Kelley Armstrong - The Rising

“Better?” he said.

Daniel looked at him. Stared, actually. He looked at me. Looked back at the guy. Then he swore under his breath.

I stared at Ashton Gray, too, and again I had this vague sense of I know you . Something about his face. Something familiar.

“Maya?” Daniel said.

Ashton flinched when Daniel said my name.

“Hmm?” I said.

“Rafe has a birthmark like yours, right? Where is it?”

“On his . . .” I trailed off. Daniel thought this guy was a skin-walker? Why? Because he was looking for us and happened to be Native? No, Daniel didn’t jump to conclusions like that.

“On the back of his shoulder,” I said. “A paw print like the one on my hip.”

“Turn around,” Daniel said to Ashton.

The kid’s lip curled in a sneer and he seemed ready to snarl at us all, but when Daniel snapped, “Turn around” again, he obeyed. He was only a couple of inches taller than my five-five, which made him shorter than both of the other guys. Smaller, too—slight and wiry.

He yanked up his shirt to his shoulders.

The paw-print birthmark was there.

“What’s the birth date on his passport, Maya?”

“Birth date? Um . . .” I double-checked. “August fifth.”

“Fake, then. It’s more like October, isn’t it?” Daniel said, walking around to meet Ashton’s gaze. “Early October. I don’t know the exact date, because Maya’s isn’t exactly right, either, but the doctors had a pretty good idea how old she was when she was found, and they wouldn’t have been two months off.”

I tried to follow what he was saying. How would that have anything to do with . . . ?

I stared at Ashton Gray. No. It couldn’t be.

“Is your real birthday in early October?” Daniel asked.

“Yeah.”

“And you just turned sixteen?”

“Yeah.”

“And you know why I’m asking?”

A pause. But only a brief one. His gaze started my way, then stopped, and he stared at the forest instead.

“Yeah.”

“Holy hell,” Corey murmured. “You’re Maya’s brother.”

IS THERE A PROPER reaction for meeting your twin for the first time? A twin you never even realized you had until a week ago?

I’d seen long-lost-relative reunions in movies. I’d even read a couple of real-life stories where siblings were reunited. Judging by those examples, I should race over and throw my arms around his neck. Only I didn’t.

I stood there, staring at this stranger, thinking, My brother, my twin brother over and over. I couldn’t process it. We’d shared a womb for nine months. We’d been babies together, probably in the same cradle, his face the first thing I saw every morning and the last I saw at night. And yet he was a stranger. A complete and total stranger.

His reaction didn’t help. He wouldn’t even look at me. Just stood there, hands in his pockets, gaze defiant, as if . . .

As if he couldn’t bear to look at me.

“It’s true?” I said.

“Yeah.” His voice was gruff, emotionless.

“Hi,” I said, which was a dumb thing to say, but all I could manage. “I’m Maya.”

“No shit.”

Daniel rocked forward, like he wanted to cut in. He didn’t, though. Not until Ashton yanked his hands from his pockets, the sudden move startling me. Daniel caught me and yanked me behind his back, then faced off with Ashton.

“I wasn’t going to hurt your girlfriend.” A sneer. “Damn benandanti.”

“She’s my friend .”

“Good for you.”

“Just my luck,” I said. “Finally meet my twin brother and, turns out, he’s an ass.”

Corey laughed. Ashton looked at me for the first time, staring, as if he’d misheard.

“Oh yeah,” Corey said with a chuckle. “She said that. You may have inherited the jerk genes, but Maya got the brutal honesty ones.”

“Enough,” Daniel said, stepping forward. “Is anyone else here? Or were you the one who sent the email?”

“It was me.”

We all struggled not to look disappointed.

“So how did you get the email address?” I asked.

He turned and looked at me. Just looked.

“Great,” I muttered. “Do I need to relay my questions through an interpreter?”

“That depends. Are you going to call me an ass again?”

“That depends. Are you going to act like one?”

I expected Daniel to intercede. He just stood there, arms crossed, face impassive, as Corey struggled not to laugh.

“Look,” I said. “We’re in trouble. Serious trouble. We reached out to the only contact name we had. You show up instead, spy on us, try to run, and now act like we’re keeping you from a hot date. Somehow you got that message, knew it was your twin sister, and replied. That would make perfect sense if you wanted to help your sister. But that’s obviously not the case.”

“Oh, that’s obvious, is it?”

“If I’m wrong, then let’s start over. I’m Maya. That’s Daniel and that’s Corey. Is Ashton your real name?”

“Ash. Nobody calls me Ashton.”

Guy couldn’t even answer a benign question without attitude. This was going to be fun.

“How about we sit down somewhere and talk. Maybe grab something to eat,” Daniel said.

“Umm, correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t you guys supposed to be dead? Currently being chased by two Cabals? You’re waltzing around Vancouver, eating in restaurants?”

“Hell, no,” Corey said. “I never waltz. I do the fox-trot sometimes, though.”

“There’s a café just a little walk away,” I said as calmly as I could. “We’ll get something there and find a private place to sit. It’s been hours since we’ve had any food, and I don’t know about you, but these guys eat like they’re in permanent training.”

“So what’s your excuse?” Corey said to me as we started out.

“It’s the cougar shifts,” Daniel said. “They take a lot out of her.”

“Absolutely,” I said, grinning at him.

Ash snorted. “It’ll be awhile before you need to worry about that.”

“Um, no,” Corey said. “She’s already shifting.”

Ash’s look darkened—telling me he wasn’t shifting yet—and I quickly said, “It’s only been a few times.”

He glowered at me, as if I was bragging, then he fell back beside Corey and walked in silence behind me.

Great. Just great.

I inadvertently screwed up again at the café. Daniel, Corey, and I had pooled our money so we were taking turns grabbing stuff. Since it was my turn to buy, I naturally asked Ash what he wanted.

“I pay my own way,” he said, with a scowl that I was beginning to think was as much a part of his normal expression as Daniel’s smile or Corey’s grin.

“Do you want me to grab it for you?” I asked.

“No.”

As he stalked off, we watched him go, making sure he didn’t bolt.

“Don’t let him get to you,” Daniel murmured. “Whatever his problem is, it’s not you. He just met you.”

“I know.”

He leaned closer, squeezing my hand, and whispered, “I’m sorry. I know this isn’t how you’d pictured it.”

I could say that I hadn’t pictured it—there’d been too much going on for me to even think about my newly discovered brother. Yet that was a lie. I had thought about meeting him. I’d thought about what it might be like to have a twin. Everyone said they shared a bond beyond mere blood.

I looked at Ash, standing in line, glowering.

Nope. No bond there.

I joined the line behind Ash. He must have known I was there but didn’t turn, not even when I cleared my throat and said, “Ash?”

I tried again. “Can I, uh, ask you something?”