The sun was barely clearing the hills when the Feral Eclipse bus rumbled into Tucson. The venue was an open-air amphitheater tucked just outside the city—stonework seating, cactus-lined walkways, and a sound booth that looked like it had been carved into the side of a canyon.
The band stretched their legs after the drive, most of them bleary-eyed and in hoodies. Gabriel was halfway through his first cup of coffee, and Mark was already muttering something about dry heat and aggressive birds.
Thane stepped off the bus last, sunglasses already on, fur ruffled, tail flicking once as his clawed feet hit the concrete. He took a slow breath, scanning the space.
Quiet.
Too quiet.
Then, a golf cart zipped around the corner at full speed.
“Um… Thane?” Emily called from beside the loading dock. “We’ve got incoming.”
The golf cart skidded to a stop right in front of them, and the driver—an absolutely fearless, silver-haired woman in a homemade Feral Eclipse tour shirt—hopped out with the kind of spry bounce usually reserved for twenty-year-olds at a music festival.
She looked about seventy. Maybe older. White sneakers. Big rhinestone sunglasses. A button that read “Team Gabriel (Since 2022)” pinned to her shirt.
“Hello, boys,” she said sweetly. “You must be the pack.”
Thane blinked. “Ma’am… can we help you?”
“Oh, I don’t need help,” she said brightly. “I need a selfie.”
Then she pulled a phone the size of a paperback out of her purse and tried to climb Thane like a jungle gym.
“Ma’am —!”
“I’m a retired firefighter! I’m very spry!”
Thane instinctively caught her mid-scramble by the waist and lowered her back down like a toddler being redirected from the cookie jar.
Gabriel was wheezing from behind a speaker stack. “She’s climbing him! SHE’S LITERALLY CLIMBING HIM!”
Maya had to duck behind a flight case to hide her laughter. Mark just stood nearby, arms crossed, staring into the middle distance like he had ascended to a higher plane of “I’m not dealing with this.”
“Look,” the woman huffed, adjusting her sunglasses. “I waited in line three hours yesterday to buy a foam paw with your logo on it. And I brought my grandson. He bailed halfway through. I told him, Nana’s not leaving ‘til she howls with a werewolf.”
Cassie took a sip of her iced tea and smirked. “That’s the kind of fan I wanna be at 70.”
Thane sighed, then crouched slightly and held up one clawed hand. “One selfie. No climbing. No autographs on body parts.”
She squealed in delight, pressed herself under his arm, and somehow got the camera angle just right without even checking.
Snap. Done.
Before she left, she patted Thane’s arm and said, “Your fur’s lovely. You remind me of my third husband. Strong but broody.”
Then she winked and sped off in the golf cart like a senior citizen bat out of hell.
The silence was long.
Mark finally said, “We need an age limit.”
Jonah nodded slowly. “We definitely do not.”