The Decaying Empire (The Vanishing Girl Series Book 2) by Laura Thalassa Read Free Book Online

him. Guilt swamped me; I’d choke on it if I allowed myself. It wasn’t my job to rescue anyone, especially not someone who’d remained at the very organization that had betrayed me.
    “Are there any others?” I asked.
    He raised an eyebrow, a sly grin beginning to bloom. My breath caught when his dimples appeared. I’d missed those.
    “If you wanted a striptease, angel, you only had to ask.”
    I rolled my eyes, but I felt a smile tugging on my own lips, my stormy emotions temporarily ebbing away.
    Seeing my expression, Caden began to remove his clothing in earnest.
    “Caden . . .” I gaped when he lifted his shirt over his head and I caught sight of his torso. I couldn’t help it—Caden had gotten ripped . He had been muscular before, but this . . . He must’ve thrown himself into weight training since I’d last seen him.
    He also had new scars. Many more. They licked their way up his arms and branded his chest and abs. I hid my frown. Weight training wasn’t the only thing Caden had thrown himself into.
    His hands drifted to his zipper, and my thoughts quickly shifted from war to love. My cheeks flushed at the idea of him naked, but I didn’t look away.
    “Is someone embarrassed?” There was a lightness to his voice that I hadn’t heard since I’d first seen him.
    “You’ve changed,” I said, eyeing him up and down.
    “So have you.” He unceremoniously dropped his pants, pulling his boxers down with them.
    And I forgot to breathe.
    Grabbing his clothes and the crushed listening device, he sauntered off, presumably to dispose of them and grab something else to wear. I stared at his backside, ogling the rippling muscles of his back and his tight ass.
    “Ember,” he said, not bothering to turn around.
    “Huh?”
    “It’s rude to stare.” I could hear the humor in his tone. He knew exactly what he did to me.
    Focus. I took a quick inventory of the house. Most of what I’d need would be in the garage and the kitchen.
    Caden came back wearing the homeowner’s gym shorts. “What were we talking about again?”
    “I have to leave.” My hands were starting to twitch with the need to pack and head out. And my emotions . . . They flickered from guilt, to anger, to lust, to fear, to happiness as my memories returned and I processed my past and present situation.
    “You’ve been teleporting during the day,” he said. Not a question.
    I cocked my head to the side. “How do you know?”
    “You visited Desiree right after you visited me, and now you’re here.” He’d connected the dots much faster than I currently was. Something was wrong with that—with me. I rubbed my forehead. I’d been doing that a lot, like I might be able to massage my mind back into working order.
    “Ember . . . why did you attack her?” Neither his eyes nor his voice contained any judgment.
    I stared at him unflinchingly. “I was settling a score.”
    “You beat her bloody.”
    “It was less than she deserved.”
    I could tell he was intrigued by that, but I could also tell he thought I was the unstable one. Not her.
    I pushed away my hurt. I knew how this looked. How I looked. I was the one on the run after all.
    I stepped away from him. And like any other genetically modified teleporter, he read into that single, physical action. Just like he’d been trained to do.
    “Ember.” Caden reached for my hand.
    I pulled it away before he could touch me. “Don’t.”
    “I get that you’re confused,” he said.
    I laughed, and some of the understanding in his eyes gave way to annoyance.
    “Caden, you’ve been reading people for longer than I have. Surely you know her injuries weren’t a result of my confusion .” Please.
    “Then what made you do it?” he asked. Calm. He was too calm.
    I took another step back. More sirens in the background. Time was slipping through my fingers. “She set me up that night.”
    Caden stilled. “What?”
    “Did you think I blew my own cover?” I asked.
    His silence