Three hours of sleep.
That was all anyone got before the hotel room phones rang like alarms possessed by demons. Thane groaned, face-down in a pile of linens. Mark muttered something about needing a silver bullet — but for the phone. And Gabriel, somehow already half dressed and holding coffee, kicked the door open and shouted, “We’ve been summoned!”
“Back to hell?” Mark asked without opening his eyes.
“Worse,” Gabriel said. “Influencers.”
A luxury rooftop lounge. Panoramic views of Paris. The kind of place where champagne flowed like water and no one made eye contact unless it was through an Instagram filter. The whole pack had been invited — “high-profile social cross-promo,” the tour manager called it. “Good exposure.”
“You know what else is good exposure?” Cassie muttered as they shuffled out of the hotel van and up to the elevator. “Sunlight. But that’ll still kill a vampire.”
“I would take vampires over TikTokers,” Mark grumbled.
The rooftop was gleaming white marble and glass, covered in curated lounge spaces and ring lights. Dozens of perfectly dressed influencers swarmed the area, each more polished and nauseating than the last.
Thane’s ears went back the moment they stepped out into the crowd. Every head turned. Phones came out like daggers. One woman actually gasped and clutched her pearls — like a cartoon character.
“Oh. My. God.” a guy with ice-blond hair and a Gucci collar chain squealed. “Are they real? They look so real. Wait — are those, like, prosthetics?”
Gabriel rolled his eyes so hard they might’ve snapped something loose. “Sure, we glued on eight inches of fur and claws just to be quirky.”
A second influencer immediately tried to rub Thane’s bicep. “You’re, like, giving feral chic meets lumberjack daddy and I am here for it.”
Thane gave her a look that said, in no uncertain terms: Touch me again and I will end your influencer career using only a snarl and a hashtag.
Meanwhile, Rico and Maya were already sipping champagne with forced politeness. Jonah got cornered by someone trying to pitch a collab for a werewolf-themed skincare line. Emily looked like she was calculating how many steps it would take to hurl herself off the roof. Mark just stood by the elevator, arms crossed and growling whenever anyone got too close.
Then someone — some idiot — put a DJ on the corner of the patio. He spun up a remix of Feral Eclipse’s own track “Unleashed.”
Gabriel’s ears twitched.
“Oh no,” Thane said softly.
“OH YES!” Gabriel yelled, grabbing the mic from the stunned DJ. “If we’re doing this, we’re doing it right.”
What followed was twenty minutes of unhinged rooftop chaos. Gabriel led the crowd through an impromptu werewolf-themed dance workout, complete with howls. Jonah used champagne flutes as percussion. Cassie joined in just to make it louder. Mark took the mic once and told someone that using AI to sell protein powder made them morally bankrupt.
The crowd loved it. The internet loved it. By the time they finally escaped, the hashtag #BrunchWithWolves was trending across four countries.
Back in the van, hair ruffled and sanity frayed, Thane rubbed his face and said, “We’re never doing that again.”
“Until next time,” Gabriel said, leaning his head on Thane’s shoulder with a wicked grin.