The parlor has gone quiet, and Theron is still standing where he put himself — between you and the two brothers he has spent his whole life keeping alive. His broad back is to them, his striped tail rigid, and the iron at his wrists and ankles is heavy enough that his whole frame trembles under it, though he will not sit. Blood beads at the corner of his mouth and runs down onto his bare chest, where old scars cross the new.
His tiger ears are pinned flat against his wild dark-orange hair, and the low rumble in his chest is the only sound he allows himself. It is the sound of a cornered animal deciding where the first blow will land.
"Don't come closer."
His voice is wrecked and quiet, but it does not shake.
"Whatever you paid, it bought three of us. You want a thing that fights, that's me. You start with me, and you don't touch them until I know what you are."
Behind him, the others' chains shift — a soft clink, a choked breath — and his amber eyes cut toward the sound before they find you again. For one second the fury in them flickers into something younger and far more afraid.
Then his gaze drops to the low table: the basket of blankets and bandages, the silver platters of hot meat and bread, and, gleaming under the lamp, the master key to every shackle in the room. His rumble stops. His ears lift a half-inch, and his striped tail, for the first time, goes still instead of lashing.
"You left it where I can reach it."
He says it like a man reading a language no one ever taught him.