A/N: Hey guys! This is a little story I though up about Quil and Claire after reading the book Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater. It's really great and I recommend it to anyone, though there'll probably be a bit of a spoiler at the end of this story. Thanks for reading!

Disclaimer: I don't own Twilight or Shiver.

I stood in the doorway and watched Claire.

It was one of my favorite pastimes, really. It was one of my absolute favorite things to do, like blinking, or laughing. Even from this far away I could smell her.

Cinnamon, vanilla, the musky shampoo she used, her toothpaste, a touch of lavender, the chemical smell of her whitening strips and the ever-present scent of paper, the tangy black ink of the book she was holding.

She was sitting on her windowsill and hadn't realized I was there yet. With Claire so into a book like this, I could do a strip tease accompanied by a string quartet and a strobe light and she wouldn't notice.

I snorted quietly. Maybe not. At seventeen, her hormones got the best of her more often than not, which was really like living in hell, sometimes. Not being able to touch her the way I wanted, to kiss her as long as I needed. One more year I reminded myself. That's all until I could tell her everything. Have everything.

But for now I could watch. And I watched as her forehead crinkled, her brows furrowed, and her eyes began to shine. I wondered for a moment what she was reading to make her so mad, but then I smelled the fear, too, sadness, anger, until finally…

THWAP!

She threw the book with all her strength at the wall. It hit a cork-board with pictures of her and her friends on it, knocking it askew, before sliding down the wall and landing, crumpled, page-down.

My eyes flicked back to her. Her long black hair was hiding her face, and she was looking out the window at the falling snow. I smelled the salt from her tears.

I was beside her, instantly, scaring her. She let out a little scream when she felt my hand on her neck, then laughed when she saw it was me, despite her teary eyes.

"You scared me." She chuckled, wiping her eyes and moving her legs so I could sit down next to her. I did, and then hauled her into my lap so she was straddling my legs.

She lowered her head and her hair fell around me, filling my nose with her smell again.

"What's wrong?" I asked, noticing that she wasn't crying anymore, that the tears weren't actually falling. She ignored me and pressed her lips up against mine. The sweetness of it sent a burning rush through me, right below my ribs. I could feel the shaky adrenaline shoot through my wrists, making them feel weak and strong at the same time.

She opened her mouth on mine and the heat spiked higher. I heard her heartbeat speed up, felt her pulse where her hands were against my neck, sliding through my hair. She groaned.

"Claire?" I whispered into her. She nipped at my bottom lip, trying to distract me and almost succeeding. She groaned again as I grasped her hips and scooted her to perch on my knees, not out of reach, but farther away.

Her eyes were still closed. She inhaled deeply, and her eyes opened as she sighed the air out. She arched her left eyebrow at me, cocking her head.

"You totally just ruined that. We had a really nice moment-" I laughed out loud, cutting her off.

"Really nice? Maybe for you, who doesn't have to go phase in like an hour and share that 'nice moment' with Sam. He'll be delighted to know you're so enthusiastic with your tongue. Woa. What?"

Her eyes had tightened up and she had lifted her head to stare out the window. Her eyes snapped back to mine.

"You have patrol tonight?"

"It's a Tuesday." I nodded, still thrown off balance by something.

"Could you get someone to cover your shift for you? Just for tonight?" Her eyes pleaded into mine.

"Sure, sure." I said, pulling her head down to the crook of my shoulder. "Baby, what are you scared about? What's wrong? There haven't been any leeches around for months. I'm fine." That had to be what was wrong, right?

I felt her head shake "no" into my neck. She lifted her head.

"I just… let's stay in tonight? We can go to your place and I'll make you some dinner. We can rent a really bad horror movie." I was nodding before she was done with her sentence. Anything she wanted.

"Yeah, baby. Paul owes me, anyway. Why don't you go get you coat and we'll go?" she nodded back at me, sliding off my lap and jogging out the door. The smell of relief wafted off of her.

I watched her go, bewildered. What the hell was that? My eyes flickered over to the book she'd thrown, and I picked it up, glancing over the title before shoving it into my jacket pocket.

"Shiver" it said, the black words surrounded on the cover by bare vines and twigs.

Later, after Claire was gone home and I was sitting on my couch, I took the book out of my jacket and tossed it onto the coffee table, turning on the T.V. Something about the blue flickering lights caught the cover of the book, revealing something in the cover art I hadn't noticed at first.

A wolf.

I picked up the book and flipped the first page open, beginning to read.