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.
A vampire’s nose could not be led astray without great effort. Though blood magic improved all the senses, the sense of smell was by far the strongest, as it often was with predators.
Unfortunately, an enhanced sense of smell was problematic for Toad. He was used to layers of smells, like the aroma of rising yeast over drying herbs. It had never been taxing to separate intermingled body odors, either.
As a vampire, though, he could also smell each log lying by the hearth. The aroma of a single cobweb clinging to the bottom of the broom bristles in the cellar, the fading warmth of laundry done days past, and the stirring kiss of sunshine in the air.
Now, his nose twitched through deep sleep. The familiar smells of home overwhelmed his subconscious mind. It had been days since his turning. Hadrian had promised him that his mind would grow with his physical abilities, too, but so far, Toad would rather not have breathed at all than drown in the sensory overload.
However, even his dreaming mind knew to keep breathing then, because something smelled… off. There was a salty spray in the mountain air that didn’t belong, but he couldn’t hear anything amiss, and he couldn’t seem to blink his eyes open, either. Toad’s impatience rose as he neared the precipice of wakefulness and couldn’t reach it, until the very moment he felt sunshine warm the tips of his ears.
Toad sprang up onto all four paws as if by magic, a growl in his throat. He slunk low to the ground, his tail stretched long behind him. His claws poked out, ready to strike, and he bared his fangs.
His sharp eyes homed immediately in on the strange woman sitting at Dili’s small table by the fire. Except Toad remembered the woman wasn’t a stranger after all, but a menace. Hadrian’s friend could smile kindly, but she wore many faces under her bronze skin. Her eyes betrayed her, a multifaceted glint she didn’t bother to hide. More importantly, she smelled like rich mud and fish scales, and with all the other earthy scents permeating the cottage, Nile’s unique scent had blended into the chaos assaulting Toad’s nose.
He hadn’t recognized the summoning woman in his own home. It made his fur stand on end.
Hadrian had warned him before the bite that blood magic ran hot for the first few decades, and the growing pains would be tempestuous at best. The black cat forgave such simple teachings, though. The poor man had only been passing on his experience, and Toad could not fault him for the inherent limitations of the human body. The contractual master just lacked the capacity to understand feline perfection.
Blood magic did not run within Toad; it served him. It yielded to his supreme will and catered to his fleeting whimsy. The temptation to feed withered with his delight in a perfect ray of sunshine or the thrill of chasing one of Mrs. Finch’s chickens. He’d yet felt stirring hunger, but with his enhanced speed, agility, and strength, he would never fail a hunt again. He knew it just as he knew he could outrace the wind.
No. The static feeling puffing through his fur came from a protective streak driven forth not by blood magic, but by the predator he’d always been.
Hadrian’s friend or not, Dili didn’t like Nile. The summoning woman had been sitting in his home watching him sleep, and he hadn’t known it—didn’t even remember how she’d blown the door open and charmed him—until he could drag an eyelid open.
Toad yowled with the fury of a nightmare sundering the day and leapt across the kitchen. The mere woman barely had time to shriek before he rammed his forehead into hers. She careened head over heels off the chair, and Toad soared past to rebound nimbly off the wall. His tail twisted, and he pirouetted in mid-air, aiming for Nile’s gasping chest, not to knock the wind out of her, but to latch on.
His claws dug for purchase in the woman’s dress, scraping through to her skin. He freed his front paws as the woman’s scream morphed into a plea, then swatted her repeatedly in the face with alternating paws. He held his claws back, and kept the punches light, quick, and confusing—humiliating. It would have sated his instincts to bite her nose for good measure, but he worried that would have frightened her into wetting herself.
The lightning-quick featherweight barrage stunned Nile silly. Her head spun comically trying to catch up with the attack that had already passed, like she reacted to the echo of his slaps. Her yell petered out into shocked stammers.
Toad bared his fangs and growled. Nile gasped and held still.
“I—”
Toad smacked her upside the head again, just once, and she shut her mouth. Her nervous eyes darted from his outstretched paw to his eyes and back to his paw. Her shallow breaths and rapid pulse stirred his blood magic, but he would never stoop to feed on a coward’s blood. Just the thought repulsed him.
He tired of her little shivers and shudders quickly. He pinned his ears back, but he only corrected her when she tried to move or speak. She gave up after only a few minutes, clenching her eyes shut and trying to quell the trembles. Toad could have purred. All prey submitted when they knew they were caught.
Instead, he turned his bright eyes around the kitchen. The dried herbs pinned to the exposed ceiling joists hung in tidy bunches even though he’d been certain Nile had burst in with a violent gust of wind. The floors had been swept spotless. Dili’s favorite pots and pans hung neatly on the wall by the stove, too. The counters were clean and the sink empty, though that wasn’t unusual for the morning. Dili didn’t like leaving dirty dishes overnight.
But the leaves on the potted plant in the kitchen window drooped. Heaps of ash filled the hearth, choking a small fire. Her gardening basket still sat by the processing table in the back corner rather than by the back door.
Odd. But not that odd considering the back door had been mended, too. Dili and Hadrian must have been busy cleaning up after they’d contained the menace. That explained why Dili was sleeping in. For all her immense power, she was frail. It’s why she needed someone like him around.
After an hour, his standoff with Nile settled into wary silence and steady breathing. Satisfied she wasn’t going anywhere, Toad lay down on her chest, tucking his two front paws underneath him. He always contemplated best when he was comfy.
The summoning woman jerked her head up, as he’d expected, and he hissed, as he’d planned. Nile slumped back, her head lolling a bit to the side. Toad had to give her credit. At least she remembered her place once she learned it.
Maybe Nile wasn’t so bad. She was adequately comfortable as a pillow.
But Dili didn’t like her, and that was all Toad needed.
The familiar resigned himself to waiting for his witch to come downstairs and properly punish Nile. Then, in private, he’d scold his witch for neglecting to bring him to bed with her where he belonged.
The sun crept across the floorboards as hour after hour passed. Toad had no intention of releasing Nile until Dili came downstairs, except he couldn’t help but fume that she was still in bed so late into the afternoon. Dili enjoyed rising with the sun, so she’d only ever indulged his sleeping in twice in his life. And only until mid-morning.
He seethed at the likelihood that his contractual master was to blame. Not that Dili shouldn’t enjoy whomever she wanted, but that she’d treat the vampire to his—Toad’s—personal dream come true before ever granting it to him.
When the light dropped below the window sill, though, Toad had had enough. He stood with a yawn and glared one eye down at Nile. She kept her eyes closed, her eyebrows scrunched low as if shutting her eyes wasn’t enough. Toad stretched back, fanning his front claws out wide, then reached a gentle paw up to Nile’s eyelid. He tapped her left cheek, just below her eye.
She flinched.
Toad moaned low in the back of his throat and politely tapped her again, this time on her eye.
Nile started, but she peeked her eyes open.
He simply hadn’t wanted to be rude after she’d been so nice and still all this time, and shouting into pure silence was egregious, though not as bad as breaking down someone’s back door.
Toad sat back down on her chest and started meowing a dry, scratchy complaint. He started low as a warning to Dili rather than out of courtesy for Nile, but after the third insistent meow, he began howling.
Nile sucked in a breath and held it in obvious discomfort, but it hardly mattered. Dili needed to come down at once. He wished he could have just spoken into her mind like they always had. Feeling her so close by through his familiar’s magic but unable to connect with her was a madness he could only process through sheer volume.
“Please stop,” Nile whimpered.
Toad paused only to hiss at her, thrusting his fangs in her face, then resumed calling Dili at the top of his indignant lungs.
“She’s not here,” Nile dared to speak.
Toad growled at her and raised one of his paws in clear warning.
“Please, listen,” she begged. “Dili and Hadrian are missing.”
Next chapter on Friday, February 13.