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.
Laughter filled her ears. Dili hastily blinked her eyes open to see Hadrian first, impossibly thin, swaying on his knees. A calmer river, sandy instead of muddy along the shore, curved sluggishly around a bend. The smell of hearth and bread and fish inundated her nose, and just steps away, children played in the shallow water, oblivious to the weary witch and wasted vampire. They called her name and splashed water at her, and they did not notice how she ignored them.
Hadrian’s eyes had rolled back into his head. One of his hands clutched hers tight, and the other flailed weakly in search of support.
“Easy now,” Dili said softly. “Lie down. That’s it.”
She cooed comforting sounds as she guided Hadrian down until he lay with his head in her lap. Even though he was so light, fatigue made her arms heavy. She noted it and ignored it.
Hadrian’s head barely weighed on her thigh, as if his skull were as fragile as an eggshell. His mouth opened and closed, bare whispers on his rattling breath.
Dili pulled the emergency blood store back out of her right pocket. Hadrian’s nose twitched as he caught the scent, but he was too weak to do more than writhe in the sand. She’d nursed many starved humans back to health and happiness before, but she didn’t know if the same methods applied to vampires. She had a gut feeling, though, that she shouldn’t let Hadrian guzzle the blood down at his usual rate.
It took little effort to keep Hadrian’s jaw mostly still. She dripped a few drops of blood into his mouth, expecting him to swallow greedily and demand more. Instead, a sickly purple tinge colored his cheeks. Hadrian’s eyes rolled forward, his pupils contracted with pain, and his body heaved. There should have been nothing left to throw up, but flecks of that foul green substance sprayed from his lips.
The unknown slime concerned her, but she’d have to make time to study it later. Hadrian’s state was far more urgent. The blood must have been too potent for his starved body. Dili stroked his hair or his back or any part of him that she could comfort until the wracking shudders subdued. Hadrian collapsed back against her, trembling with exhaustion.
“Don’t… leave… me…” he panted.
Dili ground her teeth together. His plea didn’t sound like delirious rambling but like an echo. Someone had abandoned him before and had left a wound so deep it hadn’t scarred.
Mute with anger and empowered with resolve, Dili hefted one of his frail arms over her shoulders. She wrapped her other arm around his emaciated waist and hauled Hadrian up alongside her. She didn’t think about how his weight should have been too much for her as she turned around and began trudging toward the fishing hut. His feet moved occasionally. Dili judged it was instinct more than intention, considering his fleeting awareness.
It took all her willpower to keep from dragging the toes of her boots with each step. At least there was still plenty of daylight left based on where the sun hung in the sky. She wouldn’t have been able to withstand the exhaustion creeping up on her if it had been dark.
The children, ruddy-faced and dirty-handed, scampered around her, urging her to come back and play. Even though she kept lumbering toward the humble shack, the children squealed with joy and dashed back into the water, splashing and whooping with renewed enthusiasm.
A stout woman with long braided hair and two baskets slung over her shoulders emerged from the doorway of the fishing hut as Dili approached. She squinted against the glare of the sun, peering out toward where the children roughhoused. A cheerful smile broke through her concentrated frown, and she called Dili’s name, waving. The witch remembered how she’d once waved back, and how the moment her back had been turned, the children had jumped her, tackling her into the water. There was a splash too big to be a child, followed by peals of uproarious laughter, and the woman chuckled, too, giving her head a small shake. With a happy sigh, the woman continued on down the river with her laundry, passing Dili and Hadrian as if they were invisible. Warm nostalgia flooded through her and collided with Dili’s present worry. Her weariness mixed with the sticky feelings into a weird mixture that bogged down her thoughts.
She carried Hadrian into the fishing hut. It was a single, crowded room, divided by function rather than walls. Sleeping pelts covered the bare ground, even under a table worn smooth by generations of use. The only clearing was around the hearth. A large pot hung on the spit over hot embers. Steam carrying the scent of baking bread drifted up from the lid. In the nearest corner, a stack of crude bowls and utensils piled on top of a stack of baskets with dried fruits, herbs, and vegetables. Fishing nets in need of repair draped over the rafters. Every inch of the small abode had a purpose, and there was no room left for anything else.
The familiar sights and smells ached in Dili’s heart and throbbed in her heavy chest, but she couldn’t rest yet. She helped Hadrian down onto one of the sleeping pelts. He moaned and rolled over onto his side, clutching his belly and pawing at his throat. She pushed a strand of silver hair away from his sweaty forehead.
“I’m going to make you something to eat,” she said.
Hadrian’s eyes flew open, and his hands clawed at her dress. “Don’t… leave… me…”
Sharp pain rasped in his ragged whispers. Dili kept her fingers gentle as she pried his hands off, quelling a resurgence of rage. She kissed his shaking knuckles.
“I’ll stay by your side until you are better. I swear,” she promised.
Hadrian’s unblinking eyes bored into hers, a mania in his gaze she couldn’t identify, but he didn’t reach out again. She squeezed his fingers before letting his hand go and turning to the corner furthest from the hearth. Heat would ruin her plans.
Dili pulled her own cast-iron pot from her right pocket, then began rummaging through her right pocket for ingredients. She’d need saltwater. The witch paused, then grimaced, wishing she could have just wrung her sleeves out into the pot, but there’d been too much fresh water and mud running through the fabric since the ocean.
A prickly sense of caution crawled over her skin. Tentatively, she stuck the tip of her finger into her left pocket. Nothing happened, to her mixed relief. The sights and sounds and smells of the fishing hut stayed firmly in place as she inched her fingers deeper and deeper into her left pocket until she could actually reach the bottom, where the oldest memories lay. They were the heaviest, after all.
Dili’s fingers found the familiar curved handle. The smooth clay instantly warmed under her touch. Her breath caught, but the pang of association she thought would assault her never came.
Closing her eyes, she lifted the jug up and out and pulled it close against her. The round surface pressed into her belly. Her water jug felt light, as it always did until she tilted it over. She stayed like that for a moment, lost in nostalgia. Then, Hadrian moaned—a soft, unconscious sound—and Dili blinked her eyes open.
The water jug was a patchwork of reds and browns, signs of the constant repairs and improvements she’d made over centuries. Two handles arched gracefully away from a tapered neck that filled out into a wide base. No matter how Dili had tried, though, she’d never been able to get it to stand up on its own.
She emptied the water jug into her cauldron. As always, it dumped exactly the amount she needed. She didn’t bother checking whether it was the right chemical composition; of course it was. After shaking the last drops out, she stored it back in her right pocket. A small smile stretched her lips as her water jug settled into its rightful place.
She pulled the emergency blood store back out and added a single drop to the saltwater before returning it. Then, she pulled out her favorite long spoon, and stirred gently. It would take minutes for the red blood cells to lyse, the cell membranes bursting open and spilling their hemoglobin. Then, she could easily extract the base proteins. Multiplying them was just as easy, but the process cost a lot more of her own energy. Natural magic couldn’t make or unmake matter, just shape it.
Dili had a concentrated solution of one part saltwater and one part purified hemoglobin within twenty minutes. She hoped saltwater had been the right substitute for plasma. Except for sodium and chlorine, it lacked the other elemental nutrients vampires needed from blood, which had been the idea. She’d theorized that stripping the hemoglobin from the red blood cells might strike the right balance of nutrition and simplicity for the vampire’s weakened stomach.
Since the solution would spoil in about two days, she reserved a small vial of it to use as a template for making fresh batches later on. Then, she ladled the rest of the liquid into a modern baby bottle she’d had in her right pocket.
Dili knelt by Hadrian. That manic glint in his eye blazed for a fraction of a second—recognition—then the neon green glowed with desperation. He moaned louder as he struggled to sit up. She helped prop him up against her torso, then held the bottle up to his lips.
“Only a little,” she said.
Hadrian latched onto the supple tip like a lamprey. He tried to wrench the bottle from her. For once, she easily overpowered him. She let him take two gulps, then forced him back. The vampire snarled, but to his credit, he didn’t fight back. His eerie green eyes fixed on hers, an empty brightness that invited her in to fill the space.
A weak tendril of blood magic caressed her. A brushing glance that teased all of her senses. She shivered. It was the first time in her ageless life that she’d accepted rather than repelled blood magic’s touch. It was… delightfully uncomfortable. As thrilling as it was intriguing as it was intimate.
It felt like she had experienced nothing truly new since He’d left.
Unconsciously, Dili tipped the bottle back between Hadrian’s lips. The vampire suckled, and it took several seconds of the greedy noise for her to shake off the spell. She narrowed her eyes at him and offered a wry smile as she pulled the bottle away, which he didn’t resist in the slightest, though he didn’t smile back, either.
A needy haze clouded over the glaring neon vibrance in his eyes, and Hadrian wilted against her. His head drooped. Suddenly, he felt heavier, too. Dili laid him back down on the sleeping pelt, and before her eyes, Hadrian’s body tried to start healing. She’d been a healer long enough to recognize even taking into consideration all she didn’t know about vampiric physiology that Hadrian needed far more to recover all he’d lost.
Dili pulled an energizing tincture out of her right pocket. It wasn’t as potent as the potions she’d drunk to persevere after the night out rescuing Jasmine, but it would be enough to keep her eyes open. After placing a dropperful under her tongue and putting it back, she sat on the floor next to Hadrian for the next three hours, diligently feeding him swallow after measured swallow. His eyes would flutter open to take the bottle, then he’d lie back down again, panting gently.
She nibbled on stale nuts, bits of dried fruit, and pickled cabbage still left in her right pocket, but there wasn’t much that was ready to eat. She liked to cook too much to store many preserved foods. Her stomach grumbled louder and louder as the time passed, especially when the bread had finished baking. She’d allowed herself to tear a hunk off the steaming loaf after the woman had laid it on the table to cool, overjoyed that she’d been able to eat the remembered bread, perhaps because she’d been so hungry and tired that anything that went predictably right felt incredible.
The light through the door shifted as the sun moved toward the horizon. The woman came and went, never noticing Dili or Hadrian. The children’s burbling and giggling drifted in from outside, playing some game with sticks and stones.
Dili realized she was crying. Her eyes ached as if she’d been crying for a long time. The familiar rhythms of this place kept pulling at her. The way the light fell through the reed-thatched roof. The sound of the river outside. The woman’s humming as she prepared the evening meal, a melody Dili had heard a thousand times.
She’d loved these people. Had needed this memory specifically because she’d loved them, loved this place, loved who she’d been here. This quiet bend in a nameless river where she’d been allowed to live. Not as the beloved of the divines, not as a protector of the people, not as a healer unto all. Just Dili, who sometimes stopped by to rest and share stories and help mend nets.
And she’d given it all up. Had chosen to forget this paradise along with the rest. When she’d buried her memories, she’d known the cost. Had understood that she needed to carve many holes to let herself drain. But she’d thought—
The tears flowed silently, spilling over to track hot paths down her cheeks. She didn’t try to stop them. She grieved for the family whose memories she’d abandoned. For the river that had dried up millennia ago. For the life she’d led when the world would let her be small and quiet and free.
Hadrian’s breathing changed—deeper, slower. Unconsciousness claimed him fully once his body felt safe enough to surrender. Dili lay down next to him, close but she did not dare disturb his healing body.
Outside, the sun finished setting. The family gathered outside the hut, and their voices lifted over the constant susurration of water reeds in familiar song, a prayer for a peaceful night. The river whispered its eternal song back.
Tranquility settled over Dili like a blanket tucking her in, and she too surrendered. The witch let her grief rise with dusk’s chorus. Silent tears became quiet sobs, her shoulders shaking with the force of holding it in for so long. She pressed her hands to her face and mourned everything she’d chosen to forget. For the beauty of this place. For the peace she’d found here. For the person she’d been before fear and duty had convinced her that forgetting was safer than remembering.
When the tears finally stopped, she felt lanced and drained. Cleansed. Exhausted.
She wiped her face with her dirty sleeve and took a shaky breath. The hearth fire had burned down to coals. The hut was dark except for the ember-glow and the moonlight slanting through gaps in the walls.
Beside her, Hadrian stirred. His hand moved, fingers flexing. His eyes opened—still brilliant green, but clearer now. Present. He looked at her in the growing dim. Really looked, his gaze traveling over her face, taking in the tear tracks and the grime and the proximity.
“D-Dili?” His voice was rough, barely audible, and tender with so many more questions he didn’t dare yet ask.
She managed a smile. Small and fragile, but real. “Welcome back.”
