Free Angels & Sinners: The Motor City Edition by Melanie Harlow, Bethany Lopez, Breigh Forstner, Ashley Suzanne, Bethany Shaw, Cori Williams, D.M. Earl, Jennifer Fisch-Ferguson, Sara Mack, Shayne McClendon

parking lot before turning on the car and easing her way onto the road.
    “How was your date?” Marcia answered cheerfully.
    “Don’t even get me started,” Astrid groaned, checking her rearview mirror as she sighed in frustration into her phone.
    “Oh, come on, Astrid, you’re in Tuscany. There have to be some hot men,” Marcia said animatedly. Astrid could practically see her friend’s eyes roll as she said it.
    “It’s not the way they look that is the problem, Marcia,” Astrid stated. The last few dates she’d been on, the men had only been interested in one thing. And to think, she’d complained about how horny weremen were. It seemed that it didn’t matter whether they were human or were, they only had one thing on the brain. Sex. When she was younger it hadn’t been a big deal, but things were different now. She was ready to settle down to find a mate.
    Fat chance at that, Astrid. If you wanted a mate, you should have stayed in the pack, and mated to Killian as planned. She shuddered at the thought.
    “Well, maybe, we should both accept the fact that men are just pigs,” Marcia said a tinge of anger in her voice.
    “What happened?” Astrid asked. Marcia had been having as much bad luck in the relationship department as she was.
    “I broke up with Dean,” Marcia sighed. “We were talking about your failed date. Not my failed love life. What happened?”
    “I don’t know, something about him just didn’t set well. He kind of gave me the creeps,” Astrid said as she turned onto her street. She flipped her signal on and went to maneuver into her regular spot. “Great,” she yelled out frustrated. “Some idiot in a BMW is in my parking spot. Looks like whoever my neighbor is, they finally decided to come home.”
    Marcia snorted into the phone. “You’ve lived there for months Astrid; you’ve never ran into your neighbor?”
    “No, the place is practically abandoned,” Astrid said. Finding another parking spot, she pulled in and shut off her car.
    “Well, who knows maybe he’s some hot guy, and you two will really hit it off,” Marcia said.
    “Maybe,” Astrid sighed, clamboring out of her car. “It’d be great if he didn’t take my parking spot though, not the best way to get on my good side,” she said jokingly.
    ***
    Astrid sprinted through her house like a mad woman. She was running late, of course, when wasn’t she running late? She overslept all the time. It was the insomnia. Wolves were nocturnal and no matter how much her human half wanted to go to bed, the animal within almost always refused. Hence why she was running late for the third day in a row.
    Frazzled, she pulled her long hair up into a messy bun.  Satisfied she no longer looked like she’d just rolled out of bed, she pulled on her cardigan. Grabbing her car keys, she rushed out the door. Her boss was nice and not too strict, but she still liked to be on time. The quaint little café she worked at was a tourist hot spot, and she met all sorts of interesting people. By no means was it a glamorous job, but it paid the bills and she enjoyed it.
    Rushing out to her car, she fumbled through her keys for the unlock button. She was so caught up that she didn’t see the approaching man until it was too late. Astrid ducked to the right, but not fast enough. Her chest collided with something solid. The breath whooshed out of her as she connected against a firm hard torso. Her car keys flew out of her hands falling a few feet away on the sidewalk. “I’m so sorry,” she gasped as she bent down to retrieve her keys.
    “My apologies too. It’s not every day I get the pleasure of running into such a …” he trailed off as she stood up and their gazes met.
    “Oh my God,” Astrid muttered as she stared into Kendrick Johnson’s brown eyes. Horror filled her as a million questions raced through her mind. The most important one being, what the hell was he doing here? While Kendrick had never personally done anything to