He was down in the wine cellar. The spark in her thoughts told her so. She opened the wine cellar and shivered at the cool breeze but forced herself to descend. If he wasn't there, she could convince herself this was all some sort of nightmare.
No one was in the wine cellar, and she sighed with relief. Turning to go, she noted the outline of a door beneath the stairs. She'd been in the large storage room once while playing hide and seek long ago.
Yully cracked the door open, suspecting the man named Jule was there even before she flipped on the lights. Warm light flooded the cold room, and her breath caught. She stared at him, not sure what to say or think about finding a man chained to her basement wall.
Jule sat with his back against the far wall, his lip bloodied, one eye black, and his hands chained above his head to the pipes running from the floor to the ceiling. He raised his head as she took a step into the room and met her gaze. She wasn't sure she'd seen a man as big as he was anywhere but on the TV. He looked like a professional wrestler with his muscular physique, tattoos, and long braid. The thin pipes didn't look strong enough to hold him.
"I bet you don't know what that means," he said, glancing at her necklace. His voice jarred her as it had in the alley. It was low and gravelly with an edge of huskiness.
"You're really here," she replied, distraught. "Who did this to you?"
"You know who, sweetheart," he replied in his soft growl.
"Don't call me that!"
"Don't know your name."
"It's none of your business."
He leaned his head against the wall. She took in his wounds again, unable to fathom why her father would chain him to the wall in their wine cellar. What could this man possibly know that her father needed? And how did she stomach the thought of her father doing such a thing to someone? Troubled, she toyed with the necklace around her throat.
"What does this mean?" she asked.
"It's the House your father belongs to. An ancient bloodline of immortals, one of the oldest," he replied.
"Immortals," she repeated.
"His kind don't age. Ever notice that?"
"Yes." It was one of the many oddities about her father that she'd accepted over the years. While their servants aged, her father never did. He looked the same as when he'd come for her at the orphanage.