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.
Dili gaped at the plume of dust rising from the sand in lazy swirls. The lightning had come unconsciously, an urge as primal and untameable as the sucking vortex that she wished would just open.
She couldn’t believe it. Even now, she still hurt Gaia in this memory.
“That was Gaia!” Hadrian finally managed to say. “Why is she here?”
Dili bit her lip. “We need to go.”
“No,” Hadrian refused. “Gaia is divine. She can help us, just like Naddahdat.”
“She won’t help. Not in this memory,” Dili said.
“I wouldn’t help you either if you shot me out of the sky!” Indignation sharpened the vampire’s voice. “Why are we running from her?”
A ring of gold pulsed up from the sand, sending a new plume into the air, before the golden streak erupted from the haze. The magical beam did not arc high—it barreled straight at Dili.
“Why, Dili?” Hadrian demanded.
She turned to him and put her hands on his chest. “We need to run.”
“Why?” he asked again, forcefully.
“Please,” she begged.
Hadrian searched her eyes for a single precious second, then his brow dropped into a stubborn line. His jaw became rigid.
“She’s not the enemy,” he said.
Dili yanked her hands back and turned away from his defiant gaze. She did not blame him. He did not know. If he had, he wouldn’t have hesitated.
He wouldn’t have embraced her, either.
“Just stay close in case the vortex opens,” she said.
There were only seconds until the hurtling golden streak landed at her feet. Shame scrambled Dili’s every thought until all she could do was clamp down hard on her magic. Whatever happened, she would not strike again. She turned to the golden streak racing toward her with her jaw clenched.
Sudden force yanked her backward. It knocked the wind out of her, and as she folded over the pair of arms that hauled her back, sand flew under her feet. It felt like Hadrian had barely set her down when he flung an arm around her, pulling the edge of his cloak over her. She spluttered and wheezed as a gust of hot air full of sand smacked into them. She would have fallen over if not for Hadrian. When he dared to lower his arm, she had almost recovered her breath. She grabbed his shoulder and pulled herself upright so she could see past his bulk.
A wrathful woman stood ten feet tall in the spot where Dili had been. She wore her seething rage; a golden fire curled around her shapely figure, intertwined in her hair, and flared from her mouth when she wailed.
Despair rang out across the desert. The sobs wiped Hadrian from Dili’s mind. The desert faded. Anger and fear vanished. Shame and woe remained.
The witch walked forward to the woman whose rage could consume the world and stretched a hand through her burning ire. Dili touched her cheek. Gaia recoiled, her flames lapping hungrily at Dili but finding nothing to burn.
“You could have saved them!” Gaia’s voice was thunder that could rattle bones.
“There are some wounds even I cannot heal,” she said.
“Then you should have stopped them before the mortals took up arms!” Gaia screamed.
“I tried.”
“No, you didn’t! You beseeched them to mediate, and when they challenged each other instead, you did nothing! You should have asked Him to intervene!”
“I did, and He refused.”
“Then you should have made Him! You should have stolen every moment’s peace until He did! You were the only one who could. You were supposed to… You were the only one…”
It did not feel like a memory. The words came out too rough and raw. Not remembered, but reborn in bloody detail.
Tears fell down Dili’s cheeks. “I’m sorry, Gaia.”
“You dare weep when it is all your fault?” Gaia howled.
“I… I’m sorry.”
“No! No! Stop crying and fix it! You must!” Gaia shrieked.
“I cannot. They are already gone.”
“No! I don’t believe you! They can’t be. They can’t be!” Gaia lunged for Dili and took hold of her forearm, the fire of her anger burning bright. “You will fix it!”
Dili sank to her knees, pulling back. “Gaia, stop. Please.”
“I will drag you back by your hair if I have to!”
Dili opened her mouth, but before she could beg for mercy, the fiery grip broke away. A blur of movement, and Dili was suddenly standing behind Hadrian. The vampire stood guard in front of her, low and wide, holding the crowbar ready.
Gaia stumbled backward, pure fury on her face. The golden flames grew higher around her.
“Hadrian, stop,” Dili whispered. “She cannot hurt me.”
Once again, he did not heed her.
“I mean you no harm, my lady, but I will defend my companion. There has been enough bloodshed this day,” Hadrian said in a careful tone.
“If only her blood would absolve her of her sins,” Gaia sneered.
“Hadrian, move!” Dili shoved him.
The vampire didn’t even acknowledge her efforts with a grunt.
“Stand down, my lady,” he insisted.
Gaia said nothing, but her fire crackled louder. Flaming tendrils reached out from her legs and crawled across the sand toward Hadrian.
“Please trust me,” Dili implored him. She had resolved not to use her magic with force, but she would make him get out of the way if she had to. “I’m a witch. I can handle her fire.”
Hadrian’s voice was bleak when he muttered, “So can I.”
He dropped the crowbar behind him, then with a labored grunt, a weak aura of greenish-gold emerged around his body. A brighter glow on the back of his neck shone through his silver hair.
Gaia gasped in shock, and the fingers of fire stretching toward him extinguished into wisps of smoke.
“Usurper!” Gaia snarled.
Gaia put her hands together, and a jet of fire burst out at Hadrian. Dili grasped the wind in her hand, prepared to blow the flame out, but Hadrian dove straight into the blaze. He held one arm up, grimacing, and the faint aura around him flashed and trembled as if it might shatter, but the fire broke around the vampire’s elbow, passing in twisting streams around his shielded body.
The golden woman’s infuriated scream pierced Dili’s ears and struck at her heart. She had never heard Gaia so far lost to rage and grief. She hated that the new course of this old memory held just as much heartbreak and anguish.
Gaia, her face contorted and terrible, drew her hand back to attack again, but instead of reaching for another flame, or magma, or boulders—any element that she could hurl at the vampire—a black miasma filled her hand.
Disease.
Dili unleashed her magic the moment she saw the viscous darkness. Translocation was possible with natural magic, but just barely. Such defiance of the physical laws and natural order of the Created world was so complex and consuming that only a handful of witches had ever attempted it in all of history, unwritten and written.
The First witch moved matter with desperate speed, rearranging atomic structures through survival instinct alone. It cost her dearly, but it worked.
Dili swayed on her feet, barely conscious, barely breathing, in Hadrian’s place. He crouched behind her, where she had just been. The black cloud enveloped her, seeping in through her nose, mouth, eyes, and ears, and constricting her chest. Pain squeezed her head.
Ah. Plague of the lungs. Gaia must have concentrated the bacterium, considering the quick onset of symptoms.
Someone screamed her name. Hands grabbed at her. She tried to push them away because she was highly contagious.
More screaming. More grabbing.
She had nothing left in her to push back, to keep her eyes open, to stay…
Next chapter on Friday, March 13.