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CONNOR

T he lights flash on at six am—same time as always but I’ve been awake since five. I’m sitting on the side of my bunk, blinking in the overhead fluorescents that bathe my cell in harsh white light.

It’s just another day in prison.

Across from me I see my image in the flat, scratched metal plate that serves as a kind of mirror welded to the toilet/sink combo. A tall man with pale gray eyes and longish dark brown hair stares back. They shave your head when you first come in, but I’ve had three long years to grow it back, so I did because why the fuck not?

There’s an ugly scar from my left eyebrow down to my left cheekbone, courtesy of another inmate who had a box cutter with a blade that had been dipped in silver. How he smuggled it in, I don’t fucking know but it was damn effective—he barely missed my eye. Silver wounds don’t heal cleanly for a Were , so I’m stuck with the scar for life.

The man staring back at me is unrecognizable as the one who first came to Briarcliff Maximum Correctional . Prison hardens you. It’s not just the tattoos that mark you as someone who’s spent time on the inside. It’s the wary, dangerous look in your eyes—the same expression a cornered wolf gets right before it rips out someone’s throat.

It’s hard to see myself like this, but I have to be honest. This is me now. Nobody looking at the brooding, scarred, tattooed man in the mirror would mistake me for the heir to the Lowell fortune. But here we are.

My private introspection is interrupted by the clomp of the guard’s boots and the jingle of keys as, one by one, the cells are opened. I hear the groans and grunts and angry mumbling of the fifty other men in Cellblock C —the maximum security block for Rogue Alphas —as they start to wake up and make their way through another day.

But it’s not really just another day—not for me. For me, today is the last day in this hellhole. The last time I’ll stand in line at the chow hall and get a tray filled with the disgusting, inedible slop that passes for food here. Meat rock, anyone? Or how about a nice slice of nutri-loaf?

It’s the last time I’ll work in the prison woodworking shop, the last time I’ll go out to the yard and lift, trying to avoid the inevitable fights that always break out because some stupid fucker has a beef with some other stupid fucker and they think they have to throw hands to settle it.

It’s the last time I’ll take a shower with twenty other men, watching my back the whole time. The last time I’ll have to sleep with one eye open—though honestly, since I got moved to a two-man cell that locks at night, that part has been a little better.

Not because my cell mate is a saint—quite the opposite. I’m pretty sure that Kane Black is a sociopath—which isn’t unusual for a Rogue Alpha . We got into it exactly once when I first moved in here. The minute he found out I can hold my own, he left me alone, which suits me fucking fine.

We don’t even talk, my cellmate and me and I certainly wouldn’t call us “friends” but without even knowing it, Kane has kept me going for the past two years—or at least, his connections have.

Speaking of my bunkie, he’s still snoring in the upper bunk, dead to the world. He prefers to sleep through breakfast and then steal several other inmates’ lunches to make up his calorie deficit later. He’s one of the few people in here who doesn’t have a job—he’s the head of a trafficking ring in the outside world and he still has enough pull to keep his prison canteen card full. He’s not hurting for money, so why work?

To be clear, I’m not hurting for money either, but I couldn’t hang around the cellblock all day— I’d go fucking crazy. So I’ve always had a job in prison. First it was the kitchen—you have to get up at 4am to start your shift in there. And then, once I got into the two-man cell, I moved to the woodworking shop so I could sleep in.

But of course, you never get really good, deep sleep in prison—you never know when you might have a shank with your name on it. Looking at someone wrong is enough to get you poked— I can attest to that, having been on the wrong end of a homemade shiv once or twice myself. It’s a damn good thing we Weres heal quickly or I’d be dead right now.

That’s another last—the last time I have to worry about getting stabbed in my sleep. Won’t that be fucking nice? I think so, anyway.

The guard reaches me at last, unlocking the door to the cell as he calls my name and Kane’s .

“Connor Lowell and Kane Black !” he bawls, like I’m not sitting right there on my bunk, looking at him.

“Here,” I said for both of us. It’s the morning count—the first of many. We get counted throughout the day to make sure no one has escaped. I get a little shiver down my spine when I realize that this is my last morning count—tomorrow they can call my name all they want, I won’t fucking be here.

The guard moves on and Kane farts and rolls over in his bunk with a loud creaking of the metal springs. I barely even notice. He’s still asleep—that’s what counts. Which means it’s safe to look.

Reaching under my own bunk, I pull out a folded envelope. I have time to read it over a few more times before I have to report to the prison office so they can process my release.

I take the letter out of the envelope— I’ve read it so many times it’s worn and creased but the words, written in a round, feminine handwriting, are still legible.

Dear Kane , (it reads)

I can’t tell you how excited I am to hear you’re finally getting out! See — I knew you could make it. I had faith in you and it paid off. I’m so proud of my big brother!

I know we haven’t seen each other since you were ten and I was three, but I hope you can make some time to stop by once you get out. I’m not that far from you and maybe I could help you get on your feet again. I’ve heard it can be hard for people getting out of the prison system to adjust to life on the “outside” and I’d really like to be there for you if you’ll let me.

These past two years have been amazing. You’ve been out of my life for so long but I feel like we’ve really reconnected ever since you started answering my letters. I want you to know how much your support has meant to me. Thank you for reading my letters and writing back— I’m so glad we finally got to know each other. Even though I have no idea what you look like, I feel so close to you. I’ve told you things I would never dare to say to another living soul and you never judge me—thank you for that!

Well, things are getting busy in The Pie Shop now, so I have to run. I don’t have anything else to say except I love you and I want to see you! Stop in and I’ll give you a piece of my famous Strawberry Streusel pie and a big hug for my big brother.

Your baby sister,

Sunny.

PS—here’s the picture you asked for. What do you think of our new uniforms?

I read the letter twice more and look at the photograph she included. A beautiful young woman with warm amber eyes and shoulder-length black hair drawn up in a ponytail smiles back at me. She’s wearing a powder blue waitress uniform with a cute, frilly white apron. There are freckles across her pert little nose and she’s curvy in all the right places.

Extra curvy, to tell the truth, but that’s exactly how I like my women. I’m a big guy—6’6” with muscles to spare after working out every damn day for the past three years— I don’t want to be with some frail little thing I’m afraid I might break. Give me a girl with thick thighs and a heart-shaped ass over the stick-thin supermodel type every day of the week.

Sunny Young —(she and Kane had different fathers but the same mother, hence the different last name)—is everything I could ever want in a woman. She’s sweet and kind and thoughtful and beautiful and her letters have been keeping me going for the past two years. It’s a damn good thing I’m getting out today because Kane is getting out soon too. Without him here, I wouldn’t get any more letters from my beautiful Sunny .

Not that I’ll be dating my cellmate’s little sister anytime soon, no matter how adorable she is. I don’t even know how I started writing to her and pretending to be Kane in the first place.

Oh Hell , yes I do. I know what got me going. I happened to find a crumpled envelope in the trash about a week after I first moved into Kane’s cell. He was out in the yard and I was taking some time for a rare moment of privacy—something that’s in very fucking short supply in prison.

I had nothing else to do so I picked the letter out of the trash. It was addressed to Kane in round, flowing handwriting that made it obvious the sender was a woman. But he hadn’t even bothered to open the envelope before he crumpled it up and threw it away.

I’m not normally the nosey type but for some reason this letter caught my eye. Maybe it was the cute Snoopy stamp she used or just the way her handwriting looped over the creamy white paper. There was something hopeful about it.

Looking around to see that no one was watching, I opened it and read my very first Sunny letter.

It was addressed to “my big brother” and contained a lot of gossipy news about Sunny’s hometown, her boyfriend, the diner she worked at called The Pie Shop , and how she was trying to remodel the kitchen in the house their mother had left her when she died. ( Apparently Kane’s father got custody of him when the two of them split which isn’t unusual in the Were world. It’s believed that a boy needs his father to train him to be a successful Alpha more than he needs his mother to care for him in our culture.)

The whole letter was written in a sweet, intimate tone that almost felt like someone writing in a diary, as though Sunny was just writing for her own satisfaction, with no expectation of a replay. But at the very end she said,

I know you never answer these letters, but I’m not going to give up on you, Big Brother ! I want you to know that someone on the outside is rooting for you and loves you. Please be safe and know that I’m praying for you every night. I hope someday you’ll write back but until then, I’ll keep sending you all my love and hugs,

Your baby sister,

Sunny.

That damn letter got to me. It sounded like maybe Sunny had been writing to her big brother for years but Kane was too much of a sociopathic asshole to even answer a single letter. It made me fucking angry—she sounded so sweet and kind and vulnerable—she just wanted her big brother to love her.

It also reminded me of my own little sister, who I lost before I went into prison. Bethany and I had always been close and I still missed her. If she’d still been alive, I knew she would have been writing me letters just like Sunny was writing to Kane .

Before I knew it, I found myself composing a letter back to her in my head. Prison is fucking boring—it’s the same damn thing day after day after month after year. Anything new or interesting makes a huge positive difference in your life. And Sunny’s chatty little letter did that for me.

I somehow convinced myself it was okay to write back to her, pretending to be Kane . I mean, I considered letting her know I was Kane’s cellmate instead, but I was afraid I’d scare her.

How would it look, having some strange inmate writing to her from prison? Some scary guy who stole the letter she wrote to her big brother and read all her private thoughts? Pretty fucking creepy—that’s how it would look. So I decided just to write back as Kane .

Sunny’s next letter was much longer and more involved. She was thrilled that her “big brother” was finally writing back after years of trying to get in touch with him. I had been right—she’d been carrying on a one-way correspondence with Kane ever since she’d tracked him down in the prison system years ago and he’d been ignoring her weekly letters for just as long as she’d been writing.

I had intended to only write back once— I swear that’s true. But her second letter got me hooked. She mentioned gossipy little details of her life and painted a picture of the small town she lived in and the diner she worked at so vividly, I could almost see it all in my mind.

I was starved for any little bit of affection— I heard from Branson regularly, but he’s my business manager and he’s not about to send me cute little notes to brighten my life. That’s not his job.

It wasn’t my job to write back to Sunny either, but I couldn’t help myself. She started asking my opinion about things in her life—asking my advice. She sent me pictures and in every one she looked so fucking adorable—so sweet and innocent—everything I knew I should avoid because I’d just fuck it up.

I told myself I’d stop writing. But every time I saw a new envelope with Sunny’s round handwriting in the trash, I felt like a moth being drawn to a flame. I literally could not fucking resist. Every letter was like a ray of light piercing the gloom of my dark, ugly prison cell.

Before I started corresponding with her, I saw no reason to go on. It’s not exaggerating to say that she gave me a reason to live. How could I ever give that up?

So that’s why I’ve been writing to my cellmate’s little sister for the past two years, pretending to be him and the reason I’m planning something I know I shouldn’t even be considering now that it’s time for my release.

Even though I know it’s fucking wrong, I want to go see Sunny in person.