To Freeze Fire Ch. 08

'What happens to me, doesn't matter. Not as much as he does'

Just because they were trying to force her to wed a stranger, didn't mean she was going to give in so easily to their demands. She needed to know more about her fiancé, the brother of the man she had fallen for. According to her father, there were things at stake aside from her happiness. Peace. War. And it all seemed to hang in the balance, depending on this wedding.

"Where the hell did you take her?!" His hands were at his collar, tightening on his shirt as if he less than discreetly hoped it would become taunt enough to suffocate him. Which would be fine and well, after he answered his question.

When he had arrived, he didn't even have to even set a foot out of the truck to catch the scent. The foul stench of the man he now held in his grasp. Hot on the trail, he struggled to calm the fire that blazed within him. He didn't know how hot until, upon entering the strip club, someone behind him grabbed the handle he had just laid his hands on, on their way out.

"Jesus! Holy shit that handle just burned the piss out of me!" Michael's head had turned, to see a middle aged man grasping painfully at his hand, making him turn to his own, seeing a buddy of the guy laughing, making a comment about blood flow going to less important parts of his body.

He knew he had to calm down. Knowing the fact if they caught him setting things on fire, he would be ruined. Knowing didn't make it any easier. Especially when he spotted the man he was looking for. The man he strode over to, and pinned against a wall without stopping. A man he now hand lifted off the ground.

Jareth's gleaming smile, "Ah, would you look who it is. The legend returns. Why don't you take a seat, my friend, I buy you a lap dance from one of our...." he waved at one of the dancers who was eyeing them from the stage with a worried look, "...talented young lady friends here."

Feeling eyes on him from around the room, he lifted his enemy from the wall, and went out the nearby door. Outside, in the alley, and free from other eyes, he slammed up against the wall again.

"Take it easy." Jareth chuckled. "I've already had a few drinks, and I'm not in much of a fighting mood."

His jaw set, he felt his control slipping, the smell of heated cloth reaching his nose as he pulled Jareth towards him a couple of inches, only to slam him back into the wall. "I said, where did you take her?! Where is Mia?!"

When he didn't answer as fast as he would of liked, he slammed him into the wall again, this time, making his head whip back, and snap hard against the brick.

"Christ, Michael!" he exclaimed, as though they were just friends rough housing, and one of them had taken things just a bit too far, "I took her to her father."

It was as he had feared. This complicated things a bit. "Where?"

"Why does it matter?" He quipped, "I already got paid for bringing her back. There's no use of beating the living day lights out of me for stealing her. She was my bounty to start with. Besides the pay wasn't nearly what—"

"Where did you take her?" he asked again, trying his best not to kill the man who was begging for a death sentence for his past deeds alone. Like it or not, Michael needed him alive. For now.

"To the McLennan manor on 6th Avenue." Jareth seethed, "Big house, with a white picket fence. Can't miss it."

His hands, once like vice releases Jareth, who came stumbling to the ground. Feeling his anger take over, he drove his foot into his gut before he could pick himself up. "If you ever come close to her again, I swear to god, I will kill you myself. And promise you, it won't be quick, it would be very painful and slow."

Gathering a plan, he backed away from his enemy, leaving him in a tipsy stupor. As he turned to walk away, Jareth's laughter was like nails on a chalkboard, clawing at his insides, "It looks like the big bad vampire has a little crush on the half breed."

Before Jareth could blink, he was standing beside him again. He reached down for his shirt for something to grab onto, only this time, he climbed his way straight for his throat. Once there, he took his hands under his jaw, placing one behind his head, and snapped his neck.

'Great.' So much for that long and painful death he had just promised him.

Now he had to get rid of the body. And more importantly, he had to figure out a plan to get Mia out of here.