through him without an ounce of mercy.

"So, where are you from?" The father with reddish-blonde hair, Robert, crossed his tattoed arms as he pushed himself back in his seat and waited for an answer.

Knowing that his past would undoubtedly come back to haunt him someday, Teddy took a second to clear his throat and set down his fork as he readied himself. "Savannah, sir."

Ready to take his turn at making Teddy uncomfortable, Warren, the father with pale blonde hair and the same black tattoos, leaned forward as he took a drink from his beer bottle. "Tell us about your family, son."

A nervous smile came to his lips as he rubbed his forehead. "I have a twin sister named Tessa."

The shock of Stella's touch shot through his arm when she slapped her hand to it. "Are you serious?"

Looking at her brothers, the excited woman clapped her hands together. "Maybe she's your mate. I bet she is."

With his hand waving in front of him, Teddy shook his head. "No, she's already found her mate."

The disappointment in Stella's sigh was thick, and an ache rose through Teddy's chest for taking away her hope. "We don't have any other family, only us, but we're not speaking right now."

The sweet jasmine on her skin made Teddy shift in his seat to move a little closer when she put her hand on his leg and leaned into him. "Why not? What happened?"

As he decided how much to admit to, Teddy gave her a tight-lipped grin and wrinkled his nose. No matter how he told the tale, he was far from a hero. "It's kind of a long story."

From across the table, Jacob's deep dimples smiled at Teddy as he set down his beer bottle and chuckled to himself. "Yeah, these things usually are, aren't they?"

The overprotective brother sniffed into the air as Logan tried to detect Teddy's ability to be trusted. "You have other plans tonight, Teddy?"

Pushing out his lips as he shook his head, Teddy met his piercing green eyes. He'd faced down bigger men, and he wasn't about to give Logan the impression he was someone easily intimidated. "No, sir, I surely don't. Just didn't want to bore you folks with my family drama."

The young Alpha narrowed his eyes at him and motioned with his hand to continue. "Well, let's hear it; we're all ears."

He wiped the napkin across his mouth and set it on the table. "My sister is a lovely and charming woman, but she's a little lost." Not wanting to relive their lives' messy details, Teddy summarized things in the simplest way possible. "She recently lost her husband and child, and she's not handling it so well."

Slapping her hand to her chest, Stella gasped, and the sweetest voice he'd ever heard offered her sympathy. "Oh, my God. I'm so sorry; that's horrible."

The thought of abandoning his sister when she needed him most didn't sit right with Logan, and his head snapped back as a huff of indignant air shot from his nose. "You left her?"

Stella rolled her eyes at her brother. Despite how bad it sounded, her mate bond told her there was something more to the story. "Logan!"

Growing up in a wolf pack, the idea of leaving someone weaker behind to fend for themselves was unheard of. "I don't get it. You have this sister who's obviously going through some shit, and you leave her. Sounds fucked up if you ask me." Glancing at his brother, he shook his head. "Because I can't imagine a situation where I'd do something like that. So, make me understand."

As Stella geared up to defend him, Teddy waved his hand to stop her. "You don't need to make excuses for me, Stella. He's right." Nodding his head as he glanced back to the tall brother with dirty blonde hair, he admitted to his failures. "You're right. I made a lot of mistakes where my sister is concerned. Unfortunately, my being around makes her worse, so I decided to give her some space."

He glanced down at the not-so-perfectly set table as he swallowed down the tears rising from his throat. "I love my sister; leaving her was far from easy. I want more than anything to be the one to fix everything for her, but I can't seem to get things right."

Curling his lips under as he searched for a way to explain the mess he made, Teddy raised his brows as the right words came to him. "She hates me, and I can't even say I blame her. What I did ruined her."

"What the fuck did you do to her?" The always mistrusting brother's lip curled slightly on the corner as his jaw cracked when he clenched his teeth together. He didn't even know the woman, but his heart ached for her. For him, nothing meant more than his family and his loyalty to them. Teddy was digging himself deeper into a hole with every explanation he offered.

The animosity for him was building in the air, so he went back to how it all started. Despite the less than angelic upbringing he had, every day was another lesson about how much easier life is when he told the truth. "Well, I suppose I should start from the beginning."

Leaning into the table, Teddy rested his elbows on top and clasped his hands together. "About a thousand years ago or so, our family came over from the Realm. They were royalty, you see, and immediately started pissing off every other magical family they came across. They started this war with another powerful family, the Idrissi's."

The bitter sting of everything that followed was like the bile of a bad stomach ache and made Teddy wipe his mouth with his hand before he got into the thick of the densely woven story. "Our father was the head of our Order, and he had grown tired of all the bloodshed, so he invited the Idrissi family to come to join our coven. They accepted, and everything seemed to be squashed. This happened around our thirteenth birthday, which is when we're presented, formally, to our community."

Waving his hand at the silly rite of passage, Teddy smiled as the memory of the night came rushing back. "Just something our kind does. It just so happened that Tessa met her mate that night, and it was one of the Idrissi boys." Shifting in his seat, Teddy realized the irony of where he was at that moment. "Our parents seemed to be excited about joining our families and ending the feud once and for all. A couple of nights later, we had dinner at this boy's house to discuss their courtship and his father took the opportunity to wipe my entire family out. Killed our parents and baby brother right in front of us at the dinner table."

With his chin against his fist, Logan leaned forward. He loved a war story, and he was becoming more invested with every word. "Are you fucking kidding? How'd you get away?"

Blinking away to the window as Stella held his hand in hers, Teddy paused to collect himself. "We can disappear whenever we feel like it, so we did. I didn't know he poisoned her until we got to safety. She bled to death right there in my foyer, but her mate saved her, and, long story short, they got married."

A quick grin came to his mouth as he remembered the panic on Rafik's face and how much courage it must have taken to turn in his family the way he did. "I would have been all alone in this world if it hadn't been for him."

Shaking off the man he'd doomed to an eternity of loneliness, Teddy kept going. "Me and Tess, we went into hiding until almost two years ago. Once things were safe again, well, we thought it was safe, she found her mate, and everything was going along fine for them."

As his fingertips rubbed against the tablecloth, Teddy cleared his throat as the visions passed before his eyes and the horror of that night overcame him. "But my grandparents, the ones who started the whole goddamn thing in the first place, kind of came out of nowhere and kidnapped Tessa. They, uh, they're the ones who killed her husband and baby."

Wiping the tear from his face, Teddy swallowed hard and confessed the awfulness of what came next. "As you can imagine, she was kind of a mess. One night I went out to pick up dinner, and while I was gone, she tried to kill herself. I was so scared of losing her that I did a spell to take her memories of him and her baby away. She only got worse, though. See, dark magic like I did can't be used for good, even with the best of intentions, but I was desperate to save my sister. So, now she can't remember why she's so angry and sad, but she realizes I had something to do with it and..."

What happened on the balcony still turned his stomach, and a smoky scoff came from his throat as he waved off the rest and summed it up. "So, we got into this huge fight, and I went out for a drive to clear my head and didn't go back." Taking in everything he said, Jacob tried to help Teddy with his problem. "Can't you take the spell back?"

He didn't believe Billy's warning, but as soon as he left Teddy's house, the prediction started playing out. "No. If I do, it will be like losing them both all over again. I can't make her relive that nightmare."

A sweet grin rose on Kathy's cheeks as she glanced between her husbands before looking back to Teddy. "Do you think she might like to come to live here? The thought of her being there all alone breaks my heart. We'd love to have her." As he imagined her sleeping her way through the town, Teddy shook his head. "No, that's sweet and all, but she only knows how to cause misery and be miserable now. She wouldn't be a good fit for your family or your town, I assure you." The twins glanced at each other and back at Teddy before Logan disagreed. "Everyone deserves a family, Teddy. Especially someone who's lost so goddamn much."

Leaning in to finish his brother's thought, Jacob tried to convince Teddy that Tessa belonged there. "You're going to be inheriting a pretty big goddamn family. Don't you think she should be a part of it?"

Sneering at his stupidity, he hissed through his teeth. "Before I did what I did, Tess was..." He bit his lip and shook his head. "She's not that person anymore; I took all the good parts of her away like some dirty fucking thief. She can't be fixed, fellas. She'll just make everyone hate her."

As if he had no worries at all, Logan shrugged his shoulders. "She can try. We don't leave people behind, Teddy. No one's that far gone."

Clicking his tongue, Teddy lifted his brows at the thought of someone ever breaking through her wall of hate. "She'll give you a run for your money. My sister's what you might call stubborn." Wrinkling his nose at the idea there was something he couldn't accomplish, Logan laughed it off. "That's alright. I kind of have a way with people like that. We'll get along just fine."