Loch & Key (Miracle: Salvation Isle #7)

6. CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 6

“I said get up and get back to work.” One of the guards yelled while waving the gun he had trained on them to keep them from doing anything but what was ordered of them.

Aban’s jaw clenched in rage at the thought of being forced to follow their direction. He may not have been one to typically fight, yet he also wasn’t someone who just did whatever he was told, either.

His parents used to throw their hands up at him when he questioned pretty much everything, including his chores. He’d never found it fair that he had to do the harder manual labor while his two sisters got to do things like baking or cleaning the house. Talk about easy. He’d have quickly done those chores compared to shoveling sand from their driveway after a storm or digging holes to plant trees.

Hell, just carrying those damn trees was exhausting, especially as he watched his sisters inside, dancing around without a care in the world. It had been one reason he spent so much time in the air.

Not that he blamed his sisters, because he didn’t. It had more to do with his father’s inability to accept that Aban loved to bake. It wasn’t his job by any stretch of the imagination, mostly because he’d been certain if he had opened his own bakery, his father would have had a heart attack. But it was a hobby he refused to give up. His greatest passion.

Ever since he’d moved so far north from his family, Aban had considered opening a bakery. His father would never know. The biggest problem would have been his inability to fly. Something that he craved even more than the chance to bake.

He couldn’t quite explain his need to soar through the clouds for months on end, but it was there, driving him to shift into his feathers and take flight. Some of him wondered if it had more to do with him being a bird shifter or the desire to get as far from his family as possible.

He suspected the latter since most bird shifters he knew, even those who were also Albatross, didn’t seem to care one way or the other. He would have thought all Albatross shifters would spend months soaring through the skies as their animal counterparts often did, but that hadn’t been the case. Instead, they took after their human side by working most days and forming a family.

He let out a snort of derision as he lifted another rock from one of the aquatic shifters. These shifters were forced to use their animal and human forms to swim deep underwater to dig up the tin deposits the humans had found.

Thankfully, with all the ship's noise, no one had heard him. Not that anyone would care one way or another. He was stuck on this stupid ship with a cuff around his ankle, stopping him from shifting. The humans thought it hilarious that the shifters were forced to do their bidding. Aban…not so much.

It was likely why they had paid little attention to the growls often sent their way. Shifters were known as violent and unforgiving when it came to one of their own doing wrong. But someone hurting a family member? They might have been hindered at the moment to defend themselves or their families, but it only took a second for a shifter to take advantage of a situation and retaliate.

That was what Aban had been waiting for. Just one second of incompetence and he’d shift and be airborne before anyone even realized what had happened. There was zero doubt Saber and his fighters were nearby. He could smell them every once in a while on a breeze that blew their way. He also smelled his mate.

If only…

He shook his head. There was no point in wishing. The odds of him gaining his freedom to stop whatever they had planned were slim. Not that he objected to being saved, because he most definitely didn’t.

No. His problem had to do with who was going to save him. Not that he objected to an Omega saving an Alpha, because he… Okay, if he had to be totally honest, he found it a bit embarrassing that he was the Alpha needing to be saved, but he’d known plenty of Omegas who were not only capable of fighting but were far better than Aban had ever hoped to be.

This begged the question, then, what was his problem?

Aban hated the answer that popped into his head. It went against everything he’d ever believed in. That everyone, Alpha, Omega, Shifter, and human, should be treated the same. Yet, there he was, stupidly believing that as the Alpha, it should be him who could get free from some idiot humans because no Omega should put his life at risk.

Talk about being a selfish asshole. Aban was certain he’d have won the award for the category if there was one. Worse, he was certain, as his Omega was there with the others, they would hate Aban for thinking them too weak to help.

He was seriously an ass of epic proportions.

Maybe, if he were lucky, he’d never have to admit to his shortcomings. No. That would never work. Aban might have been a jerk for thinking the things he had, but he wasn’t a liar. There was no way in hell he’d pretend to be something he clearly wasn’t.

“Get back to work,” the guard who had been waving his gun around all day shouted at Aban.

It may have pissed him off that he’d been captured, but in a way, assuming he lived through it, maybe it was a good lesson for him in humility. Meaning he should have had some and not believed he was invincible.

That would be a good lesson for him to learn. But first, he had to find a way out of there without him-or his omega-dying.

He did not know what skills his Omega might possess, but he prayed—since he was with Saber’s team—it meant he knew how to handle himself. Then again, Aban wasn’t stupid. The Council was doing everything it could to stop the humans from capturing shifters in the first place. Unfortunately, that hadn’t stopped a damn thing.

In order to rescue as many shifters from captivity, it was entirely possible his mate had no experience in battle. Not that Saber and his mate, Chadwick, wouldn’t do everything possible to train each person under their command, but training and having a bullet pierce one’s flesh were two entirely different scenarios.

It was with that thought that pushed Aban to find a way off that island. If for no other reason than to save his mate from harm.