Getting back to the hotel was like trying to flee a battlefield made entirely of fan selfies, glitter signs, and security tape. The band barely made it to the waiting vans before being mobbed in the alley behind the Amsterdam venue, with Mark practically growling at a group of teenagers who had somehow found time to paint “MARRY ME, CASSIE!” across the windshield in fluorescent nail polish. The only thing louder than the chants of “COOKIE WOLF!” was Gabriel himself, still draped in his post-show robe, trying to sign someone’s baby with a sharpie while Thane bodily dragged him into the vehicle by the scruff.
The hotel lobby was no better.
Word had clearly gotten out.
Dozens of fans were packed shoulder-to-shoulder inside the marble-floored entrance, pressed up against velvet ropes and visibly vibrating. Security staff were red-faced and overwhelmed, whispering furiously into radios while the elevator dinged like it was on the edge of a breakdown.
The moment the elevator doors opened, chaos exploded.
Shrieking. Crying. Phones in the air. One girl fainted at the mere sight of Jonah, who caught her mid-collapse and accidentally dropped his phone in the process. A very determined boy wearing full-body werewolf pajamas tried to hand Gabriel a box of cookies — which Thane intercepted with extreme prejudice and promptly handed off to Mark like radioactive waste.
Rico and Cassie were signing shirts as they walked. Maya had her hood up and her head down, but was still grinning. Thane, jaw clenched and eyes flicking like a security drone, kept the group tight and focused.
“Go. Go. Do not stop. No autographs. Get upstairs before we end up signing the furniture,” he growled.
Gabriel, delightfully unhelpful, grinned as the elevator doors closed behind them and growled, “They love us.”
Mark crossed his arms. “They’re one sugar cookie away from trying to chew through the glass.”
Upstairs, the luxury suite floor was — mercifully — quiet. The moment keycards were swiped and doors opened, everyone seemed to collectively exhale.
Thane walked into his room, dropped his backpack, locked the door, then fell face-first onto the bed with a muffled groan.
Gabriel, in the next room over, finally peeled off his robe and crawled under the covers like a burrowing animal.
Mark, after triple-checking the lock, turned off the lights, yanked the blackout curtains closed, and sighed into the darkness.
Somewhere across the hallway, Jonah had already passed out mid-text on the couch, and Emily, still buzzing from the night, was curled up in an armchair beside the window watching Amsterdam sparkle below like a living constellation.
Even in a city that never seemed to sleep, the Feral Eclipse pack finally, finally did.
The flight to Oklahoma City was in the morning.
But tonight — this very last night on European soil — they slept like wolves who had run long, played hard, and left every single stage howling their name.