Say it out loud

Joshua's POV

I stood frozen, my eyes fixed on the empty space where Kaida had last been.

A week ago, I brought her here…to the tree house I built for us at thirteen. Those were simpler days, when six days in a week we were simply us, Kaidaira and Joshua, two goofy eyed kids who loved climbing trees and eating pineapples of all the things in the world.

Six days a week, she was just the girl I fell in love with the very moment I saw her, wearing that yellow dress and clutching that ridiculously deformed bunny she called Mrs Whistle, standing behind Ryder…six days a week, I was a just boy and she was my entire world because on the seventh day, I have to sit still and watch as she wince at every needle poke and turn pale from lack of blood.

Every seventh day, I had to sit still and watch her blood flow inside Ryder, helpless and with every poke, my inside liquefied.

I looked around.

Here was the most vibrant place we knew except today the forest around me was silent, as if nature itself was mourning the loss.

My chest heaved with ragged breaths. I tried but I literally couldn't catch my breath.

She was gone.

He sent her away.

When Ryder called me with that news yesterday, I tried to talk him out of it.

It didn't do much.

And I wanted to warn her but each time I opened my mouth, nothing came out and then he did it…and he made me watch.

And like usual I stood and I let it happen.

Our fate was sealed from the very beginning.

She was fated to be my best friend's mate and I was fated to be her platonic best friend and how do one tell his platonic best friend that what he feels for her was more than words could say.

How do I tell my best friend and future Alpha that I want what was his?!

And so, I kept quiet. And now I'm a twenty four year old werewolf without a mate or the girl he loves, sitting in a tree house I built at thirteen.

When I heard rustling sounds behind me, I knew it was Ryder even before he spoke.

I could smell him. He damn well could smell me.

I turned around and I looked at him.

I knew it instantly, I was going to beat the living shit out of him, the Scissor Jack behind me wasn't there by accident. It was there to even the fight.

"Let me guess, you want a pound of flesh" He asked as I jumped down from the tree house.

"And some pints of blood too" I agreed, I was enraged.

"Good." He murmured. "Someone has to be angry on her behalf, it can't be me, so it has to be you"

I watched him.

The little fucker! Everything has been handed over to him on a platter from the very day he took his first breath in this world…everything.

Even things he wasn't supposed to have, he took.

"You took out a bloody AD on the front page of a fucking paper, Ryder, give me one good reason to not fucking kill you for hurting my friend"

I felt my wolf try to crawl his way out. The tension in my head was a little too much to bear, if there was ever something like too much grief then this was it.

I was it.

"Friend?" Ryder chuckled.

I wanted to wipe that stupid smug off his face with a blow touch and some silver.

"Nineteen years and you still won't admit it"

"Admit what, Ry?" I asked him. I knew the answer even before he answered it.

"That you are in love with my wife!" He screamed and his voice echoed and with it was my well guarded secret. "You are my best friend…hell, my only friend and you are fucking in love with my wife, Joshua!"

I winced slightly and shut my eyes briefly. I wanted him to shut up but he didn't.

"You wanted Kai for yourself. How many nights did you stay up fantasizing about my woman, man…"

"I never acted on them!" I screamed back. "I kept it all bottled up! You needn't remind me of how wrong it is! I fucking know how wrong it is! But I never acted on them big feelings even when it killed me little by little!" I was yelling now and I was panting hard. "You had the best girl in the entire world and you let her go without batting an eyelid. I fucking loved her, man! She was supposed to be mine not yours. But you are Ryder Steele, you take and you take some more….all you do is take!"

Prrf!

It was like a load off my chest.

First time in nineteen years, I finally said it out loud.

"How does it feel to finally admit it, Joshua?"

For a man who just heard another man admit to having feelings for his wife, he was awfully cool with it.

I took a step closer to him. He was taller, possibly stronger but I was beyond reason.

"Did you take out an Ad. On paper spreading lies about her?" I was breathing hard like I was on a marathon that was taking forever to run.

It was anger like I have never felt before, feelings I couldn't put back inside me, emotions that shredded the last piece of restraint in me.

"No" he whispered. "My Dad did"

"Alpha Greg" I took a deep breath "His vindictiveness has no bound, does it? And you didn't know right?" I asked.

"I knew" he said casually "I could have stopped it…I chose not to. He wasn't supposed to lie, he was supposed to declare the marriage desolved but he went off script…"

I didn't even know I lifted the scissor Jack until I felt Ryder's blood on my face as I swung it at him.

I think I may have committed treason. I let the jack fall as I tried to wrap my head around everything.

"They bought a girl to save your life! Your parents, they bought a human being, Ryder…she's someone's daughter and…she's the love of my life! And they turned her into a blood bag…for you!" I covered my mouth briefly before I spoke again. I realized I might be more angry at myself than at him.

"What kind of a man lets the woman he loves be treated like shit for nineteen years and stand by and…and let her be treated like shit?!" I looked at him, laid up on the ground, bleeding from the mouth "I thought you loved her, Ry. This lifelong torture of mine was slightly bearable because I thought you loved her back"

"I don't"

Those words were said so forcefully that I turned towards the jack scissor on the floor.

Ryder followed my gaze, he knew exactly what I was thinking.

"The first punch was free but the next one is going to cost you a couple of teeth and possibly a broken arm. You should reconsider, Joshua" He warned me.

I reconsidered like he suggested. Fighting Ryder was suddenly not my priority. Getting Kai back was.

I started to walk away but he spoke.

"I forbid it " He told me.

I stopped in my tracks.

"You forbid it?"

Maybe I didn't hear him right.

"Yes, I forbid you from going after her"

For a while, we stood there in a starring contest. If eyes could kill, Ryder Steele would be dead.