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 became aware before she could rise from her sleep. The river’s familiar rippling along the muddy bank was just audible. The sun on her skin was a little more than warm, but not quite hot. Hunger groaned in her belly, though. Almost as loud as the sobbing in her ears.
The First witch blinked her eyes open, looking up at a cloudless blue sky, then cold arms scooped her up into a quaking embrace.
“Dili?” Hope trembled in Hadrian’s voice.
“I’m back,” she wheezed. “Your arms—too tight.”
The pressure encircling her ribs dropped, and Dili saw half the man Hadrian had been. Every part of him had thinned out, from his cheeks to his muscles to his patience. A frantic wildness churned through his haggard green eyes; he was hanging on by a shred of control.
Shaking hands reached for her face. Hesitant fingers brushed her cheek. A careful thumb pulled a lock of her hair. He tucked the strand behind her ear, then bent down to her neck, breathing deeply.
Dili shivered at the fluttering sensation across such sensitive skin, but Hadrian didn’t react to the tendril of desire kindling inside her. Instead, he pulled back and held her shoulders in his hands. He finally stopped quaking when his eyes met hers again.
“It’s really you,” he murmured.
“In the flesh,” Dili said.
Hadrian winced at her words, and the break in his frantic eye contact gave Dili the chance to glance around.
They were back by the peaceful riverbank, as she’d assumed. The hut appeared the same behind the vampire, though quieter than expected—the adults showed the older children how to mend fishing nets while the younger ones snoozed—but that was not why it looked so different.
Lying there next to the river, vivid toadstools had sprouted all around Dili’s body, forming an outline of colorful fungus. Some were as short as her little finger, others a foot tall. The thick greyish stalks rose straight up from the mud, but tapered at the top, all drooping at slightly different angles. Striations wrinkled the broad caps, varying in shades from electric blue to vibrant cobalt, but all with the same soft, frilly pale blue gills underneath.
“Oh.” Dili cleared her throat awkwardly. “I see I’ve sprouted.”
Hadrian shook his head and pushed to standing. He held his hand out to her.
“You must be hungry,” he said.
“Quite,” Dili confirmed.
“One moment.”
The vampire whooshed away from her side, and she heard rummaging inside the fishing hut. His care warmed her from the inside out, but it didn’t mask how he’d avoided talking about what must have happened.
Hadrian returned carrying a bowl full of fruit. Dili stared at it blankly, then shoved them in her mouth. She was ravenous.
“Where did you find them?” she blurted with her mouth full. There were no fruit trees for miles, and there was no way he could have fetched them from her pocket.
“I had a lot of time to look,” Hadrian said glumly. “When…” He clenched his eyes shut. “When I heard your heart beat again, I thought I’d gone mad.”
Dili paused eating and swallowed. She tried to meet his eyes, but he wouldn’t let her.
“I’m sorry I left you waiting. How long did it take?” she asked gently.
“Three days,” he said in a muffled whisper.
“To die or to come back?” Dili asked.
“That was not merely death.”
“It’s as close as I can get,” she said simply.
Hadrian said nothing.
“The last thing I remember was translocating us. What happened?” she asked, hoping to steer him toward talking rather than holding it back.
“Gaia used a biological attack,” Hadrian said brusquely. “You took the brunt of it and fainted quickly afterward. The vortex opened when you went unconscious. I thought that was the worst of it. I was relieved I made it back to the river with you, but… but…” He gulped.
“I see,” Dili said into the distraught silence.
“I didn’t know you could switch us like that. I don’t even think Gaia can do that,” Hadrian said morosely.
“Perhaps not,” Dili said. “She has always preferred the elements to the other veins of natural magic.”
“Why did you do it?” he asked in the same glum tone.
“Gaia had lost control. I didn’t know what the disease would do to you, but I knew the worst that could happen to me. I deemed it a reasonable risk, and I didn’t want to revive you again.” Dili paused, but Hadrian said nothing. “I just reacted. I’m sorry I couldn’t explain.”
Hadrian opened his mouth, then shut it with a scowl. He flicked one toadstool absently.
“Don’t disturb the spores,” Dili warned. “I only sprout when my atoms need a good cleanse before my body reforms. It’s only trace amounts, but these toadstools carry plague.”
Hadrian’s face turned a nauseous grey shade. “Plague?”
“Of the lung. Gaia had concentrated the bacterium and accelerated the onset,” Dili said.
Guilt sagged Hadrian’s moping expression into a depressed frown.
“There was nothing you could have done once I was infected. Even I would have been hard-pressed to save you before you succumbed,” Dili tried to comfort him.
Hadrian bit his lip. “Except I could have… and… Dili, I tried to turn you.”
Ire burned within her, but she did not let it consume her as it had Gaia. She pushed Hadrian away.
“What I mean is I intended to, but when I went to bite, your magic repelled me. No matter how fast, I just couldn’t…” Hadrian’s voice trailed off when he caught Dili’s icy expression.
“I did not consent,” she said stiffly.
“I deemed it a reasonable—”
“Do not spit my own words in my face, Hadrian,” Dili cut him off.
The vampire hung his head. “You were dying.”
Dili chewed on the inside of her lip, fuming, but she had no retort.
“I had to watch you die. It only took an hour or two. I couldn’t even hold your hand.”
Dili turned her head aside, taking in the peaceful sight of the family at work rather than Hadrian’s pleading shame. It was easier.
“I stayed by your body through the night, hoping it wasn’t true, but come morning I thought I was truly alone. I… I thought I was going to die here again without you.”
Dili sighed. She crossed her arms over her chest.
“The next two days, I ran. I don’t know what I was looking for, but I didn’t find it. When I returned, you… you…” Hadrian groaned.
“My body had been consumed,” Dili said for him in a curt voice. She saw him nod out of the corner of her eye.
“Watching it—that—grow into you was… I couldn’t believe it, but it got my hopes up.”
“Ah. So you fetched me some dates and hoped I would look over such a violation of my body and trust?” she snapped.
“No, Dili. I caught you some fish, burned them to a crisp along with my hand, and then I fetched you some dates, not as a lousy apology but because I was terrified for days and there was nothing else I could for you besides sit and wait,” he snapped back.
Dili and Hadrian turned to each other, anger in their eyes, but worry in his frown and helplessness in her clenched fists.
“I’m sorry,” Hadrian said first. “Dili, I would never have tried to turn you if it wasn’t the only option.”
Dili searched his eyes, and her fury melted. She didn’t want to forgive him yet—the pang of what he’d done still felt too fresh—but she knew she would. She couldn’t hold it against him if she had felt justified in taking hold of his every cell and jerking him aside without a second’s thought to his consent. The witch sighed, suddenly weary and still very hungry.
“Has your burn healed?” she said quietly.
“Almost,” he said.
“Let me see.”
Dili extended her hand, and Hadrian put his in hers. The palm of his right hand was singed; it didn’t look too bad, but she couldn’t imagine how grisly the injury had been if his vampirism had only healed it to this state. At least it looked like he’d kept the skin as clean as possible. Some fresh aloe would suffice, especially if she gave it some encouragement.
As she turned his hand over, Hadrian’s fingers wrapped around hers. She stilled, and he squeezed. They met each other’s eyes again.
“Hadrian… next time, please listen to me. When I need your help, I will tell you,” she said.
Her request seemed to soothe the vampire, taming the distraught tempest in his gaze.
“I will,” he promised.
Dili thought Hadrian intended to make his own request of her, a breath hovering just behind his lips, but he only told her to eat. He kept taking care of her until she’d had a full meal—he caught and she cooked that time—bathed, slept, then eaten again. She’d asked if he needed to feed, too, but he said he could last for a month yet, though there was no way of knowing the true passage of time inside the pocket.
It was only once Dili felt refreshed that Hadrian let out the words he’d held back.
“I didn’t want to say anything until you were ready, but I think I know where we should try to go next.”
Dili tilted her head curiously. Hadrian blew out a nervous breath.
“Nile made for a powerful ally, and Gaia a powerful enemy, but neither is fully divine,” he began.
Dili nodded slowly, anticipation building in her chest.
“You can’t control the pocket because it is Creation magic… but maybe another divine could.”
Final chapter on Friday, March 20.
Author’s Note: This chapter concludes Dili’s POV for the beta read-along. I know, I know, what a tease! Trust me, though, this was the right place to leave Dili and Hadrian before their next adventure. Next week, please enjoy a final update from Toad.