Chapter Two
Cedar Van Holt trudged up the icy incline of one of Alaska’s most dangerous recreational mountains. One of them. It was Alaska. There were many. And she was scheduled to scale five before her impromptu vacation was over and she headed back to Chicago to deal with her family and her business.
Turnagain Pass was beautiful even if the weather was not. And Cedar preferred the graying skies overhead, and the brisk whipping wind. It meant less people on Magnum Mountain… even though it wasn’t the most crowded one around anyway. Too risky. Too likely to have an avalanche.
And just perfect for what she needed.
She paused at the first crest to catch her breath—which wasn’t even strained. She wondered for the millionth time what was wrong with her. She leaned on her ski pole, but it was more habit, or because she should need to. But she didn’t. Just like she didn’t need the layers and layers of outerwear or the heat packs she carried with her gear or even food most days.
Her employees were right. She was a freak.
She’d heard them whispering at her twenty fifth birthday party. And then again before the last board meeting. The one that urged her here. To the mountains. As if she had something to prove to them or herself.
If her parents knew she was in the Alaskan wilderness alone, they’d flip their collective lid.
Cedar grinned imagining her father, David Van Holt III, calling in every favor he held in his pocket for a search party. He’d bark at them from the other end of the phone, sitting behind his perfectly polished desk in his high rise in Chicago. And her mother, nervously fretting. She’d have the checkbook out and every charity based in Alaska would be receiving a donation.
Cedar smirked. Maybe she should tell them. For the greater good of the Alaskan people—who were some of the friendliest she’d met in her life. They could probably use some extra medical supplies for that little mountain clinic she spotted on her way to Turnagain Pass.
Gazing up the path, she spotted her destination, a large crest of snow close to the peak. Rumor down the trail was that there was a crack starting and that the entire shelf might fall. They were advising people to stay lower down, but she wanted to see it for herself before she set up camp for the night.
Danger.
Her chest zinged with adrenaline and she absorbed it like a drug. It lit her up inside, gave her satisfaction like nothing she had experienced. And she’d put herself in many a perilous situation over the past six years. Rock climbing, BASE jumping, shark diving, paragliding, storm chasing. If there was a dangerous stunt to be done, she’d done it.
Now, she was taking on Alaska.
Cedar trekked forward, anxious to get to the top. The crest was still far out of reach, and there was only a few hours of daylight left, but she wasn’t worried. She’d make it. And she’d make it back down the mountain tomorrow morning.
Cedar always survived.
No matter what life threw at her, she always survived. And since she’d been throwing her own stuff in the mix, nothing had changed. She still made it out of every perilous situation she put herself in.
As she traversed the snow covered mountainside, she considered the events of the past few months and the tangle of emotions that came with it.
It started with her birthday. Her parents had chosen her twenty-fifth as the perfect time to tell her the biggest revelation of her life.
She was adopted.
They must have expected her to be upset. Maybe even furious at them for keeping it from her for so long. Because they’d given her the most beautiful pendant of a raven with teal eyes on one side and a dark-haired angel on the other. The jewelry had taken her breath away. Had put her in a temporary daze of awe. At one point, it even felt like the raven was staring at her as she gazed into the navy case the pendant was nestled in.
But instead of being angry, Cedar had been relieved. It explained why she had always felt out of place in their world no matter how hard they tried to convince her she belonged. Her parents loved her, and had given her a life better than most were lucky enough to have. And she loved them. But the itch to know why she was so different rode her hard.
And sent her on crazy expeditions like this to test her limits.
But that was the fun part.
The not so fun part was getting emails like the one she received this morning from a woman in Somewhere-that-starts-with-an-S, Idaho claiming to be her long lost half-sister. Which might be nice if she could trust it. The whole world knew her net worth, so she received similar messages on the regular. So far, none of them had checked out.
And the downright scary part was the eerie dreams she’d been having of a dark beast coming for her. He called her the promised, and seemed bigger than the sun but exactly the opposite. So steeped in evil, he was a shadow. A shadow with a core of sick and twisted. A shadow that had plans for her. Plans she’d never agree to, but had a feeling he’d enjoy forcing.
Cedar shivered, and it wasn’t because of the blast of wind that rattled the mountain.
The dreams scared her more than any daring stunt. But they didn’t give her the rush of adrenaline she craved. The adrenaline she seemed to need just to feel human.
No, that wasn’t it.
The adrenaline made her feel less alone.
She was surrounded by people, day in and day out. She attended parties her parents threw, charity balls, events galore. But she was so… alone. The challenge, the dare, it was like a living thing within her.
It was her best friend. It was her lover.
How sad was that.
Cedar lifted her face to the swirling sky and breathed in the thinning air. It was going to snow. She could almost taste it. And from the looks of things, it was going to be big.
A thrill raced up her spine. Let it be a blizzard.
Time to get moving if she wanted to see the crest and get back to a level where she could build a snow cave for the night before the sun went down.
She made it to the top as the first flurries began to fall, slow and ominous, as if they were warning of the storm to come. Cedar’s smile stretched across her face.
This was going to be a perfect night. Just her, and her adrenaline lover. What more could she ask for.