104 How The Time Flies!

Ash and Vesper sat down at the table with everyone else as they ate so they could be a part of things. The little vampire was still in awe of seeing a water fairy for the first time and kept staring as his mother asked questions.

"So have you lived in Michigan long?"

Dylan took a sip of water to help his food go down and nodded. "My family has lived by Lake Huron for generations. These days we take care of the kelpies in our free time and run a campground to pay the bills.

"I met Flora when she was working as a park ranger to help maintain the trees nearby. Had no idea she was a fairy too until we ran into each other at the witch coven a few months later. The nearest one in that part of the country is in Toledo, Ohio so even though we were both wearing our glamours at the time it was pretty obvious since we had to drive for about two hours to get to a random health food store. We got to know each other from there."

Ruby smiled. "That's nice. How much family do you have living in the area?"

"Both of my parents…my younger brother…an aunt, her daughter, and her daughter's boyfriend. There are seven of us all together. Eight if you include Flora. My cousin and her boyfriend are actually both earth fairies too. He controls stone so I wasn't terribly surprised when Flora told me about you."

Ruby and Ash exchanged a glance. She was surprised; she had never heard of another fairy who controlled anything but plants or dirt before. But it did explain why Dylan didn't do a double take when he saw her without her glamour on.

Her husband spoke up. "An acquaintance of mine knew a stone fairy a long time ago. They're rare but not completely unheard of."

"Who was this?!"

"Ah, a witch from the coven in Las Vegas."

Ruby frowned. This must have been when he left her alone to have a long chat about his magic. The topic must have come up when he was curious about her ability to boost it. That idiot; why didn't he ever say anything? She had always thought she was the only one like this.

Flora joined the conversation for the first time in a while. "His name is Peter and his skin looks like granite. He has gray hair and eyes and his wings are like polished marble. Apparently his grandmother also had power over stone, isn't that cool?"

Amazing. He looked unconventional too and other fairies still accepted him. That was so different from Ruby's experience. Then again, it sounded like he was relatively uniform all over and didn't change the way she did.

"That is cool," she replied simply.

Vesper suddenly changed the topic by piping up. "Look, Flora! I finally got my fangs, see?"

He bared his teeth at her and showed off the tiny fangs beginning to poke through the gum. He had been so excited when he first spotted them because it meant he was on his way to being a proper vampire like his dad.

Flora decided to humor him. "Wow! Aren't you all grown up?"

He beamed at her. "Uh huh. Daddy says I'm getting really good at blood magic too. We've been practicing. Want to see?"

And just like that, Vesper dragged her away from the table to show her what he had been working on the second her food was done leaving the other three alone. Flora mouthed "sorry" at them as she allowed herself to be led away by her enthusiastic little cousin.

Ash laughed. "Well, he may look like me but he got your enthusiasm Ruby."

She retaliated by rolling her eyes. She wasn't nearly that energetic. "Sure. Whatever you say."

Dylan cleared his throat, drawing their attention back to him. He seemed a bit nervous but plowed on anyway. "Um…do you mind me asking how the two of you met? I don't mean to be rude! I was just curious because I've never heard of a fairy and a vampire getting married before."

He truly didn't seem disgusted, which was surprising. Perhaps the world had grown more tolerant while they had been hiding away. Or he was an odd one. Ruby couldn't be positive one way or the other.

"Do you know about Flora's parents?" she asked hesitantly.

If she had told her boyfriend about her rather bizarre foster family she might have explained how she came to live with them. But she also might have been too ashamed to mention her parents' roles in what happened.

Dylan sighed heavily. "Yeah. She told me they got killed for double crossing a vampire they tried to sell you to. That must have been really hard. So I guess I'm curious how you ended up with one anyway."

Ruby couldn't help but laugh. So straightforward! He was surprised by her reaction and she smiled at him.

"I didn't know who they were trying to sell me to; only that I had to run away. I ended up crashing right through a window in Ash's castle because it was hidden behind a partial blood barrier. I didn't even see it coming.

"He covered for me and shooed them away. We ended up striking a deal where I helped him pay to repair his castle in return for a place to stay while my wing recovered. That seems like it was a million years ago now, doesn't it?"

Ash reached out and squeezed her hand under the table. "Yeah, it does."

"How long have you been together?" Dylan asked.

Ruby had to think about it for a moment and do the mental math. "Let's see…I was a hundred fifty-six at the time so…a hundred sixty-two years now. How the time flies! We've only had Vesper with us for the past fifty-three. What about you?"

"Flora and I have only been together for twelve years. Almost thirteen though. A hundred sixty-two years together is impressive."

Ash grinned and held up his wrist to show off the double infinity symbol. "And still going strong."

Ruby smiled indulgently at him. After all this time he loved showing off those symbols even though nobody outside of their immediate family had been aware of who he was married to.