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.
The witch heard before she saw. A hair-raising shriek unlike any sound Toad had ever made before cut through the clearing. It didn’t sound like a sound, even though she heard it. It didn’t rattle in her ears; it clawed through her mind.
Dili flinched just as the black streak shot toward her. She would have stumbled back if not for the vampire. She clenched her eyes shut and clasped her free hand over one ear, but it did nothing to lessen the piercing scream. It could have cleaved straight through the thickest earplugs.
The witch cowered for a moment, overcome by instinct, until an icy touch on her cheek jolted her eyes wide open again.
Toad stood perfectly balanced on top of the vampire’s bobbing head, stretched forward with his front paws clinging onto her dress so he could press his nose against her face.
Dili stared into the mesmerizing green of Toad’s eyes. So close up, she noticed flecks of all different colors, surprising violets, reds, and oranges dotting swirls of brightest blues and golds, vibrating in harmony with every shade of green imaginable. Greens as dark as the rainforest at midnight and as pale as the first chloroplast, the divines lay in her palm. Greens so—
Toad made the softest whimpering mewl, a sound that filled her ears and the gouges in her subconscious and the hidden holes in her heart.
No magic could have stopped the witch’s knees from buckling out of overwhelming adorableness, but Hadrian’s arm kept her in place with no help from her own legs.
“Oh, Toad!” Dili crooned.
She pulled her cat as close as she could with her free arm. He tolerated the affection for a fraction of a second before struggling free and yowling plaintively, his big, beautiful, pleading eyes locked with hers.
“Of course,” Dili said.
She tried to reach for her right pocket, but the vampire was in the way.
“I—can’t—reach—it—ugh!” Dili grunted around strained efforts to shove her hand between his firm chest and her soft thigh.
In a split second, the vampire moved. Hadrian slid his knee further out, and Toad jumped down to perch on his leg. From there, the cat could easily reach the free side of the blood bag. He’d begun sniffing at the leather immediately, his pupils as wide as possible, his tail twitching.
Dili blinked at the speed of it all. The vampire must have been listening to all of it then, and probably still communicating with Toad, too. The witch didn’t linger on those consequences, though.
Toad had found her after he’d grown out of his kittenhood, so she’d missed his eyes opening, his first real bites, his first ray of sunlight. She didn’t want to miss a single moment of one of the few firsts they could still share, for she had never had a vampiric familiar.
The black cat’s whiskers trembled in anticipation. Every strand of fur stood on end. The tip of his pink tongue poked out and barely licked the leather. Dili’s breath caught in her throat as her familiar shuddered, his eyes rolled back, and then he sank his fangs so tenderly into the blood bag.
Unexpectedly, a wave of ecstasy rushed over Dili. It scrambled her thoughts, shivered down her spine, and thrummed through her body. Before she could process the disorienting delight, though—
“Toad!” she shrieked instinctively.
The black cat had unlatched from the blood bag and started convulsing. A rumble came from him, but it didn’t sound like a growl or a moan or anything else pushed from his lungs. It reminded her of splitting ground and bursting magma, but Toad was the only one trembling.
Dili stretched her free hand toward her familiar, uncaring of her own safety because she was terrified for him. Had she made a mistake in the brew? What if synthetic blood was poisonous to vampiric cats?
She never reached him. Hadrian’s grip released her wrist—the sudden weight of the blood bag dropping her arm like a stone through water—and he snatched her hand back before she made contact. He’d moved much, much faster than he had before.
It seemed the vampire had been just in time.
In the blink of an eye, Toad grew at least two inches taller at the shoulder. His elegant, lean frame filled out, too. But most importantly, two long fangs protruded down from his upper lip.
Dili just noticed the sunlight gleaming on those very sharp white teeth, then Toad leapt into the air. A black streak shot straight up into the canopy and literally out of sight. There was a crashing sound overhead, followed by a small shower of leaves, twigs, and bark.
The witch gaped. Booming noises sounded all around the clearing. Dili’s eyes couldn’t keep up with the dash of black as it raced between tree trunks, boulders, and even skipped across the surface of the water once. She knew only because the splash lingered far longer than the cat had. The only thing Toad didn’t bounce off of was Dili herself, but he was coming quite close, given the frequent whooshes of air gusting past her face.
Shortly after the commotion began, a sharp crack accompanied the booming sounds. Dili’s head whipped toward the largest boulder by the pond just in time to see fragments of rock sliding into the water. She squeaked in amazed fright at the impact. She hoped Toad’s paws were alright.
It seemed her startled response scared her familiar, too, because the black streak took off into the woods, and she imagined very far away very very quickly indeed.
“Toad! Co—”
Dili worried for her cat and for any creatures he might encounter while clearly manic, but Hadrian’s hand released her wrist once again and snapped up to her chin. Her jaw was stuck, the words she’d been saying lost their sound on her lips.
She wrenched her head away, but again, she could not shake Hadrian off. She’d just about had it with the vampire’s incessant meddling, and to make matters worse, her jaws and cheeks were already pinching from the force of his fingers. But… she could do nothing. When she really wanted to do something, doing nothing was the hardest possible task, but she had no choice with the vampire holding her hostage like that.
So, much to her annoyance, she stopped straining and started waiting, biding her time and breaking down her anger before she disappointed herself again.
As her body relaxed, thankfully so did the vampire’s grip. She moved her jaw back and forth, stretching the sore spots. It took several moments to bury her worries, but it grew easier when the booming sounds faded until she couldn’t hear them. Then, once she could think past her irritation, she noticed the vampire had drained three-quarters of the blood bag in about four minutes. Dili contemplated just how much liquid a vampire could consume in one sitting. A standard synthetic blood dosage was up to a liter. The blood bag was around five liters, but Hadrian didn’t look like he would stop until the bag ran dry.
In other circumstances, the medical difference between his and human physiology would have fascinated her, but the more she noticed about the vampire, the harder it was to ignore him. Stuck in that position together, his thigh and torso pressed against her legs. Dili felt the cold of his body seeping through the layers of clothes. His head bumped against her hip as he ravened the last of the bag. His cheek grazed the curve of her pelvis—a touch too gentle to be violent, but too invasive to be intimate.
It had been so long since—
Shame, and a healthy dose of self-loathing, forced that thought away before she could even think it, but a thought that hadn’t been thought could still be felt.
Dili was noticing the vampire, and the things she noticed didn’t come with the flare of power, the sense of magic, or the flash of seduction.
The notice came from her.
She gulped, but she couldn’t swallow her feelings the way she could halt her thoughts.
She was noticing for the first time in a very, very, very long time, and that feeling…
The sound of empty sucking broke through the haze of her realization. The vampire had drained the five-liter blood bag in as many minutes, defying everything she knew about any digestive system.
Dili’s eyes focused on the silver-blond head tilting back. Hadrian lifted long, blood-soaked fangs to the sky, his pretty pink lips parted in a dazed smile. Deep satisfaction glazed dark green eyes, blind to anything but his relief.
For the smallest second, the witch allowed herself to be mesmerized by the sight of him. She could not deny his beauty, nor could she stop herself from noticing.
The vampire, though, didn’t notice her at all. He let out a sated sigh before sitting back on his heels and falling back to lie in the grass, dragging Dili, still trapped in his arm, down on top of him.
Next chapter on Friday, October 3.