"What makes you think I want to know anything from you?"
"The fact that you didn't close the door and walk away the moment you saw me." His voice was quiet and confident, and she felt like a visitor in his throne room rather than a woman talking to a stranger chained to her basement wall.
"Did my father hit you?" she whispered.
"You know the answer."
She chewed her lip. "He said you want to kill me. Do you?"
"Yes, I did," he replied. "But I don't now."
She glanced at him. His gaze was intent, and she suspected he'd just now reached that decision.
"He'll kill me when he has the chance," Jule said. "I think you know that."
"My father wouldn't do such a thing."
"Are you certain? A man willing to beat his daughter won't give a shit about killing a stranger."
She left before he could upset her more. Running up the stairs to the main floor, she wanted nothing more than to return to the safety of her room. She hesitated at the head of the stairs, tormented by the knowledge her father was incapable of mercy towards his daughter, let alone a stranger. If the man didn't freeze down there, he'd die at the hands of her father and his strange delusion that this man wanted her dead.
Jule was nothing like the men her father warned her about. She'd felt safe with him, a sense she found only alone in her room. She knew better than to relax around her father, whose hand was likely to fly at the drop of a hat. But this man, an enemy who had-up until now-wanted to kill her, left her feeling a little less alone.
She touched her cheek. She couldn't dismiss the sight of his darkened eye or bloodied lip. Her father beat them both. Yully trotted up to her wing and pulled a spare blanket out of the main linen closet. She returned with it to the wine cellar and pushed the door open.
Jule sat where she left him. She wasn't sure why she'd hoped he was gone, except that his absence would alleviate her guilty conscious.
"You can't tell my father I brought you this," she told him. "He'll hurt us both." She laid it across him then straightened it to cover his body.
"It's our little secret," he said.
She met his gaze again, caught in the dark eyes that seemed both warm and wary. He remained relaxed, his large body radiating heat in the cold room. The intensity of his gaze made her warm on the inside. She backed away from him to the door.