All Chapters of CHASING MONSTERS: Chapter 41 - Chapter 50

Pandora's povThe limousine purred along the dark road, its leather seats swallowing me in soft luxury. I crossed my legs deliberately, letting my short skirt ride up just enough to remind Lucian who sat beside him. His woman. That thought alone made me smirk.Lucian’s hand, heavy and cold, rested on my thigh. He didn’t look at me—his eyes were fixed ahead, his mind already calculating, plotting the meeting to come. But I didn’t need his attention tonight. I only needed his arm. When we arrived at the gathering of Hunters, the most powerful men and women in the world, they would see me clinging to it. They would see me chosen.I tilted my head and touched my hair, glossy waves cascading just as I’d styled it. “We’ll be the center of the room,” I murmured.Lucian finally looked at me. His eyes, sharp as broken glass, didn’t soften. “We will,” he said. “Because of me.”His words should have cut, but I smiled anyway. Power was power, and tonight it would reflect on me like sunlight on gl

The world was new.Every scent, every sound, every flicker of movement felt sharper, clearer, alive in a way I had never known. The pine trees whispered secrets through the night air, and I could smell the smoke of the bonfire, the musk of wolves around me, even the sweetness of earth after the dew.Knowing I had support family, around to share this joy made it even more blissful. My paws pressed into the soil, and I swore I could feel the heartbeat of the forest itself.I had been reborn.Into my own worst enemy.The Ice Queen was gone.The Ice Wolf stood in her place.Shift back, came a voice in my mind—Samuel’s. His tone was steady, calm, carrying the weight of the Alpha. You must picture yourself as human again. Pull the wolf inside, don’t fight it. It will hurt, but it will come.For a moment, I panicked. How could I return? But then, closing my eyes, I remembered who I was—Sophie, daughter, granddaughter, hunter, prisoner. And now… wolf.The pain came like fire, bones snapping ba

The library was older than the Kingdom itself, or so they said. Stone walls lined with shelves upon shelves of leather-bound tomes, the scent of dust and ink thick in the air. I had always preferred the training grounds to books, but tonight my instincts dragged me here.I needed answers.The words of the healers wouldn’t leave my head. Ice wolf. Fire wolf. Earth and air. Wolves of the old bloodlines, long thought gone. The King himself, a fire wolf. Sophie… something else entirely.I trailed my fingers along the cracked spines until I found a volume marked with faded glyphs. Opening it, I skimmed pages yellowed with age until I found the passage I sought."The Great Wolves of the North bore four lines. Fire, Ice, Earth, and Air. Each blessed, each cursed. Rare beyond measure, their coats shimmered with the power of their element. Few survive the turning; fewer still pass the blood down. Legends whisper that when Fire and Ice cross paths, the world trembles."I snapped the book shut,

The King woke uneasy. Homesick—not for stone walls or his throne, but for something harder to name.As a child he had been hidden away, kept safe by the mages after his parents’ deaths. The last Lycans, slaughtered by Hunters. He’d been raised among smoke and spellcraft, deep in the shadow of secrecy. The mages had cloaked him in enchantments, taught him control of fire that burned through his blood, and ensured no Hunter would sniff out his existence.But despite their magic, his life then had been simple. No gold crowns. No servants rushing at his beck and call. He’d known hunger, he’d known hard work, and he’d known the value of family in the households that secretly sheltered him when the mages deemed it safe to hide him among the ordinary. He had played with pups, eaten plain bread, laughed by a fire that belonged to someone else’s hearth. For years, he’d lived among wolves who thought him no different than their own.And now, standing in the modest courtyard of a packhouse, that

SophieThe cottage smelled of dust and pine, the air heavy with stillness. Sunlight spilled through the small, square windows, painting bars of gold across the floor. I had scrubbed the hearth until my arms ached, and now I was polishing shelves that hadn’t known a cloth in years.The house was full of ghosts.My hand stilled when I found the painted handprints near the doorframe. My mother’s delicate palm, my father’s broad one, and between them—tiny, crooked smudges. Mine. I traced them with my finger, heart hammering, the memory of laughter brushing the back of my mind.Behind the door, guards shifted in the dirt, their boots crunching. Loyal. Watching. I had been told this was safety. Still, I shivered.A noise outside—a branch snapping, too sharp. My breath caught. I turned toward the door, throat tight, eyes on the shadow that lingered against the crack beneath it.The forest seemed to hold its breath.The KingThe late afternoon light slanted long across the borders, the scent