That night, Sam stayed in my bed again, chastely perched on the farthest edge of the mattress, but somehow, during the night, our bodies migrated together.
I half woke early in the morning, long before dawn, the room washed clean by pale moonlight, and found that I was pressed up against Sam’s back, my hands balled up to my chest like a mummy. I could just barely see the dark curve of his shoulder, and something about the shape it made, the gesture it suggested, filled me with a sort of fierce, awful affection. His body was warm and he smelled so good — like wolf, and trees, and home — that I buried my face in his shoulder and closed my eyes again. He made a soft noise and rolled his shoulders back against me, pressing closer.
Right before I drifted back to sleep again, my breathing slowing to match his, I had a brief, burning thought: I can’t live without this.
There had to be a cure.
