Fangs and Fur- Beta Read Along
All rights reserved. Copyright © 2025 by LA Magill. All distribution rights reserved for the exclusive use of Wicked Women LLC.
It all happened so fast that it was done before Dili let out a shrill scream. A blur of movement, a fluttering cloak and puffed-out fur. A gasp of relief and a hissed warning. A vice-like grip that closed around her.
The soft, desperate swallowing.
Dili realized she was staring at Toad rather than at Hadrian. Her familiar crouched a foot away in front of her, back arched, tail lashing, fangs bared, and both front paws wrapped around the vampire’s slim, pale ankle, claws pricking into his pale skin.
But the cat didn’t pierce the flesh or tear the vampire away from her. Toad just watched, his observant green eyes fixed.
Hadrian had leapt to Dili’s side and knelt. One hand locked around her wrist, holding the blood bag steady. The other arm clamped around her waist, a cold chain she knew she couldn’t break.
She tried anyway. She jerked against the vampire’s grip with every fiber of her being, predictably to no avail.
“Let. Go,” she demanded.
Hadrian ignored her. Or hadn’t heard her over his rapturous gorging.
Dili looked at Toad. “Can’t you do something?”
Toad blinked, bringing his attention from the vampire’s feeding up to the witch’s face. He tried kneading his claws into the back of Hadrian’s leg.
The vampire had no reaction, still pulling from the bag without breathing.
Toad retracted his claws and sat back. He looked up at Dili, his ears turned back, and let out a little mewl.
Dili assumed there was more Toad could do as the vampire’s disciple, but was certain her familiar knew no more about his fledgling blood magic than she did.
“Thank you for trying. Any other ideas?” she asked.
Toad stared at her without blinking, keeping his ears turned back. His tail swished, and his nose twitched.
Dili pursed her lips, then nodded. She glared down at Hadrian’s silver-blond hair, then thwacked him over the head with her free hand, hard enough to make her palm sting.
Hadrian grunted. Maybe. It was hard to tell.
The witch shook her hand to dissipate the sensation, scowling down. The gentle bobbing and voracious gulping made her tingle all over.
The tingling could have grown into static, if she had let it. Instead, she channeled her runaway frustration into her fingers once more, reached down, and grabbed a fistful of those fine, long locks. Dili yanked with every ounce of strength she had.
Hadrian didn’t budge, but a menacing growl rumbled in the back of his throat.
Dili froze. A shiver rushed down her spine. The silky hair slipped from her fingers, and her hand dropped to her side.
The vampire stopped growling, but his arm coiled tighter around her waist. Dili went limp in his grip, afraid, in spite of herself.
At her submission, the vampire resumed feasting. The chilling pressure caging her body made her skin crawl. It had been so, so long since she’d felt physically powerless against another being. She didn’t like it one bit, just like last time.
Dili had several powdered herbs in her pocket that she could sprinkle over his face that would make him leap away as quickly as he’d pounced on her. Only a drop of her aconitum-blend oil would make him sick for a week. She could have even charged up one of Zef’s bolts again, but she was no divine, and could not control it out in the open wilderness. She wouldn’t risk a forest fire over the vampire’s violation of her personal space.
Which was exactly what it was. A violation of her personal space. He wasn’t attacking her. He hadn’t bitten her. Hadn’t even retaliated when she’d hit him and pulled his hair.
Dili sighed, weighed down by her principles, but Toad saved her from unhelpful sulking with another meow. She looked up at her familiar, giving him a weak smile, but to her surprise, he was glaring back at her.
Toad’s ears had flattened out to the side. His pupils had contracted, and he’d narrowed his eyes. His tail wrapped around his prim front paws and tapped on the ground. Dili could practically feel the judgmental waves rolling off him.
“Spare me some grace. It’s not like I could hurt him.” She gestured to the vampire still latched to her side, feeding in ignorant bliss of the two of them. “I only—”
Toad turned his nose up and away from her. She couldn’t see it, but she clearly imagined him closing his eyes, too.
Dili went quiet. Without speaking with one another, all she understood was her familiar was uninterested in what she’d just been saying.
“I… I… hm.” Dili paused. “You’re not upset because I hit him?”
Toad looked at her over his shoulder and gave an exaggerated eye roll.
“Alright… well, then…”
Toad pinned Dili with an accusing stare, then dropped his gaze to the blood bag, then back up to her.
“Oh.”
Toad’s meow cut through the air.
“As always, you’re right,” she said.
Toad let out a little trill, and Dili was confident he had confirmed his superiority.
The vampire had urgently needed help that she’d been prepared to provide… but she only pulled the blood bag out after she knew Toad needed Hadrian at full strength to learn blood magic.
She should not have let her personal anger impede the good she could do.
Dili closed her eyes for a moment, holding her breath in. It wasn’t the first time she’d let herself down like that, and it wouldn’t be the last—and the guilt was always the same.
“I had it the whole time. I noticed he was starving last night, and I did nothing about it until now.”
Toad turned somber eyes on her and bared the tips of his fangs.
“I know,” Dili said. “Trust I remember the oath I swore better than you do.”
Toad pinned his ears back.
Dili shook her head. “I’m sorry.”
She wanted to say more, but couldn’t. Not sincerely. There was no sense in making promises she knew she couldn’t keep.
Toad trilled again, curious that time instead of condemning.
“I…” Dili sighed. “He’s a vampire. I was always going to presume the worst, and I couldn’t fathom how he’d turned you.”
Toad’s tail swished twice, then he narrowed his eyes. Dili couldn’t tolerate holding that suspicious gaze for longer than a breath.
“I know I should have helped him from the start,” Dili said.
A muffled noise came from under the blood bag.
Toad’s head flicked toward the vampire faster than Dili could glance down.
“Pardon?” Dili asked tentatively.
The vampire gave no response, feeding steadily. She cleared her throat and called his name quietly, but again, no reaction.
Dili turned back to Toad, who had come closer to his master. The black cat stood on all four paws, his tail held low to the ground. His ears flicked forward toward the vampire, and his pupils grew so large they blocked out most of the green.
Dili knew that look.
“Toad, are you hungry, too?” she asked.
Next chapter on Friday, September 26.