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.
Pain throbbed in the air. Dili could smell it, taste it, feel it in every agonized wail and rattling gasp that tormented her ears. She would have clenched her eyes, crumpled to her knees, and wept.
But she was not alone in this nightmare.
“No, no, no, no, no—”
Hadrian’s head spun in every direction, taking in the tragedy unfolding in the healing tent. She hated that he saw one of the darkest days in all her memories. She was desperate to make sure he didn’t experience the worst of it.
“Hadrian, let me go,” Dili called him.
The vampire’s eyes kept darting around the tent, his shock in the small O of his lips, his horror a grey pallor across his skin. He did not look down, but he drew her closer and raised the crowbar, as if he could shield her from the macabre scene preserved in her mind.
The protective gesture crumbled Dili’s fragmenting composure. She needed to leave. She needed to get Hadrian away from here. She needed to act, and his blatant disregard for her request inflamed her.
“Hadrian!” Dili yelled.
The witch thumped her hands against the vampire’s solid chest, demanding his attention, but he simply let go of her waist to hold both her wrists in one large hand, a gentle but unyielding manacle.
Protective rage and instinctive self-preservation tore at her; she could not say which spurred her magic. Potent power coiled at her fingertips, ready to squeeze his nervous system. Ready to blind so he could not see. Or wipe so he would not remember.
Hadrian spoke first.
“It’s not safe. I can get us out if you’ll let me.”
Worry choked Hadrian’s deep voice, but each word rang like a bell through the horrible din. Dili twisted her fingers and grabbed hold of the front of his tunic.
“Hadrian, please.”
The vampire spared a glance down at her. Power rimmed his eyes, neon halos around the dark green. His expression had gone flat, the emotionless mask making him look as cold as he felt.
Hadrian almost turned back to the tent, but his gaze snagged on hers. He let go of her wrists, and she let go of his tunic. The crowbar fell to his side.
“Tell me what to do,” he said.
Dili nodded, mind racing. No matter how she dreaded Hadrian seeing this memory, the vortex had not opened again. She needed to get away. She feared the moment when Gaia inevitably found her and tried to drag her to the front. What could happen if Hadrian tried to stop the witch who had tattooed her golden magic onto his nape far in the future.
She had to avoid Gaia.
“We need to run.” Dili tried to keep her voice steady. “Will you carry me as you did before?”
“Yes, but it won’t be so comfortable this time,” he said.
“Then let’s hurry,” she said. “Out the back.”
Dili gestured behind them to the back of the tent. Hadrian reached for her hand, and she didn’t resent it this time when he took hold of her. He guided her through countless bodies, sprawled out, propped up, leaning to, and hunched over, sobbing and struggling and silent. They snuck through broken dreams and thin hopes out into the open.
Hadrian stared at the devastation, but Dili did not dare look. They had no time.
“We must go west into the desert,” she said. “As far as we can.”
Hadrian hesitated. “Do you have enough water in case we get stuck out there for some time?”
Dili nodded. “Please. We must hurry.”
“Pardon me,” he mumbled before scooping her up with one arm.
When he’d said it would not be as comfortable, she had not understood that she’d be slung over his right shoulder like a sack of potatoes. Or that hanging upside down while moving so fast would make her violently nauseous. Sight and sound blurred together in a formless roar. Air rushed by her too fast to breathe in. Bile pooled on her tongue, and her body convulsed once.
Suddenly, Dili was on all fours, her hands and knees sinking into sand. She heaved as wind-whipped tears streamed down her face, but there was not much in her stomach to begin with. A few minutes later she gasped and pulled a handkerchief from her pocket. She wiped her mouth and dried her tears on the back of her sleeve, then looked around.
Hadrian stood behind her, his silver hair lying still along his back. He looked a shade thinner than he had been, but it might have just been a trick of the desert sun.
He looked back east at a smoking ruin under a broken sky. He held the crowbar at the ready, even though they were alone in the barren sands. Considering how small the corpse of the city looked, they had covered miles in what had felt like a few seconds.
“Thank you,” she mumbled.
He glanced over his shoulder at her, then returned his gaze toward what remained of Uruk.
“Are you alright?” he asked in a clipped tone.
“I am now.” She got up and joined him at his shoulder. “And you?”
Hadrian was quiet for a long moment. “I was trained as a soldier, but I never saw battle.”
Dili thought that was strange, but she said nothing. She may have washed her hands of the vampire world since their Creation, but she had lived and died with divines and mortals alike for ages. She knew people. She knew violence. Creatures of such incredible speed and strength rarely lived peaceful lives, and war never changed.
“I heard stories, of course, but I…” He gulped. “I can still smell it.”
Dili looked up at his haggard expression. She stepped closer to him, so their arms brushed. Hadrian’s fingers found hers. He squeezed, hard.
“I am so sorry, Hadrian,” she said. “I never wanted you to see this.”
Hadrian hesitated. She felt it in the tremble of his grip, the catching of his breath. The crowbar dropped onto the sand with a muffled thud. He tugged on her hand, and she turned to him.
Cold enveloped her. His arms wrapped snug around her. Desperate hands cupped her hip and head, cradling her against him. A shudder wracked his body as she put her arms around his thick torso. He laid his head on top of hers and breathed her in.
“I get it now,” he eventually said in a weary voice. ““Why you buried your memories.”
She stiffened at his sympathy. Holding one another so close, there was no hiding her reaction.
The vampire let go of her quickly and backed up, his hands held up and a confused look on his face. She resented the sudden heat of the harsh desert sun on her skin, and her hand instinctively reached back out toward him. He took another half-step back.
“No, Hadrian, please. I didn’t—”
A beam of golden light burst into the sky, drawing both of their attentions back to the battlefield far away. From where they stood, it looked like a spindly gold tower stretching up and up into the fractured sky, then it began to arc toward them.
Hadrian squinted at the phenomenon. “Isn’t that—”
Dili tugged on his arm. “We’re out of time! We have to keep running!”
The vampire turned toward her, but his gaze was fixed on the golden arc descending faster and faster and pointing right at them.
The witch didn’t think, didn’t plan, and didn’t run. The air around her hummed with overwhelming power. An immense bolt of lightning struck from her outstretched hands, crackling, sizzling, and jumping a jagged line toward the streaking golden light. Magic collided in midair with a booming thunderclap. A puff of black smoke obscured the view, but a fraction of a second later, a glittering golden mass fell from the sky.
Next chapter on Friday, March 6.