34 Fire Fairies

Ruby still wanted to be able to own a lot of land away from everyone where she could finally be herself but that conflicted with her desire to not go crazy from lack of companionship. If only there was somebody else like her who would understand.

She had never heard of any other earth fairies with powers like hers but that didn't necessarily mean she was the only one in the world. Fairies could be found on all seven continents, though the elemental type varied by location.

She heard a rumor than in Antarctica there were only water and wind fairies given the climate. And deserts were usually home to wind and fire fairies. Forested areas were favored by earth fairies.

At least that was how it had been originally. With humans taking over the world and making almost every area habitable for themselves, fairies had to move around a bit to avoid detection. They were a rather adaptable species.

Las Vegas was about thirty degrees hotter than her hometown so it was the perfect place for fire fairies to settle. They weren't affected by heat at all.

Ruby headed back to the hotel room with a sigh. She would need to come up with an average earth fairy glamour for when she visited Cole. It would be suspicious not to show her 'true form' in the presence of other fae.

She had been lucky that of all the fae she ran into while escaping that it had been an out-of-touch vampire. He didn't question the fae societal norms she broke because he didn't know much about interactions between races. Either that or he simply didn't care.

She decided to make herself look like Flora with rich brown skin, hair made of vines, and mossy eyes. It was the least conspicuous glamour she could think of.

If Ruby had used an alias instead of giving her real name, she would have simply glamoured herself into a vampire again to match Ash. But 'Gardner' was unmistakably an earth fairy name.

Besides, it would be weird enough to see one vampire this far south let alone two. Ash was in for a lot of stares tonight since his race was so reclusive.

She opened the door to their hotel room and found him already awake sitting on the bed. "Is it time for us to go?" he asked.

Ruby smiled. No matter how bored she might be during the day, it was nice to have something waiting for her for a few hours in the evening. "Yeah. I already ate. Shall we?"

Ash stood and followed her out to the rental car. She showed him how to type Cole's address into his phone's GPS and told him he was in charge of reading off the instructions for her. He took her directive very seriously and led her to the nearest freeway.

She had to merge onto a different freeway to actually get into Henderson. The roads here were laid out much more confusingly than the ones back home. She supposed it was because this place was a lot bigger and more densely populated.

Ruby rang the doorbell when they arrived and a girl with blonde hair and a wide smile answered it. "Hey there! Are you Ruby and Ash? Cole's expecting you. I'm his girlfriend, Skye."

"Nice to meet you," she said as she followed them in.

Skye's glamour dropped partially so everything was revealed but her wings. This was standard for meeting new fae. Her real hair was silver and swirled around her head to a nonexistent breeze and her eyes were the color of storm clouds. A wind fairy.

To be polite, Ash let his glamour drop as well and Ruby adjusted hers so she looked like her little cousin.

The two-story house was decorated with warm tones and was more spacious than it looked from the outside. She wondered exactly how many fairies lived here as they walked into the living room and saw a densely packed sectional couch.

Everyone was staring at the TV in tense anticipation and jumped up or groaned in disappointment when the human on the screen dropped a football. One particularly irate fire fairy rocked back and forth in midair while running his hands down his face.

"Cole, they're here. Pause your game," Skye said with a slight smile on her face as she shook her head at everyone's antics.

A fairy with short hair made of flickering flames and eyes glowing like the embers of a dying fire picked up the remote and did as she said. He got up from the couch and flew over toward them with a look of pleasant surprise on his face.

"An earth fairy and a vampire, huh? I've never met one of your kind before! I'm honored you came this far south to see us. Come on over, I'll introduce you to everyone."

There were eight other fire fairies on the couch. Most looked full-grown but there was one who was probably 80-100 years old and a single wind fairy who couldn't be more than 50 who was sitting on someone's lap.

Cole pointed everyone out by name. "This here is my buddy Cyrus and his brother Hagan… Hagan's girlfriend Ember and their daughter Hestia…my uncle Ignatius and his son Kenneth…my sister Phoenix is holding my son Sampson…and last but not least we have my lovely mother Seraphina.

"Not everybody lives here; we collectively own all six houses in this cul-de-sac. They just like coming over because our TV is bigger. There are about a dozen more of us but they're all out doing shows tonight."

More than twenty fairies in a single city? That was crazy! Back home there was around a dozen and Ruby was related to three of them. She had heard the Las Vegas fire fairies were a small clan but she wouldn't categorize this as small.

She had never heard of so many fairies of a single element staying in one place either. Where she lived there was a mixture of three of the four elements. The only non-fire fairies here were Skye and her son.

"Nice to meet you all," she said, hiding her shock.

"Yes, nice to meet you," Ash echoed.

All eyes were suddenly on him. Ruby should have known this would happen. You can't take a vampire anywhere without getting weird looks.