The Baby Of The White Tiger (BWWM Shifter Romance) (8 page)

Dom collapsed against Gregor’s chest, her head leaning onto his shoulder. Gregor removed his hands from her hips and wrapped them around her, holding her as close as he could. They separated and cleaned up, climbing into bed in order to finally get some rest.

Chapter8

They awoke with the evening light shining in on them. “We should eat something.” Gregor gently shook Dom awake. She took a moment to open her eyes. “Let’s get some food.” Gregor repeated his sentiment, knowing that Dom might actually be listening to him. She groaned and tried to roll over. “You need to eat something.” Gregor insisted again, forcing her out of her tired stupor. “Wake up.”

Dom stretched. “Do I have to get out of bed?”

“
You’ve slept all day. I woke up to your stomach growling. You need to eat something.” Gregor was insistent and eventually convinced Dom to climb out of bed and join him for dinner. They ate a restaurant in the parking lot of the hotel, and devoured their meal.

“
Should we head back?” Dom didn’t know if it would be safe to go back or not, but she was eager to check on her home. She hoped that the vampires hadn’t torn it down while she was gone. Her entire world had been there, and she didn’t know what she would do without it.

“
I’ve got the room for another night. We can leave in the morning.” Gregor tried to comfort her, to make her feel less rushed and it seemed to be working. The woman looked exhausted, and could definitely use some more rest.

“
That sounds nice. Have we heard anything about the shifters? How many people did they lose?”

“
I haven’t heard anything yet, but I’ll call when we finish eating.”

Dom didn’t respond, instead she focused on devouring her meal. The woman was obviously very hungry. She devoured the salad and the pasta that she had been served, eager to wolf down every bite now that she had gotten to someplace safe with someone who could keep her safe. When they finished their meal and paid they strolled back across the parking lot, still tired. Once they were safe back in their room Gregor called back to the base.

“Hello, this is Gregor.”

The voice on the other end of the line immediately recognized him. “We’ve managed to stop the attacks.”

“That’s great. Have they found who’s responsible?”

“
Not yet, but we’re close.” The answer was a matter-of-fact response to his question. Dom listened in silence. The voices were very professional, unworried about the situation. Dom looked from Gregor to the phone that was in his hand as he set it onto the bed. The woman was speaking, not realizing that she was on speaker phone. Dom held her breath.

“
Do you have any news? Is it safe to get down there?”

“
Take your time getting back here. We’ll have the perpetrator captured soon.” The voice was confident in that fact. It brought Dominique some comfort to hear even though she didn’t say it. Behind that confidence, however was a tiny doubt. What if they were lying? What if it didn’t look as good as she said it did? Would they tell them? Dom didn’t know the answer to any of those questions, at least, not from the vampire division, but she had used those tactics before when dealing with unruly spirits, it helped leave her clients at ease.

“
Don’t kill them if you can avoid it. I’d like to get them involved in the talks.”

“
Understood, when are you leaving?” The lady from the office seemed to be taking notes.

“
We will leave in the morning. We’ll be driving, taking the scenic route.”

“
Don’t tell me any more we don’t want you two being found.” She sighed and paused. “We don’t need two more dead bodies on our hands. Is Dom with you?”

“
Yes, she is. We’ll see you in a couple of days.” Gregor signed off of the call. “Let’s get some more sleep and then we can leave in the morning after breakfast. We don’t need to get in a hurry and we can take some extra time to make the trip a little easier.” He touched her arm gently, hoping that she would be able to recover from this.

“
You don’t want to hide?” Dom couldn’t believe that he was willing to walk back into a war-zone

“
I can’t hide, not from something this serious. The shifters have to see us; the vampires have to see us. They have to know that we’re not going to hide.” Gregor was resolute, Dom knew that he was right, they had to put an end to this before it got any worse, but it wasn’t going to be easy. She thought about it for a while, trying to find a way to keep everyone safe and not have to put themselves in the middle of a war. Gregor waited for a moment before he continued. “I will keep you safe, but if we start hiding now, we’ll be hiding forever. I don’t want that life for my child.”

Dom nodded in agreement. She thought that she understood, but wasn’t sure. Instead of answering, she crawled back under the bed and covered herself. She slept in her clothes that night, and didn’t notice until she woke the next morning. The pair made idle conversation as they showered, changed, checked out of the room and ate breakfast. It didn’t take them long to get on the road, heading back south. They decided to travel down, straight south into Texas and then travel down I-10 to El Paso. It would take longer, but it would be worth it, it would give them two or three days together on the road to get to know each other a little better.

They started on the highway, carefully following directions. Dom had slept so much that she couldn’t bring herself to fall asleep now; she sat watching the plains pass her window. Her thoughts were on Rosa, a woman that she wished she had gotten to know better. They stopped for lunch at a small diner near the highway. Dom searched the menu for something that would be acceptable for her diet. “I don’t see anything here.”

“
I’m sorry. Don’t they have a salad or something?” Gregor started to examine the menu, searching for something that Dom could eat. He spotted a salad that didn’t have anything in it and pointed it out to her.

She shook her head, frustrated by the country’s fascination with having meat at every meal. “I don’t really like salads, but I guess that will have to do.” She went through the standard rigmarole of explaining to the waitress that she didn’t want meat added to her meal. The woman looked at the young woman like she was crazy, but eventually moved off to put the order in.

They ate, laughing about the fact that vegetarians often get looked at like they are visitors from another planet, and Dom could feel some sense of normalcy returning. She knew that it was going to be a long time until she could be normal again. So much had happened to her in the past few weeks.

As she lay next to her lover that evening in another motel she knew the next day would be exactly the same as today. Gregor knew how overwhelmed the woman must be, so he let her think, let her decide what she was going to do with her life.

By the next night they had arrived back in El Paso. Dom was still in her silent time when Gregor pulled the rental car into the parking garage. They both climbed out of the vehicle and entered the building, ready to see how bad the damage had been. They were shown into an office immediately upon their arrival and they waited. After a few moments, Anna walked in. “How are you doing?” The question was directed at Dom.

“
Physically, I’m just fine now, well maybe not entirely there, my arm still hurts, but it’s healing.” Dom’s words were confused.

“
That’s good. If you need anything, let me know.” She finished her worried conversation and her voice turned back to its hard professional self. “We’ve caught the local vampire lord.” She was talking to Gregor now.

“
Wonderful, is he alive?” Gregor was eager for the answer. It was obvious that he had a plan for how to deal with him. Dom vaguely wondered if he was going to offer him up to the shifters in exchange for the losses that they had suffered at his hands. She wondered if he was going to be a sacrifice to make this peace work.

“
He’s safe. We managed to take him alive. We have him locked up.” Anna was scowling. She didn’t like the risk that this guy brought with him.

“
Good, we’ll need to schedule a meeting with both the local groups; hopefully we can make this work. Vampires are known to be very unpredictable.

“
What are you going to do?” Dom asked, wondering if there was going to be a murder carried out in front of her.

“
I’m going to bring another party to the table, and maybe if we can get the vampires to talk about a cease fire, it will get the others on board.”

“
Do you think that’s going to work?” Dom had no idea how this was going to work. She was certain that the vampires weren’t just going to give up what they had taken from the others. They were not reasonable or kind. In general they just took what they wanted and those with the most power destroyed those with less power.

“
It’s worth a try, at least.” Gregor sounded supremely confident in his plan. The problem with it was the fact that vampires and shifters had never really been interested in peace. Raids and fights were a part of their daily lives and if they weren’t ignoring each other they were killing each other. Granted, Dom had just witnessed the worst combat between the two groups in over a hundred years, but she didn’t know if that would be anything other than a hindrance to peace.

The meeting was arranged without hesitation. The vampire be forced to the table and tied into a chair. He didn’t seem happy at all about the situation, but eventually he realized that working with the shifters was in everyone’s best interest.

Epilogue

Dom watched in awe as month’s worth of talks flew by as she grew heavier and heavier with her child. She was six months along and things were starting to look a little brighter, but it was still early in the historic peace talks between the shifters and vampires. Nothing like this had ever been attempted before and it was imperative that Gregor succeeded, because that would pave the way for future peace in different parts of the world.

“It won’t be long now.” Dom told Gregor after they left the most promising meeting yet.

He put his hand on her stomach and felt his child’s powerful kicks move his hand. “I know.”

“How much longer do you think this cease fire will last?”

“
Not long if they stop working on it. Often, it seems like they don’t really want this peace. The shifters are working together, but the vampires are still the odd man out most of the time.”

“
They probably aren’t very happy about that.” Dom commented, easing into the passenger seat of the small sedan that Gregor had purchased.

“
No, they aren’t exactly happy about it, but nobody’s attacked anyone, yet.”

He drove to her house, it had been cleaned up and new plants had been planted, but it was different. Her car was in the driveway, but nothing about the small house was the same. Gregor unlocked the door to let his lover into the house. He followed her and put his bag down in the usual place, right next to the easy chair he had moved down from Minnesota. He looked at the pictures on the walls, seeing the happy photos of the couple that had joined her somber family photos. He looked at the framed ultrasound picture, and smiled. He was ready to become a father.

Dom walked through the living room without pausing. She had things that she had to get done. Reaching under her sink she pulled out that old watering can. When it moved she heard something rattle inside of it. She frowned, peering into the canister, but not seeing anything.

She went to move it to the sink, but it rattled again. She walked up to the counter and upended the can. It took some shaking, but eventually the item fell out of the basin. What she saw shocked her. She stood there, silently debating the item and the consequences that came along with it.

Gregor walked into the kitchen and looked at the situation. There was a smile plastered over his face as he wrapped his arms around her waist. “What do you think?”

“
I don’t know what to think.” The answer was honest. The ring was still on the counter; she hadn’t touched it yet.

“
It was my grandmother’s. We’ll have it re-sized if you need it to be.” Gregor seemed certain that she would say yes.

“
Why?”

“
Because I love you, my dear.” The words were true and pure and spoke of a lot more than they would suggest. “I thought that this would be the next great adventure.”

“
When?” Dom asked, with hands shaking.

“
Whenever you’re ready.” He reached for the ring and picked it up before kneeling down on one knee, in the kitchen of the house that had belonged to her grandmother. He held up the ring that had been his grandmother’s and he asked her the question that he had been dying to ask. “Will you marry me?”

Dominique could only think of one answer, but she needed a few questions answered first. “Are you doing this because of the baby?”

“Partially yes, but the baby isn’t my only reason. I love you.”

“
I love you too.” There were tears in her eyes. “Yes, I’ll marry you.” Gregor’s smile widened as he slipped the ring on her finger. It fit perfectly.