After the awkward meal, Raine served dessert and coffee. She was moving slowly, but thankfully the other subs helped. After a blessedly brief chat, most everyone agreed to follow Beck to his place for beer and football. The rest of the members headed home, leaving him alone with Liam and Raine.
The second the door shut behind the last of the dinner guests, Liam turned on her, grinding his jaw and gritting his teeth. “Are you in pain?”
“It’s not that bad,” Raine tried to assure him. “I’ll—”
“Are you in pain, yes or no?” All hint of nice had disappeared.
She dropped her gaze. “Yes.”
“Then take the damn pill.”
“I will.” She sent him an imploring stare. “Liam, don’t be angry. It’s just a headache. I’ll be fine.”
“Just a headache?” Hammer scoffed. “Yeah, and I’m Godzilla.”
He stared at her in disbelief. He hadn’t seen her this shut down in years. Before this week, she’d been making strides with Liam. Little ones, but…progress. What the hell was going on inside her head now?
“Yes, that’s all.” Then she turned a pleading stare on Liam. “As soon as I do the dishes, I promise to be a good girl, pop a pill, and go to bed.”
“No,” Liam snarled. “You’ll take the fucking pill now, sub. I’m waiting.”
Hammer had never heard Liam speak to her so harshly. But she needed it.
Raine looked like she wanted to argue, but a jolt of pain hit her again. She winced, then silently opened the bottle and swallowed down a pill.
“Good.” Liam nodded. “Now I’ll clean up the mess. You go to bed. We’ll talk about this later. And Raine, there will be consequences.”
What little color had been in her face drained away.
As raw as it chaffed Hammer to see her under another’s care, the time had come to share a bit of insight with his ex-friend. Someone needed to clue Liam in, and if she was too bottled up or independent to do it, he would. After all, Raine’s welfare wasn’t a point of contention. Which one of them got to fuck her was. But the girl’s health was by far more important than this pissing match.
“It’s not ‘just a headache,’” he told Liam. “She’s suffering from a migraine. I’ve taken her to several specialists over the years. Each said these episodes are hormone related. Every month, she gets a migraine early in her cycle. When they start, you’ll need to make her stop what she’s doing and give her a pill, then put her to bed. The medication she should have taken when I brought the bottle will knock her out. She needs that and about ten hours of sleep in a dark, quiet room to recover.”
Raine sighed wearily. “Macen, you didn’t even give me a chance to explain.” She turned to Liam, her gaze pleading. “Can we talk about this privately?”
That expression tore at Hammer because he remembered when she used to look at him for forgiveness and approval.
“No. I’ll talk in front of him, Raine. He knows more about you than I suspect you’ll ever allow me, so there’s not much point in doing this in private, is there?”
“Just…hear me out. I was feeling all right until right before I served the food, so I thought I could make it through dinner and finish playing hostess before the pain hit. But it got bad really quickly. I didn’t want to announce my problem to everyone or hold up the meal.” She sent Hammer a quick glare. “So don’t make it sound like I intentionally withheld information from Liam.” She reached for the other man. “I’m sorry if it seemed like I was keeping you in the dark. I wasn’t, I swear.”
Liam raised a skeptical brow. “That’s a lovely speech, but I’m not convinced you would have explained if Hammer hadn’t forced your hand. I doubt you’ll ever let me know the real you.”
His voice iced over with a cold rage Hammer had never heard.
Raine gaped at him, the fear and heartbreak naked on her face. “That’s not true.”
Liam sighed. “I wake up each day wondering when I’ll step into the next pile of shit because you’ve either forgotten, decided I didn’t need to know, or simply hadn’t bothered to forewarn me. How do you expect me to care for you, love—and I do love you—if you won’t share?”
Hammer’s knees nearly went out from under him. For the last month, he’d been imagining that Liam would knock on his door someday, Raine in tow, and wash his hands of the girl because of her stubborn, wary ways. But hearing Liam talk so openly about the love he felt for her, and knowing that Raine thought she needed him…Hammer feared that day wouldn’t be coming anytime soon.
“You say you care about me and want my dominance,” Liam went on. “Yet you don’t trust me enough to communicate something as basic as your health. That’s sub 101, and you know it. I’m deeply disappointed, Raine.” Liam turned away as her eyes spilled over with tears. “Hammer, thank you for informing me about my sub’s problems. I’ll take it from here and ask you to mind your own fucking business from now on.”
Hammer bristled. Liam wanted him to mind his own business? Never going to happen where Raine was concerned, especially now that he knew she had walled herself off nearly to the point of suffocation. He had to get more involved, not less.
Suddenly, Raine blinked rapidly, swallowing hard, swaying on her feet. Hammer inhaled a sharp breath. Fuck, he knew the signs…
Surveying the disheveled dinner table, he lunged to retrieve an empty bowl that had previously held green beans. As he raced back to her, Raine slapped one hand on her stomach, then doubled over with a cry and fell to her knees.
“Liam,” Hammer shouted, trying to shove the bowl under her face. “She’s going to be sick.”
Raine pushed the bowl away, squinting against the light streaming through the open windows. Pain wracked her face. “I’ll be fine.”
“Bullshit,” Hammer growled, then addressed Liam. “She waited too long. It’s about to get bad.”
Worry stamped Liam’s face as he lifted Raine into his arms and strode from the room with her. After Hammer snagged her pills off the table, he pushed past Liam and jogged backward to keep the bowl under Raine’s face, just in case.
“Take her to the bathroom,” he called out as Liam kicked open the door to their room.
Raine winced and turned her face from him. “Get that bowl away. I smell green beans.”
Hammer didn’t budge.
Once inside the bathroom, Liam eased Raine to her feet. She shoved the man out, then slammed the door, locking it between them.
Hammer gaped, itching to shake Liam and demand that he knock Raine’s door—and her fucking walls—completely down. Another part of him felt sorry for the poor bastard. Liam had done everything right as a Dom to reach her. Now, he just looked stunned. No, flattened. The man didn’t know how to help Raine. And fucking aliens would invade before the proud girl ever asked for what she needed.
As anger soared, Hammer pounded at the portal. “Open the goddamn door, Raine!”
Seth was right; this was just like a fucking soap opera. Nothing that had happened during these last few hellish days made a lick of sense. The only good thing had been Raine starting to bleed. But his relief hadn’t lasted long before her silent tears had cut him to the quick.