Samael - POV
Finding their base wasn't easy. It took me two hours to reach it.
Two hours of slow movement through the forest.
The vampire I killed hadn't known about his gift, but he had relied on it constantly.
Because he left almost no trace behind.
Almost.
Before dying, he told me they used a small wooden house northwest in the forest as their base. No landmarks. Annoyingly vague, but not useless. As I pushed farther into their territory, the forest began whispering inconsistencies. A twig broken in the wrong direction. Soil compacted half a shade darker than it should be. Bark scraped lightly by careless fingers.
To most, it would be meaningless.
To me, it was a trail.
Instant Mastery didn't enhance my senses - it organised them. Every scent layered with distance and time. Every pressure mark translates into weight and speed. The forest stopped being scenery and became information.
For a moment, I almost laughed at myself for thinking I'd become some kind of bloodhound.
Bad comparison, but truth nonetheless...
Eventually, the house revealed itself between the trees, tucked away far enough that no casual human would ever stumble upon it. The kind of place chosen by predators who believe they are careful.
They were careful.
Just not careful enough.
I shifted into my lion form and lowered myself to the ground, muscles settling into patient stillness. My breathing slowed until it blended with the wind. Waiting does not bother me. When you are stronger than everything around you, time is rarely your enemy.
I waited.
Eventually, the door creaked open.
Two male vampires stepped out, alert but not alarmed. They moved into the forest, then slowed suddenly. One of them started to look around.
For a fraction of a second, I wondered if they had sensed me.
I stilled completely.
No. They were listening.
One of them muttered something about the forest being too quiet.
I nearly smiled - which, considering I currently had the head of a lion, probably looked less reassuring and more like the beginning of someone else's worst nightmare.
Apparently, when something large and predatory claims territory, the wildlife adjusts accordingly. Birds had gone silent. Small animals had retreated. The entire ecosystem had politely evacuated my immediate radius.
Then something far more interesting happened.
One of them vanished.
His presence dissolved into the environment. His intent thinned until it stopped registering as separate. If I hadn't been watching the exact space he occupied, I would have lost him entirely.
My pulse sharpened.
Now that was fantastic.
An ability like that meant freedom - the kind that would let me take to the sky on my own wings without worrying about cameras, satellites, or curious eyes tracking my shadow. If I wanted to move through this world, a gift of concealment like that wouldn't just be useful. It would be essential.
I wanted it.
That also means the bastard lied to me about no one in their coven having a gift - and I can't help but wonder how he even managed to think up a lie while he was in that state… though this really wasn't the right time to be dwelling on that.
I shifted forward slightly, testing distance.
The concealed vampire turned in my direction – I felt it rather than saw it. His instincts are sharp enough to taste the shift in air pressure.
Fine, I would take the other one first.
Absorbing something required focus. An interruption would be irritating.
So I adjusted, waiting for an opportunity to arrive.
And it did.
The vampire hesitated; that flicker of doubt caused the disguise to ripple for half a heartbeat.
That was enough.
He wasn't watching his friend.
He wasn't watching for me.
I launched as silently as I could.
The forest blurred. Air split around my body as muscle and mass converted into forward violence. One instant, I was hidden within shadow; the next, I had crossed three hundred meters and closed my jaws around him before his mind could process the threat.
The bite required no effort. His head separated cleanly.
I dropped the body.
The other vampire shouted his friend's name, panic cracking his composure.
Then he ran.
Wrong choice. He made it easy…
__________________
I began absorbing.
The power surged into me like liquid lightning, foreign structure integrating into my own.
After I finished, and there was nothing left of the body except a small pile of dust, I tried to activate the new power.
Instant Mastery took over immediately, refining, optimising, stripping inefficiencies. Within seconds, I was using it better than its original owner ever had.
I didn't become completely invisible, more like a blur.My presence faded into background noise, no distinct shape to grasp.Minds slid over me instead of locking on.
Given that I was large enough to uproot trees with a simple gesture, the irony was almost amusing.
I shifted back into human form and exhaled sharply.
"Fuck."
Naked.
Clothing does not survive transformation.
I again activated disguise and felt my presence soften instantly, edges blurring as though the world had stopped focusing on me. In human form, the ability was even better.
"At least this way, I could move without flashing my naked ass," I muttered with a quiet laugh.
When I returned to the first corpse, I found only a headless body cooling on the forest floor.
"…Right."
Of course he was dead.
I had removed the part most creatures require.
Curiosity pushed me to experiment anyway. I drove my claws into his chest and attempted absorption.
Nothing.
So memories required the head intact.
Lesson learned.
I moved to the house and searched it thoroughly, finding some jewellery stashed beneath loose floorboards and roughly thirty thousand in cash hidden inside a hollowed beam.
I burned the bodies.
Then I burned the house.
Flames devoured wood eagerly, smoke rising in thick columns that dispersed before reaching human notice. By the time I left, the forest was already reclaiming the space, shadows swallowing what little remained.
I began walking home.
Then stopped.
No, not yet.
There was something I had been suppressing for weeks.
A tension beneath the surface.
I let my wings unfold.
Feathers pushed free from my back with a deep, resonant sound, stretching wide and catching moonlight along pale silver edges. I flexed them slowly, feeling the immense strength coiled within each joint and fibre. They were not decorative. They were engineered for lift, for dominance of airspace.
Strong enough to tear through armoured steel.
Beautiful enough to worship.
The first wingbeat - the ground vanished.
Another beat.
Trees were shrinking beneath me. Wind rushed against my body, cool and sharp, but instead of resisting, it yielded - reshaping itself around my ascent.
Another.
The canopy became a dark, textured ocean beneath me.
And I was climbing to the night clouds.
My heart pounded - not from strain, but from something deeper.
Freedom.
I laughed, and the sound was torn away by the wind, scattered into the vastness around me.
This was what had been missing.
My eagle half had been caged.
I angled upward and pierced the cloud layer. Droplets kissed my skin and feathers. Mist swallowed me in a cool embrace before I broke through into open sky.
Above the clouds, the world transformed.
A silver sea stretched endlessly beneath me, illuminated by a vast, watchful moon. Clouds rolling like waves beneath me. The air was thinner, colder, but cleaner.
With my vision, night barely mattered. Every detail below was crisp, layered in texture and depth.
I hovered, then looked down.
The forest no longer resembled trees. It was a breathing organism. Beyond it, plains extended into darkness.
Farther still, clusters of light embedded in the land like constellations fallen to earth. Roads traced glowing lines through neighbourhoods. Neon signs flickered lazily. Here and there, a single window shone stubbornly against the night.
I focused.
From cloud height, I could zoom in effortlessly.
A man smoking on a balcony.
A couple arguing in a lit kitchen.
A teenager gaming alone in a dark room.
The brand logo on someone's jacket as they walked under a streetlamp.
But it didn't feel like spying.
It felt like observing a world I was no longer bound to.
After a while longer, I folded my wings and dove.
Air screamed past me as gravity embraced my body. Then I spread my wings wide and caught the current smoothly, converting speed into forward glide.
Hours passed in a rhythm of ascent and dive, thermals carrying me higher without effort. My wings never tired. My muscles never burned. It felt as though the sky recognised me.
As though I belonged here.
Eventually, the horizon softened.
Black shifted to deep blue. Blue to violet. Then a thin line of gold tore open the world.
Sunrise spilt across the clouds, turning them molten orange and pink. Cities below dimmed as artificial light surrendered to day.
It was perfect.
Until my stomach growled loudly enough to remind me what I was.
I laughed quietly.
Right.
Predator.
Even kings of the sky needed breakfast.
With one last lingering look at the awakening world below, I tilted my wings and descended toward home, carrying the lingering warmth of sunrise in my chest.
For the first time in both my lives-
I felt whole.