Page 11 of Midlife Animal Rescuer Dragon

It was almost midnight. She and nine other witches stood in a large clearing, dressed in silver robes. The rest of thewoods were dead silent but for the occasional rustle of leaves as animals scampered around. Overhead, the moon gleamed brightly, almost a full sphere of light in the night sky.

“I want us all to be present,” Isobel went on. The coven leader’s silvery hair matched her robes, both seeming to gleam in the moonlight. Tall and regal, she stood out easily among the rest of the coven members, looking barely in her fifties despite being decades older. “This is very crucial to the Circle of Moonshade.”

“What is?” It took Nora a second to realize she’d spoken.

Several heads turned in her direction, most of them disapproving, and she immediately wanted to sink into the ground. As a hybrid, among these witches, she’d already drawn enough attention and disgust toward herself. The last thing she needed was more of it.

Isobel’s lip curled slightly. “If you’d shown up to this meeting on time, you wouldn’t need me to repeat myself, Alianora. But I will. The reason I called for a meeting tonight, on the First of July, is because the Fourth approaches. In three days, something important is happening.”

“Independence Day?”

Nora knew the second the words were out of her mouth that she’d said a stupid thing. A few snickers rippled around the circle of witches, and Isobel’s eyes narrowed.

“A full moon.”

“Oh.”

The coven leader kept her gaze on her for the next few seconds, and Nora felt a chill travel down her spine. For as long as she could recall, Isobel had never liked her, on account of her being a hybrid. But these days...these days, the witch’s eyes had a burning hatred in them. Nora couldn’t help wondering whether it had something to do with the fact that she’d broken up with Isobel’s son a month ago.

In all honesty, she wasn’t sure why she’d dated Jeff for so long. He’d been nothing but a jerk to her in the three years they’d been together. Not to mention he was a loser who lived in Isobel’s shadow. Why had she even dated him at all? To get on Isobel’s good side? The coven leader hadn’t even approved of their relationship.

And now that she’d ended things...well, she’d just made matters worse for herself.

“Our full attendance on the Fourth is crucial,” Isobel went on. “The full moon is an opportunity to augment our individual and collective magic. A ritual will take place, and weallmust be present.”

She fixed Nora with a strange stare on the last note. Nora pressed her lips together, saying nothing.

“Are there any risks we should know about?” another coven member asked, echoing her thoughts. “What if the spell goes wrong?”

Isobel frowned for a moment, her gray eyes narrowing again. “That is possible. It’s a dangerous spell. And the risk is the highest possible: death.” As gasps spread across the clearing, she added, “However, I doubt it will even occur, as long as everyone does their part. Now, does anyone else have questions?”

By the time the meeting ended, a little over ten minutes later, Nora was relieved. The coven dispersed, everyone moving back through the woods to get to their homes. Nora trudged alone, following the dark path she’d taken here. Before she could make it out of the woods, however, a dark shape fluttered in the corner of her vision. The next thing she knew, a force had knocked her backward, slamming her into the nearest tree.

“What the—?” She glanced around, peering through the darkness for a sign of her attacker, and laid eyes on a silver-haired woman in silver robes. “Isobel.”

The coven leader was suddenly right in front of her, her gray eyes completely devoid of any warmth. Nora felt her insides slowly turn to ice.

“When will you stop being a problem for me?” the older witch said. “Just when, Alianora?”

“Isobel, I—”

“From the moment your mother made the decision to mate with that wolf shifter and birth you, an imbalance has struck this coven. Even worse, you’ve taken her place. We—I—have been graceful enough to allow you to continue to gather with us, to be one of us, despite my better judgment. I’ve allowed a...a...someone like you to exist among us. And how do you repay my kindness?”

Nora simply stared into those gray eyes, certain that whatever she said would only make things worse for herself.

“You hurt my son, Alianora,” she said. “I knew you were bad for him, right from the start. I knew that nothing good could possibly come out of the pair of you dating. And now you’ve hurt him. You broke him.”

OfcourseJeff had found a way to spin the details of the breakup and make her out to be some kind of villain, as if he wasn’t the reason she’d had to end things between them. “I just broke up with him because I caught him cheating on—”

“Silence!” The trees around them seemed to bend closer, silhouetted by the moonlight. The air turned colder, the woods darker, and she immediately rubbed her arms. “My son is important to me. And you hurt him. There will be consequences. Keep this in mind, Alianora.”

And without another word, without so much as a goodnight, she turned and left, disappearing into the shadows.

***

“Look, Mom—it’s a Giganotosaurus!”

The memory dissolved into nothingness almost as suddenly as it had filled her mind. Nora blinked. She and Henry were still standing outside the tent. She turned her head toward the sound of the voice. A little boy and his mother stood a few feet away, the kid bouncing excitedly on the spot while the woman watched on, looking like she’d rather be anywhere else but at the fair today.