"Fifi, what"s that?" little Sampson asked his aunt. Phoenix shot Ash an apologetic look as she answered the baby. "Be nice, Sammy. Daddy"s friend is a vampire."
"What is a vampire doing in Las Vegas? Don"t you all like the sunless north?" Hagan asked curiously.
Ash shot Ruby a panicked glance, not knowing how to handle the sudden attention. She clapped a hand on his shoulder to rea.s.sure him and he was able to find his voice after that. "My home is further north but we"re here on business."
They all turned their scrutiny to the fairy who managed to convince a vampire to be her business partner next. She got mixed looks of awe, shock, and approval.
Ruby felt herself flush. Whatever they were thinking definitely wasn"t what actually happened. She hadn"t managed to tame a vampire or anything! They were simply helping each other out after a strange set of circ.u.mstances tossed them together.
It was time to change the subject. "I was thinking about sticking around for a while. Can you tell me what other fae live around here? Or where the nearest witch coven is?"
"Sure thing," Cole said easily. "There"s a coven in Summerlin running a health food store, a pack of werewolves near Lake Las Vegas who operate a boat rental place and camping gear store, some elves who own smaller casinos off the Strip, and kelpies in the Colorado River and Lake Mead.
"I think there are a couple of water fairies who take care of them too but they live closer to the Hoover Dam. I"ve never met them but supposedly they make it to the witch coven now and then for supplies."
Cole seemed to be fairly knowledgeable but Ruby wasn"t sure whether or not she should ask about fae banking tricks. It might be better to save that for a witch. As the backbone of the fae world, they knew how to keep their mouths shut.
"You have quite the community here," she said.
He smiled proudly. "Yeah. We take what we can get. I know most fae tend to avoid the hustle and bustle of large cities but we love it. You said you"re from Northern California, right? How far north?"
"Pretty close to the Oregon border. It"s beautiful with all of the redwoods."
"Ah, right. Trees. You don"t see many of those here, unfortunately. Will you be okay sticking around only palm trees for a while?" Cole asked, gesturing to the vine hair that indicated she had plant-based powers.
If only he knew. Ruby loved plants but that was because she grew up around them; it had nothing to do with her powers. She could feasibly set down roots anywhere that had dirt or stone, no plants required.
"I"ll be fine. I"m more concerned about this one. It"s so sunny here he can"t go out during daylight hours at all," she said as she nudged Ash"s shoulder.
He hadn"t said anything in a while, clearly uncomfortable with all the fairies staring at him like he was a zoo animal. When he felt her nudge he finally spoke. "It isn"t that big of a deal. The nightlife here is quite interesting. I can manage for a few weeks."
Cole nodded thoughtfully. "That"s true. As long as you avoid the sun you"ll be fine. Come to think of it, I heard about a vampire living here doing night shifts about fifteen years ago. No clue where he got off to after that because no one"s heard from him since. He always kept to himself."
A nomad? Ruby didn"t know there were nomadic vampires out there. Ash was the first covenless one she ever heard of before this.
"Yes, there are a few of us like that who prefer to blend into human society," he said with a shrug. "Personally I don"t see the appeal."
n.o.body dared ask him what he was doing here then but they were all clearly thinking it. Many fae went their entire lives without running into a vampire and if they did it was only in pa.s.sing at a witch coven.
They all glanced at Ruby again, their expressions practically screaming "what did you do to get a vampire to follow you?!" She sighed inwardly. They would never believe her even if she could tell them.
Money. She got a vampire to follow her because he needed money and she was a fount of endless wealth.
It would be wrong to a.s.sume she had bought him though. She gave him what he needed and in return he would eventually help her with magic she couldn"t do. Somehow it seemed like there was more to it than that lately though. They almost felt like friends.
Friends were a foreign concept to her. Ruby didn"t have friends; she had family members and acquaintances.
Fae might have to work with humans but they usually didn"t spend time with them outside of that. The possibility of discovery got higher the closer the relationship. It was the same reason she couldn"t get too close to any other fae.
She had to protect herself. That was her number one goal from here on out after being betrayed by people she thought she could trust.
"So," Ruby said awkwardly to break the tension in the room. "How are the Raiders doing this season?"
She didn"t know much about human sports but had noticed before the game got paused that they were watching a showdown between the Las Vegas Raiders and Baltimore Ravens. It said so at the bottom of the screen.
That fixed the problem immediately. Everyone began chattering at once, frantically talking over each other to be heard.
Fire fairies were rather chaotic, weren"t they? Ruby wondered if it was because of the nature of fire itself. And how long it had taken for Skye to get used to it. She walked into the throng of arguing fairies to pick up her son and take him up to bed completely unfazed.
Sometimes she wondered how fairies of other attributes even ended up with each other. Wind/water seemed to be the most common inter-elemental pair because their powers and interests were often complementary.
Every earth fairy she had ever heard of paired off with another earth fairy. It seemed that for the most part fire fairies were the same given the size of this clan.
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