“How did you know that I am a Nephilim?”
He rolled back his chair and stood. Javan came around the desk to the chairs and stopped behind one. “It’s a sense that all Incubi have. With the Succubi all gone, the only way to continue our race is with yours.”
“Yeah,” she said and swallowed. “I read that. I just don’t understand how Becky and I didn’t know. I read all the family names of the Nephilim. We’re not on there.”
“Elijah is...proficient at discovering all there is to know about a person. It’s how we found out you were Rebecca’s sister. He also learned that you and Becky were adopted.”
Naomi barked with laughter. “You know, I believed everything in that book,” she said, pointing at the tome lying before her. “But you’ve crossed the line.”
“Becky was eighteen months old and you were just days old when the Williams family adopted you. I have the paperwork to prove it.”
She shook her head, not wanting to believe it. But why would he lie? What did Javan have to gain? “They never told us. Adoptive parents end up telling their children.”
“Not if you were adopted to be saved.” Javan’s dark eyes held hers. “Your family is the Martins. There had been a feud between them and the Ryans. It was the Ryans who wiped out your family. Your parents kept your birth secret. They employed a human nurse who took you and Rebecca away before the attack.”
Naomi put a hand over her stomach. This couldn’t be happening. It all sounded so farfetched, like it was out of some sci-fi movie.
“A female child about your sister’s age who had been delivered to the morgue was put in the house so when the Ryans attacked, they believed your entire family was killed.”
Naomi jumped to her feet and began to pace. “How do you know all of this?”
“I told you. Elijah can find out anything. I’m glad you’re finished reading. I know you have many more questions, but I’d like to ask you if Rebecca described her lover?”
Naomi stopped and stared. “Have you found something?”
“Possibly.” He started back to his desk and motioned for her to follow. “As you learned from the book, there are ten Incubus families. Mine controls Australia. It doesn’t stop other Incubi from traveling and such. However, I’ve had Elijah find out the whereabouts of each of those I’m responsible for on the night your sister died.”
She leaned over his shoulder after he sat and looked at the papers. Naomi couldn’t believe he had gone to all this trouble just for her. If she hadn’t told him she knew he was an Incubus, she wondered if he would be helping her now.
Javan looked up at her. Naomi realized how close they were. She thought of the quick, hard kiss he had given her. And how she wished it had lasted longer.
Her breath left her lungs in a whoosh when Javan’s gaze lowered to her mouth. The man had a serious way of making her forget everything but wanting to be in his arms.
No. Wanting was too weak of a word. She yearned. She craved.
She hungered.
“Yes,” Naomi said, her voice sounding breathless and needy even to her own ears.
Javan’s lips lifted in a half-smile. “Yes?”
It took a moment for his question to sink in. Naomi shook her head to pull herself back from the brink of the overwhelming passion. “Yes, Becky described him. He was tall with dark hair and dark eyes.”
“You’ve just described a number of men in my employ, including Elijah.”
Naomi straightened and crossed her arms over her chest. “So we’re not any closer?”
“I didn’t say that. There are a handful of men who don’t have an alibi for that night. Elijah is looking into them now.”
“Aren’t you worried it might be Elijah?”
Javan smiled and turned his chair to face her. “He was with me in London. He’s my Watchman.”
That’s right. Naomi remembered reading about the men whose job it was to look after the head of each Incubus House and lead the under-Watchmen. Elijah would go anywhere that Javan went.
“Good,” she said. “I like Elijah. I’d have been upset if it was him.”
Javan stood then. “It’s been a long day for both of us. Let me take you to dinner.”
Dinner? Alone with one of the hunkiest men she had ever encountered? Did she even attempt such a thing?
“All right. Should I go home and change?”
He put his hand on her back and guided her across the office to the elevator. “You’re perfect.”
The man knew exactly what to say, Naomi would give him that. Perfect? She was hardly that, but it was nice to hear that he thought so.
Their shoulders were touching in the elevator. Naomi could feel his gaze on her. He was like a magnet, enticing her closer the longer they were together.
The elevator went past the lobby of the building to the basement where it opened and a car was parked, waiting. Javan’s hand was once more on her lower back. She found she liked the feel of his hand there.
Naomi felt protected, sheltered.