Midlife Animal Rescuer Dragon (Midlife Animal Rescuer Heroes #2)

Prologue

With a low hum and a shimmer of green light, the portal widened and Alianora Parker stumbled through, panting and clutching a stitch in her side.

She expected to land on firm, even ground and was surprised when her feet found a slippery edge.

Stairs? With a strangled cry, she lurched forward and landed cloddishly on her hands and knees.

A gentle patter filled her ears. Rain, she realized, picking herself up from the wet ground.

“Dammit,” she muttered.

Another flicker of green light forced her to turn around.

The portal was closing. She peered through the glowing ring, her gut twisting at the sight of the burning woods.

Flames climbed higher from the ground, licking at the tree branches.

And standing in the midst of the inferno, a hood pulled over his head, was a lone figure wielding a pair of curved, gleaming blades.

The figure leveled one of his blades at Nora, and her heart drummed a rapid beat in her ears. Then the portal vanished and he was gone.

So were the burning woods.

He’s gone, she told herself, staring at the spot where the portal had been just seconds ago. I’m safe.

For now.

The rain had begun plastering her hair to her forehead.

Her clothes clung wetly to her skin, sending a cold shiver through her body, and she hugged her arms to herself, darting her gaze about to make sense of her new surroundings.

It immediately dawned on her that she hadn’t slipped on a step.

A rock twice the size of her head lay at her feet, glistening from the rain.

She stood by the side of a long, winding road, bordered on both sides by tall blades of grass.

Overhead, the morning sun was barely visible in the blue-gray sky, but it was bright enough to make out the wet asphalt.

The road and greenery seemed to stretch to the horizon, nothing else in sight except...

Nora frowned. A small wooden sign stood twenty feet to her right, almost hidden in the grass. She stepped onto the asphalt and drew closer to the sign, squinting at the words painted across it.

SYLVA

2 MILES

Her insides unknotted a little. There must be a town nearby.

Nora had no idea just how far the portal had taken her, but judging by the downpour, it must be pretty damn far.

The last she remembered, she’d been somewhere in Texas, running through the woods with the hooded hunter hot on her tail.

She’d cast fire spells to defend herself from his attacks and had ended up setting the woods ablaze in the process.

Nora swallowed hard, trying to force down the guilt crawling its way up her throat. She’d only been defending herself. And if she hadn’t created that portal when she had, she’d probably be a woman-sized shish kebab by now. She was safe, and hopefully a long enough distance from her assailant.

Too bad it was only a matter of time before he found her again.

Despair settled heavily in her chest. It didn’t matter how far she ran or how hard she fought back. He’d always found her. She’d been on the run for over a month. When would this end?

When I’m dead.

She dismissed the thought, though not before a series of images flickered through her mind: the hunter swinging his blades at her with deadly force, missing her face by mere inches; the hunter bursting through the magical barrier she’d erected between them.

She knew very little about the hunter, except that he was relentless. He was a magical being, one with the ability to track other magical beings like herself, no matter where they happened to be. He was also a rather effective killing machine.

And he was after her because Isobel had summoned him.

Isobel...

The image of the older witch filled Nora’s head then: tall, imposing, her face twisted into a cruel scowl.

For as long as Nora had known her, Isobel had been the leader of the Circle of Moonshade.

She’d also despised Nora, although in the twenty-two years that she’d been a member of the coven, Nora hadn’t had her life threatened. At least, not this way.

She could still recall the look of pure resentment in the older witch’s eyes, moments before she summoned the hunter and sentenced Nora to her doom.

You filthy hybrid, she’d spat, her words sending a chill down Nora’s spine. You’re a disgrace to this coven. And you’ll pay for what you’ve done tonight.

She’d gone over the memories from that night at least a dozen times in the past month, trying to make sense of her predicament.

Except it didn’t quite make much sense. One second, she and the other coven members had been attempting a spell in the woods, and the next thing she knew, she’d shifted into wolf form and her vision had gone dark.

By the time she’d regained consciousness, back in human form, there’d been a witch lying dead near the center of the clearing.

Nora didn’t think she could ever get the horrific image out of her head.

Had she killed her? Nora brushed some wet hair out of her face. She had no memory of it, but it couldn’t be much of a coincidence, could it? Especially with the way the other witches had looked at her, like she wasn’t even one of them.

Which wasn’t far from the truth, anyway. She was no ordinary witch. She was a hybrid. An anomaly, according to practically everyone she’d known in all forty-two years of her life.

A murderer, according to the other members of the Circle of Moonshade.

She’d been on the run ever since that night, unsure where to go, unsure when next the hunter might catch up to her. The hunter was fast, and he was unstoppable. She needed to keep moving.

Or did she? Nora stared past the sign down the stretch of the road and felt a pang in her chest.

I can’t keep running forever.

If she hoped to survive her predicament, she needed all the help she could get. She needed sanctuary.

The rain was starting to subside. She stared at the sign again. 2 MILES.

“Yeah, I’m not walking that distance,” she scoffed.

Thumbing a lift didn’t seem like an effective idea, either. The chances of anyone driving down this lonely, slippery road this morning seemed to be next to zero. Might as well use a shortcut.

Murmuring a spell, she waved her hands. With a burst of green light, a portal appeared, swirling before her. Through it, she could just make out some grass and a couple of buildings.

“Sanctuary,” she repeated to herself.

It wasn’t until she’d stepped through the ring that she realized she hadn’t opened it at ground level. The portal’s exit was dozens of feet in the air, and this time, her feet found nothing. A scream built up in her throat as she plummeted, the grass rushing up to meet her.