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 impish grin on Hadrian’s face had Dili breathless, but it was easy to disguise as he helped her to her feet. Though he’d sprung up moments before, he crouched in front of her, angling himself so the moon shone on his back. Facing away, the vampire tucked his chin down and swept his long silver hair to the side.
Dili didn’t see it at first, then Hadrian shifted slightly. Something golden sparkled under the moonlight at the base of his skull. She bent down to inspect the glimmer.
A single golden filament arced along the skin of his neck, parallel to the curve of his head. It appeared almost metallic, and with another slight adjustment from Hadrian, it looked like liquid fire, and when she cocked her own head, it seemed to glitter. It always stayed the same small, brilliant line, but she couldn’t tell what substance it was.
“Touch it,” Hadrian said.
Dili hesitated, a single finger hovering over his cold skin. A tendril of desire pulsed through her. The way he bent before her and exposed himself was not sensual, but seeing his willing vulnerability felt intensely intimate. She held her breath in anticipation, tension coiling tight through her, as she brushed a ginger fingertip against him.
They both gasped. A tingling sensation skittered up her arm, and though it didn’t hurt, she jerked her hand away instinctively at the touch of magical power.
Her eyes widened in astonishment as the bright filigree grew. Gold surged across Hadrian’s alabaster skin and receded into an unfamiliar design that stretched from the base of his skull down the nape of his neck. A golden lotus bloomed in the center of a circle, its outer petals overlaying the circle’s edge.
Once the golden lines settled into place, indigo bloomed from the center of the lotus. The dark color bled across the flower. The outermost petals were deep midnight, but those at the center were glacial turquoise, with every other hue of blue in between.
“It’s a tattoo,” Hadrian said. “One of a kind.”
Dili gaped. She may not have recognized that design, but the gold was unmistakable, as it always had been. Here in the pocket, reunited with memories she had long buried, a realization rose from the depths of her mind, slow and soggy, struggling to reach the surface.
She remembered that Gaia’s first design had been the sun. For her. A radiant brilliance that couldn’t be contained. The circular remnant of the first iteration of Gaia’s symbol plunged Dili into numbness. She thought of all the years that had passed since she’d last seen Gaia. She had missed so much.
“Nile made this charm for me,” Hadrian continued in her silence.
Many questions jostled to be first in her mind, but she was startled to hear the half-siren’s name at all.
“Naddahdat?” she repeated.
Hadrian grunted. “I know, I know. I didn’t know her that well when I agreed to it. We did it only a few days after I arrived at Gaia’s palace.”
It was a good thing the vampire could not see Dili’s face because confusion wrenched her mouth sideways. She’d never heard of a siren’s charm made tangible before. Also, the golden lines of the tattoo were made with natural magic; she was sure. The half-siren might have been adept at borrowing magic that wasn’t hers, but Dili doubted she would have stolen Gaia’s symbol. Though, perhaps the blue color staining the petals could be attributed to summoning magic.
“What does it do?” she asked hesitantly.
“Mostly, it’s for luck,” he answered.
Dili would have scoffed, but trepidation sealed her lips shut. The magnitude of power she felt just looking down on the colorful lines far surpassed a simple luck charm.
Discomfort niggled at her. It hurt to think Hadrian might try to lie to her about the tattoo. She didn’t think he was, since he showed her that discreet symbol so willingly, but that didn’t stop the doubt from crossing her mind.
The fleeting suspicion reminded her that mere nights ago, she’d looked on Hadrian’s face for the first time with both fear and fury. She had known him for only a few days. He’d invaded her home, and turned her familiar, and led Naddahdat to town, and…
And… a rush of remembered sensations more than recalled moments flooded her thoughts. The way her fists clenched when he’d teased her. How she’d averted her eyes from his glistening beauty when he’d emerged from the pond. Her body rocking against the smooth, soundless plane of his chest. The gentle touch of his fingers tucking her hair behind her ear.
But it had only been days.
It had only been one kiss.
Dili pressed a hand to her chest, her heart beating too fast. It had been too many days with too little sleep. She was dirty, stressed, and processing so, so, so much more than just the last few days.
The intensity she felt was real—she knew that. But she also knew how easily trauma welded two people together in the heat of survival. She’d lived long enough to understand the difference between a bond forged in crisis and one that grew with nurtured attraction. She didn’t doubt what she felt. She had just lived long enough to be wary that the flame could die as fast as it had caught.
Dili shook her head and took a steadying breath. A forced calm herded her spiraling thoughts into order. She was allowing personal distractions to interfere with valuable knowledge.
The witch was about to ask the vampire directly about the discrepancy in magic she plainly saw, but that same discomfort still poked at her under the imposed calm. If Hadrian was telling the truth…
Then perhaps Gaia and Naddahdat had lied to him. Or concealed the tattoo’s true nature. Maybe Hadrian himself didn’t know the power they had branded onto his skin. Falling into a divine pocket of reality saturated with her own memories could have affected his. Or the Creation magic that had stitched the pocket together could be doing more than preserving her memories. It wasn’t hard to imagine, since Creation magic liked to keep making.
There were too many questions, too many uncertainties, and too many dreadful possibilities. Despite all the angst running through her mind, though, she could not ignore how the vampire sat peacefully in front of her, entrusting her with this powerful secret.
The witch took a deep breath and looked down at the magical ink that was starting to fade. As she exhaled long and slow, she chose to trust him back.
“This tattoo holds more power than luck,” Dili murmured.
Hadrian cocked his head so he peered at her from the corner of his eye. A mischievous grin spread across his face, brightening his green gaze. He winked.
“What is it?” she asked.
“You’ll have to earn the rest of that secret.” Hadrian paused and turned back to face the idyllic river glistening under the moon. “I just figured my blood magic can’t help us in here if people don’t react to us, but maybe my luck can be of some use.”
Irritation bowled over all of Dili’s reservations. She pursed her lips.
“A lucky charm does not change the fact that you starved and drowned,” she said, her tone flat and crisp. “You’ve seen how dangerous my memories can be. You’ll be of more help once you’re recovered.”
“Unless I can feed, I won’t recover. Not fully,” Hadrian said bluntly.
Dili couldn’t argue his point, and the unspoken implication drummed through her ears. She cleared her throat uncomfortably.
“I-I have limited blood stores,” she said. “You’re welcome to them.”
“Do you have more synthetic?” Hadrian asked.
She paused, a bit surprised by the question. “I may brew a good potion, but I can’t make better than blood.”
Hadrian grunted, but said nothing. Dili bit her lip, thinking, and hating the answers she came up with.
“When you, uh, feed… does it hurt?” she asked.
Hadrian turned around slowly and rose to his knees, looking up at her. She took in his incredulous expression, and the mesmerizing, hungry glint in his eye.
“I didn’t mean me,” she said quickly, cheeks growing hot.
Deep in her chest, she refuted those words with ardent curiosity, but first in her mind was a memory that filled her with shame at the thought of inviting him to feed from her. A memory she desperately did not want Hadrian to see, but one she could not keep from him forever. Someday, when they made it home, when she could share the truth without making him carry its burden, she would tell him.
Rejection cracked Hadrian’s green gaze, then gave way to a distanced disapproval.
“With consent, my blood magic makes it quite enjoyable on both sides. Without, there is only madness,” he said.
A pang of need pulsed inside her, but it was matched by her guilty conscience. Silence grew heavier and heavier between them as Dili processed his answers.
She’d wondered, horribly, if he might have been able to feed off of a human from one of her memories, but learning the impact of consent eliminated that possibility. In the four memories she’d seen, only Ereškigal and Naddahdat had their own agency.
Two women. Both remembered in their homes, and both touched with Creation magic. And only one of them didn’t terrify her.
Dili sighed, resigning herself to the only option that solved their problems.
“Can you feed on paranormal blood safely?” she asked.
Hadrian nodded. Dili resisted frowning, because it was good news.
“After I found you in the ocean,” she began, “I took us to a different memory, one with Naddahdat.”
Hadrian pushed up from his knees to standing, listening intently. Dull green eyes held hers, and she couldn’t trace a single emotion on his face.
“She could perceive us both, and speak for herself. If I can find her again, perhaps she would let you feed from her,” Dili explained.
Hadrian narrowed his eyes at her. “If you can find her again?”
“Moving between memories is not precise, but I can trigger it when I need to,” Dili said.
Hadrian searched her eyes for a second, then he sighed with a pained expression. “It’s not a bad idea, except it will be hard to approach her like this. If the grime doesn’t put her off, the stench will.”
Dili appraised Hadrian as if for the first time, noticing the muck dried into a caking layer, the specks and clumps darkening the silver of his hair, and the pungent smell of his breath. Between the highs and lows of finding and reviving him, she simply hadn’t noticed. She had a high tolerance for the mess and odors of life, and modern hygiene was such a recent luxury it was quite easy to forget surrounded by the environs of her ancient past.
“I have soap,” Dili said, reaching for her right pocket.
“Hopefully another cloak, too,” Hadrian said. “I’d promise not to shred it, but the last one was technically your fault.”
Dili grinned as she pulled out a square bar of handmade soap. Though over ten years old, it still smelled strongly of sandalwood and vanilla. Her right pocket had perfectly preserved the infused oils the couple from the next town over made from scratch, each batch crafted with a personal touch. They’d traded her twenty pounds of fresh soap for a fertility potion. They still sent her a card every year around the holidays, addressed to Vanessa’s clinic, with pictures of their happy family of four.
She’d picked that one because she thought it would smell fantastic on his skin. She imagined the heady spice and subtle sweetness wafting off his silver hair, and nearly shivered as she dropped it into Hadrian’s hand.
The vampire stared down at it, then back up at her with a wicked smile.
“I can imagine quite a lot with just one bar of soap. What did you have in mind, First witch?”
The heat in his voice shattered her composure. Her knees almost buckled with temptation, and the sudden need to regain her balance broke that tantalizing eye contact.
“No need to by shy.” Confidence oozed from his tone, alluring and maddening at once. “I saw you peeking at the pond.”
“I did not! And we are not! Here!”
Dili hardly noticed the items she pulled out one after the other as she tried very hard to ignore the heat of her own blushing. It was all the more difficult for having nothing better to say back. Her skin practically steamed with embarrassment.
“I think that’s enough,” Hadrian muttered.
Dili took one look at the vampire’s cocky grin and scowled. Then, she stared down at his cupped hands bulging with small soaps, a few slender perfume bottles, three candles, and a small wooden toy boat meant to entice stubborn children into playing pirates in the bath. Rags for washing and drying hung off his shoulder and dripped down to a pile at his feet of countless sponges, tumbled clothes, and several pairs of boots, among a lot of other small miscellaneous items he hadn’t caught in his hands.
She’d chucked nearly all her modern bathroom supplies at him. She hoped with all her heart there was nothing in there worse than the toy boat.
“Some of it is for me,” she said in a deliberately even tone.
The witch grabbed a handful of fabric from the ground and took some of the bars of soap, leaving Hadrian with far more than one person needed for an entire year of bathing.
“I’ll head further downriver, since I know where I’m going,” she said. “We’ll meet back here in an hour.”
“Half an hour,” he said, still leering at her. “Then, I’m coming to find you. As you said, your memories can be dangerous.”
Dili ground her teeth. Arguing with him would only simmer her blood and stroke his ego.
“Go wash yourself,” she said in a disdainful tone.
Hadrian beamed as if she’d praised him, then, holding her eye contact, he dropped the mound of bathing products onto the heap at his feet. He reached slowly and confidently for the cloth that clung around his waist.
Dili turned her back and stormed off, opting for silence over another lame response.
“Half an hour, Dili,” Hadrian called after her.
She didn’t give in to the urge to blurt something back, a small victory in the shambles of shame that was undercut by how his smug tone rang in her ears. How she couldn’t stop picturing that teasing smile when he hefted the one bar of soap. How she imagined she didn’t bathe alone.
Next chapter on Friday, January 23.