The Manticore’s Fire by SJ Sanders

The world is filled with the threat of monsters and other worldly beings, and Abby Sinclaire knows she can become a monster-hunter extraordinaire if given the opportunity. Despite her training and being raised within a family of hunters, she is denied the opportunity to hunt at every corner. When the opportunity to prove herself, and the coin offered is too great to resist, she finally sees her chance even if she’s not yet technically a member of the hunter’s guild. Her employer is less than trustworthy but it seems like easy enough coin—all she needs to do is slay the manticore that has been raiding the desert caravans. when she is offered a job to slay a manticore. But no one warned her that a manticore wasn’t just any monster.
When she becomes the one who is hunted and captured, it is not her life but her heart that she risks losing… and perhaps her own humanity. Who is the monster and who is the man? And is there a monster lurking within her, too?

This story was originally published in Monsters in Love: Lost in the Fire and has been expanded from the 21k original short story to 53k words.