"I'm going to share something about Lucas with you that he never will - his need to protect you overwhelms every other instinct. It's not a choice he can make." Tamsyn's soft brown eyes were gentle but her tone held an edge of steel Sascha had never expected. "I'm telling you because I trust you."
Don't betray my trust.
She heard the unspoken words as clearly as if Tamsyn had opened her mouth and shaped them into sound. "Why tell me at all?"
"Because of what you said downstairs about needing an open mind when you go into the PsyNet." She frowned. "Sit down before you fall down. The last thing I need is Lucas after me for neglecting you."
Sascha sat. "What is it I need to know?" She put the drink on the bedside table.
Tamsyn sat down on the bed beside her and took a shaky breath. "When Lucas was barely thirteen, a small band of roaming leopards tried to infiltrate our territory. We weren't as strong back then and the ShadowWalkers thought they could destroy our power structure and install themselves as alpha." She sighed. "It's been done before - we might be more humane than the Psy but we're not perfect."
Sascha didn't interrupt, caught by the jagged shards of pain she could hear in Tamsyn's normally even tones.
"Lucas's mother was a healer, his father a sentinel." She smiled softly. "Sometimes I think that's why he allows me so much freedom in the pack."
Sascha had barely begun to give in to her hunger for touch, barely begun to understand that it was as essential to her as food, but she could feel Tamsyn's need like a second heartbeat. She put her hand over the other woman's. Tamsyn's fingers curled over hers.
"The ShadowWalkers couldn't get to our alpha pair so they decided to attack a sentinel and get information on our defenses. Lucas's family was on a run in the forests when they were surrounded. Afterward, we realized the original plan must've been to break Carlo by making him witness the rape and torture of his mate." Tamsyn's fingers threatened to crush Sascha's weaker bones.
She took another trembling breath. "But the ShadowWalkers underestimated Shayla. She was a healer but she was also a mother and she fought for the life of her child. The other leopards couldn't afford to lose Carlo but in the fighting, Shayla was killed."
"Tamsyn," Sascha began, alarmed by the depth of her anguish. It was so heavy, so old and potent, having matured over the years into pure sorrow.
"No, I can only do this once. After I leave this room, we'll never speak of it again." Her eyes asked for a promise, which Sascha gladly gave. "Lucas was so young, much weaker than the adult males who attacked them. He was easily contained when he tried to save his parents."
Sascha's heart hurt for the panther who was so possessive and protective. Now she understood his need to mark her, to hold her safe. "Was his father captured?"
"Yes. They took both Lucas and Carlo. Shayla's body was removed and buried deep where her scent wouldn't warn us. But it wasn't deep enough. We found her."
"How long?" How long had Lucas been in the hands of those merciless killers?
"Four days." Tamsyn's voice was haunted. "When we got to them, Carlo was so badly damaged that no one could save him. I was a trainee, a juvenile myself. Shayla had been our healer and she was gone. I burned myself out but I couldn't save him. It was as if his soul had flown with Shayla's." Tears streaked down her face.
"Tamsyn." Using the strange, inexplicable, wonderful part of her soul that could heal hearts, she gathered in the other woman's pain. As it settled in her, heavy and aching, Tamsyn's voice seemed to lighten.
"The last words Carlo said to us were, 'We didn't break.' That was when we realized Lucas must've survived. The ShadowWalkers had tried to hide him so they could retrieve him later - he was tied up in a cave not far from Carlo. Wh-when we found him, he had so many broken bones and bloody claw slashes on him that the only reason we recognized him was because of the Hunter marks." She touched her face as if stroking Lucas's mark. "His wrists and ankles were rubbed through to the bone from fighting the restraints."
Sascha felt a sob catch in her throat. "They tortured him to break Carlo?"
Tamsyn nodded. "They wanted what Carlo knew - the locations of our safe houses, the routes we run, our alpha pair's lair and defense grid."
"How did Lucas survive?"
"I don't know." Tamsyn sounded utterly bewildered. "They'd held back with his father because he was the important one, but with Lucas..." She shook her head. "It was as if he refused to die. Some people said he survived because he'd been born a Hunter and had strengths we didn't know about. I just think he wanted vengeance."
"The ShadowWalkers escaped?"
Tamsyn nodded. "We were strong enough to drive them off but not to track and take them down without leaving our young vulnerable. As a result, we lived under a kind of martial law for five years, never leaving the group, never making ourselves targets."
Her eyes met Sascha's. "When Lucas was only eighteen and still a juvenile by our standards, he went out one night with a pack of sentinels and some others. The sentinels had given him their loyalty the day they learned that despite the torture, he hadn't broken."
Sascha couldn't begin to imagine the strength of will it must've taken for Lucas to honor his loyalty to Pack. But he had.
"They went hunting every single adult male ShadowWalker." Blood fury threaded Tamsyn's normally gentle voice. "By the time they finished, the ShadowWalkers had ceased to exist and DarkRiver was a pack no one dared to threaten."