Shadow Court

Chapter 1

Murphy's Convenient Store
     "Get off me!" the short girl yelled as a man grabbed her wrist when she walked out the back door of Murphy's convenient store. Ironic how the least convenient situations happened at convenient stores. He slid a hand over her mouth to muffle her screams. She struggled in his grasp, trying to escape. The feeling of not being able to protect yourself was the only thing she wouldn't wish on anyone.
    "Ssh, little girl, if you're quiet, we'll go easy on you," she kicked, clawed, and bit, but he just wouldn't let go. She felt another pair of hands grab her legs. They laid her on the ground and held her down.
    "Get off of me!" she choked out, fighting through hands and her own tears. There was the sound of ripping clothes and she knew she wasn't going to be able to get out of this.
After a long time of the torture, she blacked out, only to wake up and find them standing by her, each smoking a cigarette. "Ah look, little girl is awake!" one guy punched the other in the arm.
    "Think she's ready for round two?" the other man asked. The girl struggled, she felt that she was bleeding on the lower half of her body. The men reached down for her, trying to pin her to the cold, hard concrete. She felt her heart race and she went blind with rage. The next thing she knew, the men were running away, fire trailing behind them. She laid her weary head back down on the ground. Not even questioning where the fire came from.
    Trying to get up was a fruitless attempt, her body was too woozy from the loss of blood and her legs just weren't working. There was also the other factor, she had no idea what she'd do if she got up. "Help!" her voice was sore and her breath made airy clouds in the cold air, "Help!" On her millionth help, a bright red Mustang pulled into the lot and a boy got out.
    She heard footsteps rush towards her, "Are you okay?" The boy had an accent from what she could hear.
    "Does it look like I'm okay?" she said through a concealed sob and clenched teeth. He pulled off his big overcoat and started wrapping her in it, a very gentlemanly thing to do, "What are you doing?"
    "I'm covering you up so I can get you to the hospital without hypothermia," he said, picking her bridal style.
    "I can do this myself," she said as he placed her carefully into the passenger seat and buckling her in.
    "Ah yes, from your cries of help I could totally see that you were capable of helping yourself," he said, "And your name is?"
    "Harley Bishoppe," she was getting lightheaded by the second, feeling herself losing blood. She closed her eyes, only for a second, to fell herself jolted awake by the starting of a car.
    "Alright, you are not going to fall asleep on me, because when you fall asleep, you die- I've watched enough General Hospital and Grey's Anatomy to know that. I'm Rowan, well, Rowan Hughes the fourth, but I just like Rowan," he said, driving as fast as he could, "Like Queen Mab's knight. She's the faerie queen in some book I read, my mother loved the book so she named me after him."
    The girl struggled to keep her eyes open, scared that she would die if she closed them. But, the other part of her was saying that her pain would just go away once she died and maybe she could live again, but in a different world. She felt the car take a sharp turn and it stopped. Rowan ran to her side of the car and lifted her out of it.
    "C'mon Harley, stay awake," her eyes could no longer keep themselves open.

    Rowan didn't know that when he took his breaking down candy red apply 1970 Mustang out for a spin that he would save a girl's life, but he was glad he did. She was almost dead by the time he got her to the ER. He made her stay awake, praying that she would stay alive, he just couldn't let her die. He had known a lot of people who had died, but he wanted to save at least one from that fate.
    He was a young boy, about nineteen in human eyes, in all reality  he was over hundreds of years old, but no one knew it. Rowan was one of the greatest warriors that ever existed, in the Fae world, people told stories about him over campfires, books were written about him in the human world, making him immortal. What he had told Harley was slightly true, he was Queen Mab's Knight, just not named after him.
    He stayed at the hospital, of course, and called his mother, told her what had happened. She said she was going to drive over to the hospital with some stuff for the girl. His mother wasn't his real mom, but for the past couple years she was. His "mother" was a part of the Unseelie court, sent by his family to protect him in the world where his Mist and glamour were weaker.
    A nurse came out, "She's stable, you can go see her now if you would like to." Rowan just nodded and walked to her room. The nurse did a once over on him and smiled to herself.
    Anyone would say that Rowan was attractive. With neatly cropped black hair and startling gray eyes, and a smirk that girls had talked about for the past few centuries. Anyone would say he was a charmer, well, not anyone, but any person he had once charmed. He even had a young face, but that wasn't something he was proud of, most warriors had older faces to go along with their stories.
    "Wow, you stayed," Harley said when he walked in. She looked pale and had an IV stuck into her vein. The rooms smelled of antiseptic and death, and especially, iron. The smell of iron always got to him, making him weaker, making him want to crumple and writhe on the floor, like it did to all Fae.
   "Yeah, I just wanted to make sure you're okay. Do you want me to call any family?" he asked. He grabbed one of the plastic chairs and pulled it close to her bed so he could sit by her.
    "There's no one to call," her voice was flat, no emotion in it, something he had mastered years ago, "I live alone, my parents left two years ago, just went to the store and never came back. I'll be fine, you go home. I'll just check myself out, they don't ask questions here."
    "Ha ha," he had the same flat voice that she did, "my mother's coming, she's going to get some stuff and then we'll stay here until you're better."
    "Why do you even care?" Harley sounded annoyed with him, he didn't know why, he was just being nice.
    "You were raped and then left to die, if you're not going to care, then I will," Rowan hadn't worried about someone like this in many years, but now he felt it. The yearning for them to get better, he just wanted to use some of his magic- well magic being the light term for it- and make her feel better. But, that would put a spike on the radar he was trying to keep down.    
    "You shouldn't care, most people would've either left me to die or would've dropped me off outside of the hospital, hoping someone would find me," she said, crossing her arms and closing her eyes. Rowan felt a gentle hand on his shoulder. He looked up and saw Isabella, his mother for the time being. She smiled down at him, her raven hair pulled up into a ponytail and looked put together as she always did. If Rowan had to say he cared for anyone, it would be her. This woman had raised him better than his own mother did. Well, the only woman he had called a mother left when he was three. But, Queen Mab did give him twenty-nine lashes for almost getting killed once, he had scars to prove it. That sounds motherly in abusive sorts of the word.
    "Oh, you must be Harley, I guess you're not feeling great, I brought you some clothes," Isabella said. Rowan gave himself a small smile, she always knew the right thing to do. But, he didn't know where she would've gotten the clothing.
    "Ma'am, thank you, but you really don't need to- oh," Harley groaned, Rowan lurched in his chair but immediately sat down, composing himself, "Could one of you get a nurse? I really need some drugs." Rowan immediately got out of his chair and walked into the hall, looking for a nurse.

    Isabella Morfryn knew a secret about Rowan that he would never know. She was the child of Lord Madoc, one of the rulers of the Unseelie Court, and she was sent by Queen Maeve- who also goes by Queen Mab- to protect Rowan from any harm from the Shadow Court. Rowan just thought she was a midwife that had been taking care of him since he was little. But Rowan Briartwig was a threat to the Shadow Court, the only court that the Unseelie Court and the Seelie Court would never go near.
    But, now it was time for her to be human, so she adjusted her skirt and gave Harley the most dazzling smile she could, "How are you? Psychologically I mean." She tilted her head to get a better look at the girl. She had brown, almost black eyes, and full lips, with choppy black hair that landed in the middle of her neck. She was beautiful, more of an urban beauty than anything, like nothing she had ever seen in Tir Na Nog.
    "Psychologically? Well, it hasn't kicked in yet. But I can't close my eyes without seeing their faces and I'm starting to remember what happened while I blacked out, which sucks," the girl rested her head back into her pillow and stared at the ceiling. Isabella sniffed the air and smelled something familiar, but she couldn't place it. The iron was interfering with her Fae abilities.
    "Oh honey, I am so sorry, the nurse said you'll be out in close to three days, after that we can take you home?" she felt bad for the girl, she's never been through something like that before. Well, Satyrs had tried to do something like that before to her, but it ended up not working well for them because someone from the Summer court- AKA the Seelie Court- had heard her screams and had burnt the Satyrs to the ground.
    "Oh, yeah, home," the girl sounded uncertain about the word home, like she never really knew it.
    "Do you need me to call your parents? Have them come here?" Isabella asked, her father would have healed her by now if she had ever been hurt like this.
    "I don't have parents," the girl's voice was emotionless, "they left, you can leave too. We live in big city New York, they don't ask questions. I can really just check myself ou-ow! Dammit where is that nurse?" Her face was twisted up in a controlled pain. Isabella could hear her taking deep breaths in and out.
    "Very sorry we took so long," Isabella heard Rowan come into the room, "It was my entire fault, I didn't mean to quote Star Wars, it just happened." Star Wars was one of the only human movies Rowan had seen, so it was the only movies he ever quoted.
    "Okay, sweets, we're just going to give you a few CCs of Dilaudid,  it will give you a warm feeling in your stomach but, you'll feel completely better after that," the nurse injected some liquid into her IV and Harley physically relaxed.
    Isabella looked at Rowan's face contorted with worry and she knew something bad was going to happen in the near future, she could feel it.