Version 1:

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Valeriah returns home for the first time in eight years to visit her dying grandfather. For her, that means returning through the portal from this world to Chimeria, where magic takes the place of technology and her grandfather is a powerful wizard. She has stayed away so long because her grandfather would not help her find out who murdered her parents twenty years ago. Valeriah’s one purpose has been to avenge their deaths.

Valeriah is angry and bitter when she is disinherited merely because her mother was a werewolf. All anyone ever thinks about is that she’s half werewolf. No one ever remembers that her grandfather was a wizard or her grandmother on that side was a unicorn. She has trouble enough, balancing the contradictory natures of the werewolf and the unicorn as they ebb and flow with the course of the moon. Carnivore at the full moon, vegetarian at the new moon—and that’s the easy part.

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Version 2:

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As a bodyguard for the privileged of Chimeria, Valeriah is familiar with the worlds on both sides of the portals—ours, where technology prevails, and Chimeria, where magic is used to accomplish the same things. Valeriah doesn’t look much like a bodyguard. But looks can be deceiving, especially in Chimeria. Her mother was a werewolf, which gives Valeriah unexpected strength and speed, as well as other abilities. And, on her father’s side, her grandmother was a unicorn, which gives her formidable healing powers. Of course, balancing the two sides of her nature—raging carnivore at the full moon, vegetarian at the new moon—isn’t always easy. For her, her duties as a bodyguard and as a member of the Portal Watch are only a means to an end. Her family was murdered twenty years ago and Valeriah is seeking any clues that will lead her to the killers.

Valeriah’s grandfather is a wizard. She returns home when she gets word that he is dying. And she finally gets the one piece of information that can help her solve the puzzle of her parents’ deaths. The only beings in Chimeria capable of using the methods that killed her parents are dragons. Her grandfather meant to warn her to drop her quest for vengeance because it’s too dangerous. Valeriah can’t just let it go. But she can’t fight dragons either. Not yet and not alone.

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I'm interested to know which first two paragraphs work best. And anybody willing to read either or both versions would be appreciated.

In my opinion, you're spending a little too much time setting out the world for us, and not enough introducing us to (and making us care about) the novel's central conflict. It's clear that you've invested a lot of time discovering the backstory of your characters and defining the worlds that they will inhabit. For a reader though, the main draw will be in the story being told, of which there isn't quite enough detail in either synopsis.

And, to critique the idea you've got going on here, I have two niggling questions that make me wonder how you're going to pull these things off.

1. How does a wizard breed with a unicorn?
2. If her parents were killed by a dragon, and the dragons in your story aren't huge deviations from what we typically consider to be dragons (See: Smaug), then how could Valeriah not know they were killed by dragons?

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1. How does a wizard breed with a unicorn?

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Interestingly enough, one of my characters asks this exact question.

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2. If her parents were killed by a dragon, and the dragons in your story aren't huge deviations from what we typically consider to be dragons (See: Smaug), then how could Valeriah not know they were killed by dragons?

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The answer to both questions is that all the magical creatures of Chimeria are able to take human form. Dragons are pretty much exactly what you're thinking of, except smarter. But when they're in human form, there's very little to let on what they really are most of the time.

And, since any of the creatures can take human form, they can potentially interbreed with each other and with humans. The hybrids, though, usually can't take any other form.

But, it happens that Valeriah is making an erroneous assumption. It wasn't the dragons who killed her parents after all.

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I like the second version best. In the first the break between the first two paragraphs is too abrupt. It could almost be about two different novels.

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