Shift (The Neturu Chronicles) (50 page)

               
Damien shakes his head. “I don’t know.”  When they get to his room, he
grabs his phone.  Damien presses a number and holds the phone to his
ear.  After a few seconds, he snaps, “Dad, we have a problem.  This
William guy just sent Kayla flowers at Jackson’s.  What?  Yeah, I’ll
see you in a few.”  He hangs up the phone and walks over to his
desk. 

               
“What are you doing?”

               
“Videoconferencing, two of the families are with my father.”

               
“You aren’t expecting me to talk to them, right?”

               
He turns and looks at her.  “Why, would that be a problem?”

               
“I don’t know,
”
she says,
throwing her hands in the air. 
“
I’d
like to clean up and at least look a little better than I do right now!”

               
“I’m sure you’ll see my father more often now that we’re dating.  Relax,
okay?” Damien chuckles.

               
She gives him a pleading look.  “Damien, he is the head of our people and
the other two families will be on this call too!  I would rather not do
this.”

               
“Fine,” he sighs, shaking his head with a smile.  “I will do it.”  He
turns on his computer, and Kayla sits down on the bed.  Damien connects to
the Internet and sends out the call.  From the bed, Kayla sees a window
pop.  “Hello, Father,” Damien says.  “Jasmine, Gregory, good
morning.”

               
Kayla’s interest peaks.  She gets up and walks over by Damien. 
Everyone on the screen looks at her.  A black-haired older gentleman sits
in the middle of a table with a blond woman sitting on his right and a brunette
gentleman on his left.  The black-haired gentleman says, “This beautiful
young lady must be Kayla Hendrickson.”

               
She waves and awkwardly says, “Hi.”

               
Damien turns to her. “Kayla, the guy talking to you is my father, Drake
Blakely.  That is Jasmine Marques,
”
he points to the screen
,  
“
and that is Gregory
Caster.”

               
“Hello,” Jasmine says with a grin.

               
“Miss Hendrickson, I want to reassure you that William is no relation to my
bloodline,” Gregory states.  “I have looked into it.  My father,
William, only had one child, me.  We have no males in our family line
right now.”

               
Kayla shrugs. “I have no idea who he is.  At first he said his name was
William Caster, but when I confronted him on it, he was all shady but admitted
his name was really William.”

               
“I have no idea,” Gregory says.  “I even went as far as to ask my
daughters, and they said they know no one by the name William.”

               
“He sent me flowers.  That really freaked me out.”

               
Drake looks at his son.  “Do you want me to send guards?”

               
“No, I have her security under control,” Damien assures.  “That may be a
slight overkill.”

               
“Guards?” Kayla chirps.

               
“Yes,” Drake says.  “We have our own police system.  Part of their
job is guarding the families.  If you are in danger, they will step in.”

               
Her eyebrows pop up.  “Do you think he’s going to hurt me?  He seems
like he just wants me to marry him.  I don’t think attacking me is going
to get me to do that.”

               
“True,” Gregory replies. “But we still don’t want you in danger.”

               
“I know how to kill one of our kind, if need be,” Damien growls.  “He
won’t lay a hand on her.”

               
His dad gives him a stern look. “Really, Damien, killing is slightly dramatic,
unless he’s trying to kill one of you.  You can bind him up or something
instead.”

               
“Mmhmm, we’ll see about that.”

               
Grabbing the bridge of his nose, Drake sighs.  “Anyway, Kayla, if at any
point you become worried, we will send help.”

               
“I don’t think that’s necessary right now,” Kayla replies.  “I just wish
we could track him by the flowers.”

               
“We are looking into that right now,” Drake reassures her.  “He had to use
a credit card of some sort, if it was online.  Hacking a florist’s system
isn’t hard.”

               
She shakes her head. “This is all too much to take.  Damien taught me to
block out William and either he or Jackson are sleeping with me at night, so I
don’t accidentally go to Shima alone.”

               
Damien drops his head into his hand.  Drake narrows his eyes.  “Why
are you sleeping with Jackson?  You are allowed to date whomever you
want.  Damien hasn’t said anything about you dating Jackson too.  We
don’t usually want females to bear children to fathers in the same family.”

               
“I DID NOT MEAN IT THAT WAY!
”
Kayla screams, her face flaming.
“
Not
to be rude, but I have been informed about what you want from me, and that’s
not
going to happen.  I’m sorry, but no.”

               
His father looks at Damien.  “And tell me, son, what have you been telling
her?”

               
“I just told her how we try to populate the species as much as possible.”

               
“Mmm,” his dad hums.  “Kayla, we understand that you were raised as a
human.  We will never expect anything out of you that you aren’t
comfortable with.  Of course we want to keep the species alive, but we
don’t force anyone to do anything they don’t want to. As a species we are very
sexual, and it is not uncommon to take more than one partner.”

               
Putting her hands up, Kayla shouts, “Seriously, I don’t want to have this
conversation with you.  I don’t even want to have this conversation with
my
parents.  Please, stop.”

               
Jasmine chuckles. “Then you can have this conversation with Damien or Jackson.”

               
“You’re a nice shade of red.” Damien laughs.

               
Kayla punches him in the arm. “Shut up.”

               
He grins and turns back to his father.  “You will let me know about
William?  There really isn’t much we can do right now.”

               
“No there isn’t,” Drake replies.  “It’s hard to gauge what he even wants.”

               
“Me, he wants me,” Kayla states.  “He wants me to marry him or
whatever.  He kept saying how there were four other families, but if he
isn’t part of one of those families, what does it matter?  It doesn’t make
sense.”

               
Gregory shakes his head. “It makes no sense.  If we can figure out who he
is, it will make a difference.”

               
“I’ll ask him if I see him again,” Kayla sarcastically replies.  “I pray
that doesn’t happen, though.  The flowers are creepy enough.  What if
he pops in at school or something?”

               
“Jackson’s at school with you, right?” Drake inquires.

               
She nods. “Yeah, but he’s not in all my classes.”

               
“Wait for him and have him escort you from class to class.  You will be
safe with him.  He’s a fierce fighter.”

               
“I feel
so
much better.  I don’t mean to be rude,” Kayla says
sarcastically.

               
Drake folds his hands on the table.  “Do you want me to send extra guards
to protect you?”

               
“How would they really protect me?  Are they going to chaperone me
everywhere I go?  That’ll be awkward.”

               
“They remain unseen, very black ops sort of stuff,” Damien states.  “You
wouldn’t even know they were there.”

               
Kayla looks at him.  “That may creep me out more than William.”

               
Damien laughs. “Well then, you can stick with Jackson and me.  We will be
your chaperones.”

               
“I can handle that.  I won’t be farther away than in the same building for
right now.”

               
“If I have my way, you won’t be that far away from me,” Damien says, with a
huge smile.

               
She rolls her eyes and groans. “Whatever.”

               
“Hhheeeyyy.” 

Kayla just smirks at him.

               
“Good girl, give him a hard time.  Keep him on his toes,” Damien’s dad
says.

               
Damien turns back to the screen. “You’re supposed to be on my side.  You
are my father after all.”

               
“Oh come now, son, I will always be on the side of a pretty girl.” Drake
chuckles.

               
“Aww, thank you,” Kayla replies.

               
“All right, not to cut this short, but we have more things to tackle right now,
”
Mr. Blakely says.
“
It was very nice meeting you,
Kayla.  I hope to do it in person very soon.”

               
Giving a quizzical look, Kayla asks, “Where are you
guys
right now, anyway?”

               
“Top secret information.” Drake chuckles.  “I’m only kidding.  We’re
in LA.”

               
“You said they were out of the country when you were in trouble with the cop,”
Kayla snips to Damien.

               
“What about a cop!”

               
Damien gives Kayla a dirty look. “Traitor.  It was nothing, Father, just a
little skirmish with a guy.  He called Kayla a slut, so I punched him.”

               
“Damien, you are supposed to set an example,” Drake warns.

               
He puts his hands out in innocence. “He deserved it!  Like you wouldn’t
punch out a guy if he said that about Mom.”

               
Drake gives Damien a stern look.  “Don’t get into a fight unless
absolutely necessary.”

               
“We have really good lawyers.  Why pay them so much money if we don’t use
them?”

               
“Damien, don’t get into fistfights!”

               
Kayla interjects, “It wasn’t a fight.  He just popped the guy in the
face.  He really did deserve it.  It was either Jackson, Damien, or
me and obviously, I hit like a girl.”

               
“Please, my dear, do not encourage him.  Jackson shouldn’t hit anyone
either,” Jasmine says softly.  “We need not attract attention to
ourselves, as much as possible.”

               
“So I can’t become a movie star?” Kayla giggles.

               
“You may do whatever you want,” Gregory replies.  “We just don’t attract
bad attention to ourselves.  If we were ever going to publicly identify
ourselves, we wouldn’t want a criminal reputation.  We keep a tight leash
on the Neturu, for just that reason.  We take our reputation very
seriously and have a respectable police guard to enforce our laws.”

               
Looking up, Kayla says, “What would happen to William if you found him?  I
mean, he forced me to kiss him.  It was nasty and wrong.  He also
wouldn’t allow me to leave Shima.”

               
“He would be put in jail, so to speak,” Gregory says.  “We have cells in
the ships.  Really, our people don’t get in trouble very often, but
sometimes we have to imprison them.”

               
“I want to see a ship,” Kayla quips, with a smile.

               
“We don’t usually let people parade around in them,” Gregory retorts, “But you
are the girlfriend of the son of the Merjyet line.”

               
Damien says, “Oh, well, we aren’t…”

               
“
It’s
fine,” Kayla murmurs, putting her hand on his
shoulder.  “Maybe I can persuade him to take me,” she says with a wink.

               
Damien puts his hand on hers. “We’ll make a date of it.  The closest one
is in San Diego.  That’s where my parents live.”

               
“Cool, road trip. Oh, by the way, thank you, Mr. Blakely, for buying me a
car.  I love it.”

               
“My pleasure,” he replies.  “Damien insisted so that you didn’t have to
rely on everyone else.”        
                                                                                                                             
                                                                                             

               
Kayla looks down at Damien. “Thank you for looking out for me.”

               
“Okay, you two, we’ll talk again soon.  If anything else should arise,
please let us know right away.  Have a good rest of your day.”

               
“Bye, it was nice meeting you,” Kayla says, waving.

               
“You too,” Gregory and Jasmine reply at the same time.  With that, they
close down their window.