by Sienna Aylen
Table of Contents
Legal Page
Title Page
Book Description
Dedication
Trademarks Acknowledgement
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Epilogue
New Excerpt
About the Author
Publisher Page
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Exposed Memories
ISBN # 978-1-78686-241-9
©Copyright Sienna Aylen 2017
Cover Art by Posh Gosh ©Copyright August 2017
Edited by Ann Leveille
Totally Bound Publishing
This is a work of fiction. All characters, places and events are from the author’s imagination and should not be confused with fact. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, events or places is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any material form, whether by printing, photocopying, scanning or otherwise without the written permission of the publisher, Totally Bound Publishing.
Applications should be addressed in the first instance, in writing, to Totally Bound Publishing. Unauthorized or restricted acts in relation to this publication may result in civil proceedings and/or criminal prosecution.
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The author and illustrator have asserted their respective rights under the Copyright Designs and Patents Acts 1988 (as amended) to be identified as the author of this book and illustrator of the artwork.
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Published in 2017 by Totally Bound Publishing, Think Tank, Ruston Way, Lincoln, LN6 7FL, UK
Totally Bound Publishing is a subsidiary of Totally Entwined Group Limited.
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Warning:
This book contains sexually explicit content which is only suitable for mature readers. This story has a heat rating of Totally Simmering and a Sexometer of 1.
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Exposed
EXPOSED MEMORIES
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Sienna Aylen
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Book one in the Exposed series
Two thousand years have made Emma tougher than nails and full of sass, but one encounter will change her world forever.
What do you get when a gorgeous two-thousand-year-old Council member shows up at your door? A case of frenzied lust with a side of unruly bear, that’s what.
When Damien calls for reinforcements, he expects a badass warrior, not a sassy redhead who tempts him every which way. But underneath he finds a woman with a heart of gold, and, crucially, his mate.
Emma has never been one to bow to fate, especially when it pairs her up with one overgrown arrogant Alpha bear determined to get on her last nerve. But for her investigation, she’ll have to stay close to the delectable Damien. Very close, for danger threatens the Clan from within. Emma and Damien have to put their attraction on hold, as impossible as that is, to find the perpetrator…or the next ‘accident’ could be their last.
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Dedication
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To all of those who’ve encouraged me along the way, thank you.
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Trademarks Acknowledgement
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The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of the following wordmarks mentioned in this work of fiction:
Jeep: Chrysler Group LLC
Jacuzzi: Jacuzzi Inc.
Batman: DC Comics Warner Communications LLC
Smokey: Forest Service of the United States Department of Agriculture
Baloo: Disney Enterprises, Inc
Cliffs Notes: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company
Mason jar: Mason Jars Company
Popsicle: Conopco, Inc.
Rubik’s Cube: Idea Toy Corporation
Spider-Man: Marvel Characters, Inc.
Aquaman: DC Comics Warner Communications Inc and E.C. Publications, Inc.
Kevlar: E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Company
Batmobile: DC Comics Warner Communications Inc
Prologue
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Blood slicked her chafed wrists, making it easier to twist within her confines. Iron manacles held her abused body immobile. Limp, she couldn’t feel her fingers where they were trussed up above her head anymore. The dim glow of the fading fire only highlighted her agony.
They had left her here.
Minutes? Hours? Days?
All she knew was that time was immeasurable in the dark confines of her makeshift prison. The smell was putrid, her surroundings shrouded in shadows, hidden from the fading orange glow of the dying embers.
The bastards had left her to rot in her own filth, hoping that the wounds they’d inflicted in her abdomen would kill her. A soft laugh escaped her lips. Didn’t they know she welcomed death? She envied those who had met the dark oblivion before her. But no matter how long she hung there, oblivion would not come. It was as elusive as the wind. It whispered past her but she couldn’t reach out and touch it.
Sweat trickled down the sloped valley between her naked breasts. They hadn’t filled out yet, which was the only reason they had been left out of her torture. On the cusp of womanhood, she’d finally had her first bleed the week prior to her imprisonment.
When it had all begun.
The men had found her in the woods, gathering kindling before the first snowfall. With lengths of rope they’d bound her spread-eagled in the middle of the village. Stripped her of her clothing and her pride, leaving her bare to the elements and their watchful stares.
Morighan, their leader, had cried out, ‘ The she-devil is a witch! She knows things she couldn’t possibly know—she’s in league with the darkness. We must protect our people. Our children! She must not breed. We cannot let her spawn a cursed child. For all the agony she has caused, she will beg for mercy before I’m through.’
The first cut of the knife had pierced deep, ripping a scream from the bowels of her throat. No one had tried to help her. No protests had been given. No one cared. Her own parents had even stood to the side, watching her torture with indifference.
The witch child.
Cursed. Feared. No one would save her.
By the sixth slice of the blade she had been beyond sanity, cursing their names, calling the hatred of the gods down on their heads. Hysterical laughter had bubbled from her throat as she promised them their deaths. The blood had gushed in rivulets down her legs, soaking the desiccated ground beneath her.
He had stopped then. They’d all taken turns spitting on her broken body, ridding themselves of responsibility for what would happen to her. She had been manacled, dragged through the mud by the chains at her arms and taken here. A tent of some sort.
No food. No water. Open wounds that bled profusely. It was a recipe for disaster.
She knew she was nearing the end. Only the small fire prolonged her demise by staving off the biting winter chill. The fever had already set in…it was only a matter of time before she succumbed to the darkness.
Hours, days, minutes, they all blurred together with the fever until she couldn’t tell what was real and what wasn’t. She saw things, heard voices that weren’t her own. Memor
ies she couldn’t possibly possess. Time passed slowly as she relived every heinous torture that had been given to anyone who had been bound in the same iron shackles that circled her wrists.
She didn’t want to see. Didn’t want to know what had been done to them. Was it even real? Or a trick her mind was playing on her? They weren’t hers, the memories.
They were never hers.
She wavered back and forth between shivering and sweating, between the tight grip of insanity and the loosely defined reality. The metallic stench of her blood filled the enclosure with the distinct fragrance of death.
Just as she was welcoming the black nothingness that encased her vision, her bonds slackened, making her arms fall to the ground with a thud. Rough hands dragged her across the tent and bent her face down over the sacks of grain that were stacked in the corner. The heat of whoever was behind her seeped into her as she was positioned with her wounds grinding into the burlap sacks and her back stretched in an arch over the mound.
Her hands were rebound over her head and her feet were trussed as well. Moments passed, the quiet before the storm, before a hot breath whispered in her ear. “You should have left things alone. When I’m finished with you, you are outcast. If you ever show your face in this land again I will rip your last breath from your body. I would have taken you myself, you know, let you have the honor of being my mistress, had you behaved.”
Callused palms rubbed along her backside, squeezing her flesh painfully before resuming their path. “Be thankful, little one. I would have preferred to kill you myself, but I’m afraid the storm will have the pleasure of taking the life from you. But first, I get to give you your final punishment.”
She couldn’t even cry out when the first lash struck the tender flesh between her shoulder blades. Throat dry from the lack of water, she wasn’t allowed the release of screaming. Her lack of response only fueled his rage. The lashes came faster and harder, peeling the flesh from her in gory strips. Black dots edged her vision, but right when she thought oblivion would finally take her into its sweet embrace, he stilled.
The harsh sounds of their labored breathing filled the empty space. It was a moment, perhaps two, before the shackles binding her fell away. Rough hands yanked her up and over his broad shoulder.
Before she knew what was happening, she found herself released, flying through the air. The harsh cold of a winter storm met the scalding heat of her raw skin, making her gasp with pain. Blinking to clear her head, Emma took stock of her surroundings. Snowflakes cascaded down from the darkened sky onto her upturned eyelashes and mouth. The small coolness was a welcome reprieve for her parched lips.
Moments passed in peaceful silence, the smell of the fresh air a balm against her bruised senses. Turning her head was a monumental task, sending shards of pain surging down her spine.
Snow.
The field. He threw her into the field.
Reality poured into Emma–Rose with a rush. She was naked, broken, bleeding to death, abandoned in a snowstorm. With nowhere to go. No protection. Nothing.
Something inside her awakened. A long-lost strength of will. Adrenaline. She used every bit of her strength to roll over onto her stomach, each move a testament to her willpower. She would not die here, where they would find her. Would not give them the satisfaction of seeing her lifeless body.
That meant having to get up and move. But where could she go?
The hills, where she was at peace. Her hideaway. Her cave. Where the memories couldn’t get to her. It was the only safe haven she had ever had in a world of suspicion and hatred. A world where she wasn’t wanted.
With every last bit of determination she had, she lifted herself unsteadily to her feet. Her blood turned colder with each agonizing step toward freedom. The wind ripped through her until she was numb. Then the shivering started.
Endless minutes passed as she concentrated on placing one foot in front of the other. When she finally looked up, she had made it. The rock face was impenetrable, except for one small crack that led to the inside. She squeezed herself through, into the blackness.
They wouldn’t have the satisfaction of finding her body. Not here. Even in death, she would outmaneuver those who despised her existence. She fell to her knees, her strength leaving her in a rush.
Oblivion called, bringing a smile to her face.
Chapter One
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Emma–Rose sat up with a bolt, fighting off the tentacles of the familiar nightmare. The remembered cold invaded her limbs until she had to reach, her fingers like ice, for the abandoned blanket strewn across the bottom of the bed. Curling the blanket around her shoulders, she sat back against the headboard and hugged her knees to her chest.
If only it were a nightmare.
But it was more than that. It was a memory. Not someone else’s, either.
It would be easier if it had belonged to another.
Every night, she endured the memory. One of many. They disturbed her sleep so often she was lucky to steal a couple hours’ rest each week. Huddled in the shelter of her blanket, Emma grabbed her sketchbook off the end table and ran the pencil over the paper while looking out the window, where the sun was making its first appearance over the tops of the buildings. The city would wake soon. For over two millennia, she had witnessed the sun rise and set, the days blurring together as the years passed.
Things had changed since that fateful night, in ways she could never have imagined.
She was now one of nine Council members, the youngest member in the Seventh Council. Eleven winters old, outcast… That had been the night Menora had saved her life. A member of the Sixth Council, Menora had taught Emma everything she knew.
Menora had explained Emma’s ability to read memories wasn’t witchcraft but a gift she could use to help others. She had become the closest thing to a mother Emma ever had. They’d trained together for fifty years before Menora had passed away with the rest of the Sixth Council.
Shoving herself out of the comfort of her prized blanket, Emma pushed back the clouding mental fog and went to the small closet nestled in the corner of the miniscule apartment she had rented. One of many dwellings she had used over the centuries, the room had the basic necessities and little else.
On the single shelf sat a small, antique wooden box, one that had followed Emma through the ages and countless jobs. It was one of the few items she kept, one she had to keep. From inside the box she took a pair of black leather gloves and slipped the familiar, worn fabric over her long, pale fingers. Supple and frayed around the edges, the coverings were her constant companions, a boundary against the unwanted memories.
Emma packed her things into her only bag, an oversized duffel. Scanning the barren room, she made sure no trace of her remained. With the duffel over one arm, she locked the front door with the other. Depositing the key into a white envelope, she then slipped it into the landlord’s mailbox.
In the quiet morning light, Emma opened the door to the rental car and set her bag down in the passenger seat. She took one last look at the imposing apartment building in a city just like many others and started the ignition.
She had a Council meeting to get to.
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The beaten-down path through Yosemite was littered with dirt and debris, covered in the darkness of night, the only light to guide her way coming from the crescent moon. In every country, they had a designated meeting place, difficult to get to and remote in location. Havens that technology hadn’t yet encroached on. Places where they wouldn’t be overheard or interrupted.
Dried leaves uncovered with the thawing of early spring crunched with every step she took. The forest was quiet, peaceful. Glancing into the blackness, one would think that it was devoid of animal life. But she knew they were there in the shadows, watching. Silent at the invasion of their territory, waiting to see if the intruders were predators or prey.
Halting on the edge of the clearing, Emma scanned her surroundings. Out in the middle of the c
learing a figure huddled over in the grass, an ebony jacket and matching hood concealing its identity. As the lanky figure straightened, a sputtering fire took shape, the flames twisting and flickering with every gust of wind. The glow of the blaze lit up the figure’s face. Violet and midnight eyes met hers across the empty clearing.
Jade. The eldest of them all. Jade raised one gloved hand in greeting before pulling back her hood to reveal her mass of curling ivory hair that contrasted with the encroaching gloom.
With her footfalls light in the grass, Emma advanced to the fire and sat on one of the logs that surrounded the small cocoon of warmth. One by one the other Council members strode out of the forest and into the circle, the mist clinging to their figures like second skins. They all sat, except for the two eldest, who stood guard. No one spoke until Jade nodded in a signal they all recognized, a signal that they were alone in the forest.
“It’s been almost three centuries since we were last together,” Emma stated, looking around the fire into the weary faces of her Council sisters.
Taking a deep breath, she centered herself, each inhalation deepening her connection with the energy surrounding them. They all felt it, the ebb and flow of what was only known as the balance. Almost a separate entity in and of itself, it surged around the women, never speaking in words, but with images and feelings, its messages nudging them to journey to remote parts of the planet to dispatch justice to those who would threaten it.
As Emma studied each of her sisters, she was faced with the inescapable reality that their days were numbered. Their cycle was nearing its end. Emma was almost relieved. Her purpose had run its course.
What more could she give the world?
The wind wisped through the ends of Emma’s hair, tickling her senses and calming her with the scent of pine and the first blossoms of spring. The land was just waking from its long winter sleep, blooming and sprouting with the new season.