The barometric needle touched forty-two at eleven minutes past nine.

On the tray, she set the loupe.

She finished the radial nerve map on both hands: the right showed the precision she’d specified, the left showed a slight delay in the ulnar response she’d noted and intended to correct in calibration.

She established the anastomoses for individual finger movement.

She checked the needle; forty-two and holding.

The storm would arrive before midnight.

The most recent cup of coffee on the shelf beside the documentation wall had grown a skin.

It was the third coffee since she began working after Marc Tessier set the galvanic case on the central table twenty-nine hours ago and buttoned his coat and told her to finish it and left through the stone passage for the last time.

She had not slept.

She crossed to the generator beneath the central table; three months she had spent building it from a salvaged university transformer and sixteen hand-wound copper coils, the specifications classified three years ago and memorized before the classification took effect.

She had started the warm-up sequence at six that morning. The first coil engaged at a subsonic register felt in the molars before the ears registered it. The second and third added intervals she had calibrated to the resonance of the Oratory’s stone walls, measured in her first month down here, before the central table existed, before she understood what the room would need to hold.

The generator had been producing a continuous vibration by ten o’clock, which traveled up through the floor and settled behind her ribs.

The tube array along the eastern wall had responded.

The galvanic-reactive fluid detected the generator’s frequency and replied to it, much like an instrument answers a tuning fork not meant for it.

The Oratory was waking up.

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Alex swiped his keycard twice before the light turned green. The reader had been glitching for a week. Someone needed to call the building manager, and by someone he meant him, because someone in this apartment always meant him.

He held the door with his foot while he hauled the grocery bags through.

Five in one hand with his laptop bag over his shoulder.

A cardboard tray with two coffees balanced in the crook of his forearm.

The coffees were both his; he was not sharing.

If he drank the first at nine, he’d crash by noon. Crashing at noon meant losing prep time for the presentation set at 2:30 tomorrow. The presentation attached to a three-million-dollar proposal. The one with his name on slide seven. He was not spending the afternoon unconscious from a caffeine crash when four hours and twelve minutes of sleep was all the night had given him. He had the presentation on all five of his calendars, and it synced to the alarm clock. The second coffee was for one o’clock, and it was sacred.

He kicked the door shut behind him.

The loft was quiet.

No indecipherable thrash metal assault that shook the cave walls while the Neanderthal smoked in his room, having disabled the smoke detector.

As if to test Alex’s limits personally.

No scent of overpriced coffee being poured over at the island by Ethan, who would read some pretentious novel from the 1700s by an oversexed nobleman with syphilis, or educate Alex on the virtues of coarse-ground beans sourced from some unpronounceable island his parents visited on sabbatical.

The loft was quiet at 9 a.m. on Sunday, and while Alex should feel comfort, his sleep-deprived lizard brain perked up.

Alert.

Alert.

There was an unknown variable that would inevitably put the three-million-dollar presentation with his name on slide seven in jeopardy.

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I feed her from a bowl on the floor, the way you feed a dog. She eats on all fours, her antlers dipping forward like buttresses framing the vessel, her mouth in the broth. Clinical. Pastoral. The farmer’s son tending an injured animal.

She spills. Her tongue traces the cracks between the flagstones, searching for the last of the warmth, and that is the reason I built the stand.

Twelve inches.

The height of her hands when she kneels. Not the height of a table. Not the height of a seated woman. The height of a kneeling creature whose feeding posture is maintained at the precise elevation.

Not kindness.

Maintenance.

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Three years of evenings, and the chain has become a clock.

The iron links produce a specific sound when she shifts from sitting to kneeling.

A clink followed by a metallic whisper as the cuff rotates on her ankle.

I have heard this sequence approximately one thousand times. I could transcribe it the way I transcribe plainchant, but I will not.

It would mean I have been listening.

It has been three years of the Summa opened on the desk. Three years the beeswax candle lit, and the quill in my hand with her body beside my chair in the posture I taught her.

She knelt beside the desk.

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Speaking of kiddo, we went to a classic car show, and he promised to get me a classic car AND a Porsche. You know, once he becomes a famous soccer player.

Sure hope so, kiddo. Sure hope so.

It was a really nice time.

New Releases (Yes, with an ‘s’!)

Exclusive Feature

He wanted to destroy her. Instead, he claimed her.

Not by fate or choice. Something ancient bound them together when she touched what was his.

Talia Rinah wants two things: to find a place to call home and finish her thesis.

A simple expedition to declare the swamp a wildlife sanctuary turns catastrophic when the ground falls away, dropping her into a forgotten nest built with bones.

A predator that hates her kind awakens. Now, he’s tracking every step she takes.

Memories Talia buried long ago claw to the surface, revealing that more than one monster lurks in these muddy waters.

Who can she trust? And what parts of her will she have to sacrifice to survive?

Because how do you destroy something that’s already part of you?

You can’t hide from me, Witch.

Read Here

Book Fairs

Back to the writing cellar. I’m still behind, but it felt good getting a couple of chapters out this week. Guess I need to do that more often! Stay safe! Stay healthy! Stay happy!

Tomorrow will be The Storm.

She had been measuring the barometric forecasts for eight thousand, seven hundred and sixty hours.

Every hour: the temperature, the pressure, the feel of the air, documented across five thousand pages dedicated to tracking the exact conditions the storm required.

She had narrowed the margin of error in her predictions to within .04 of a percent.

Acceptable for her science, for an experiment over a year in the making.

The sheet was off the body when she heard the knocks. The stone passage made a specific sound when it opened. It was older than the foundations of the neighboring building she had absorbed into the Oratory’s eastern wall.

The lock, made of iron, had stayed in place for eighty years. When the bolt drew back, it spoke in a register her own apparatus could not produce: stone-against-stone, the cold low note of a thing that lived in the dark and did not appreciate being moved.

Victoria did not look up.

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After the nineteenth day, the cellar became a country with a shrinking border.

I kept track of the distance between us; the border being the only discipline I had left following the oiling, stirring, touch, and the hum that vibrated through me.

Three feet in the first week.

Two feet in the second.

Eighteen inches by the third, close enough to see that each of her spots was not circles but ovals; slightly elongated along the axis of her body, the distribution following a pattern I was mapping in the margins of the bestiary.

The mapping justified by the study.

The study justified by theology.

The theology justified by the need to understand the creature.

The understanding required proximity.

Eighteen inches from a naked woman’s body with a pen in one hand and an erection in the other.

The erection was not always present at eighteen inches.

Sometimes the morning’s flagellation sated the appetite, and the pain’s grammar held the body in its penitent posture.

Sometimes, the study’s genuine questions occupied the appetite, such as the antler growth rate, the caloric intake, and the healing speed.

But the arousal was present often enough that its absence became the exception. It was the air in the cellar, the scent, the warmth, the sound of the chain’s domestic clock, the hum that started whenever I descended the stairs and didn’t stop until I climbed them again.

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Summer has begun, and it’s KICKING MY ASS. Kiddo, I love him, but wow, life as a mom has been exhausting. He had his first successful sleepover at our house (of which we are planning another...with TWO guests...haahahhahaah. Send help), has been swimming (dragging me to take him earlier for extra swim time), and has a 5-day, 3-hour-a-day soccer camp next week.

WE HAVE BEEN BUSY!

Thankfully, Hubby has been cooking still and made this deliciousness:

Also!

I’ve been obsessed with the latest insanity over Lego. I used to like Pricks and MiniDicks (also known as Bricks and Minifigs), but they have pulled some shady shit.

• I highly recommend catching up on it, cause not only does it have to do with Lego (kiddo’s beloved craft), but it also includes:

• Theft

• Financial Abuse

• Police Corruption

• Mormon Mafia

It's wild. You should've just given back the fucking Lego.

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Exclusive Feature

Ophelia is kidnapped away from the love of her life.

When Ophelia Stewart, the daughter of the leader of the white dragons, is snatched from her husband and brought back to her father’s Illuminati realm, she learns that her husband wasn’t everything he had seemed to be. Lex was a red dragon, famous enemies of the white dragons, and her family insists he was only using her for the curse-free baby she could give him.

Unsure of who to trust and living life under constant surveillance in Washington, D.C., Ophelia befriends Amy, a human who is more than ready to get married and settle down. Will Amy find out about Ophelia’s secret identity? And if she does, will their friendship be strong enough to survive the truth?

Will Ophelia learn to trust Lex again before it’s too late? Will Amy find her true love? Find out in Ophelia, book one of the Illuminati Dragon Shifter Brides series by Brandy WARfield.

Read Here

Book Fairs

So, yeah. Might notice I do NOT have any new releases right this moment… But, as my loyal subject, hopefully you understand that things are a little hectic at the moment.

Of course, you do.

I appreciate you for being so patient with me and for being such an admiring fan. Stay safe! Stay healthy! Stay happy!

And, I’ll get more published as soon as possible. Promise.

Also! I wanted to prove that if I’m hungry, I CAN feed myself. Ya know, with already good rice, milk, butter, salt, cinnamon, and maybe a little too much sugar. For RICE PUDDING!

Oh! And, did I tell you??? I’m so excited about this, I can’t remember who all I’ve told so far. I am currently building me a brand-new website!!!

Check it out here!!!

New Release

Exclusive Feature

In a world where gods and monsters walk hidden among us, falling for the wrong guy might do more than break her heart—it might awaken a war.

College freshman Alysander Smith has never fit in her small beach town of glossy smiles and airbrushed perfection. All she wants is to escape and prove she’s more than just the punchline everyone laughs at. The only bright spot? Hayden Vassilios, her gorgeous childhood best friend turned campus football god—and the guy she’s been secretly in love with for years. But when she uncovers a dark family secret about her long-lost, deadbeat father, everything changes.

Alysander starts to wonder if her mother’s crazed whispers about ancient mythological bloodlines and a secret Underworld might be less delusion and more danger. Something old and powerful is awakening, and Hayden is at the center of it all. When the truth shatters everything she thought she knew, Alysander will have to choose: walk away—or step into the shadows and fight for a love that was never hers to keep.

Grab it here

Book Fairs

I installed the chain on the third day.

The ring was driven into the stone wall with a masonry bit; the chain purchased from the smith under the pretense of securing a gate. The cuff was iron, too large because her ankles were thinner than my wrists. The wrongness of the cuff’s fit meant the iron slid loosely around the bone, and the sliding produced a sound a small, metallic percussion, that became the cellar’s clock.

She resisted the chain.

Not violently. She resisted the way a wild animal resists a halter by pulling. The pulling was the application of a consistent force against a constraint. She pulled until the chain went taut. Then she assessed.

The chain held.

She pulled again.

Same force.

The chain held.

She sat down, looking down at the chain, then the wall, before gazing up at me.

She tilted her head, processing.

She did not pull again.

The creature accepted the constraint after two trials, suggesting cognitive assessment of the system’s structural integrity and an adaptive decision to conserve energy.

She accepted the chain. Not because the chain was unbreakable, but because...I did not know why.

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I flagellate on Tuesdays and Fridays.

The schedule is important.

The schedule is the load-bearing structure that keeps the rest of the building standing. The schedule does not hide things, unlike the walls and roof, which are built to conceal a man doing things inside.

It’s about discipline.

The flagellation is about discipline.

The prayers, matins, lauds, prime, terce, sext, none, vespers, compline, the canonical hours, are about discipline.

The fasting on Wednesdays, the cold water, the hair shirt I wore for the first three years before the skin beneath it became a permanent landscape of welts that no longer served the purpose of reminding me of my flesh, all of it is discipline.

I am a disciplined man.

A priest who has served this parish for fourteen years, who hears confessions, administers the sacraments, visits the sick, buries the dead, and delivers sermons that the village has described as righteous.

Sermons that the blacksmith’s wife describes as terrifying in a way that made me feel clean.

Terrifying.

Clean.

I flagellate on Tuesdays and Fridays, and the blood runs down my back in channels created from the welts and scars that form a topography mapping fourteen years of discipline.

Eleven before, three since.

Three since the thing in the cellar.

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I don’t know how many men fucked me.

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But wait, how can I claim to be a soccer mom if I don’t brag about the AWESOME GOAL my best little buddy made! Go Soren!

Isn’t he amazing? I sure think so. Also! Hubby has been cooking again! Jealous? You should be. This was so delicious, it’s going to haunt my dreams.

Danger Sounds Better Out Loud

Don’t tell anyone, but I’m actually unnerved by the idea that one of MY stories is going to be read aloud by a narrator. It’s something I’ll need to get used to as an author, but AHHH!

Consider this your formal invitation to join us at the audiobook premiere of A Beautiful Lie on YouTube next week. I hope to see you there, because I will be there, hearing it for the first time with readers, and chatting with everyone live in the comments!

Sign up for an event reminder here!

New Release

Throwback Thursday

I’ve been playing with different types of graphics, and I guess this week my theme is sirens. I’ve been making art of all my characters with tails!

Book Fairs

Thanks for being patient with me while I try to get things written and published for you! I appreciate the loyalty. It does not go unnoticed.

Stay safe! Stay healthy! Stay happy!

This is stupid. You know this is stupid. What exactly are you expecting?

I’m looking at myself in the mirror, my right arm rubbing my left arm over my still-empty stomach.

Liz said to dress cute, so I had put on as close an approximation of cute as I could manage. A cheap grey slip with silver sequins and a neon yellow sports bra underneath. The contrast looks rave-attire enough and, looking at the mirror, objectively, I don’t look like I’m trying too hard.

I have no fucking idea. What does trying too hard even mean?

Which has to be better than not trying hard enough.

I spent three hours lying in bed, staring at the ceiling as my phone vibrated next to me.

This was the most attention it had gotten since the first day Camila transferred ownership to me and her contacts didn’t yet realize she had a new number. Where everyone else sees a cellphone shifting to one side, it looked to me like my phone was bouncing out of control with a flurry of activity it couldn’t comprehend.

I checked it once at hour one. Then three more times at hour two. Then, once every ten minutes at hour three. Could I relate to the next cluster of messages in the chat?

I couldn’t. I couldn’t even relate to anyone specific from class, because these girls and their extended friend group didn’t chat about class. They chatted about TV shows I only have peripheral knowledge of, who won what game of which sport, guess who cheated on Becca with Nicky, but Nicky is actually Nicolas, not Nicole, and Becca was a bitch anyway-

I can’t keep up.

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The door opens with a low whine, and I walk in, fingers searching for the switch, my flats abandoned in the tiny vinyl entranceway before the carpet. The backpack slips off my shoulder without ceremony. The kitchen light turns on.

Well, the kitchen light. The key light in my 200-square-foot studio stays off. I should get it changed.

I think I say that every time I notice it.

I don’t really need the light, to be honest. There is nothing here. Seven steps ahead: the tiny kitchenette, fridge, stove, sink, dishwasher. Eight steps to the right there’s the desk disguised as a dining table, the single chair, the stack of books I’ve actually read annotated to the margins in pencil, the notebook with a half-finished paper on Morrison’s “Unspeakable Things Unspoken” that I will show no one. Two steps from the desk is the box spring mattress I call a bed. Two steps from the bed is the tiny hallway that fits me and a pedestal sink across from a shower and toilet.

The sink had a toothbrush; I didn’t use this morning. I hadn’t used it yesterday, either. Nobody was going to get close enough to know.

My life in one, empty, room.

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She disappeared from a rave. One text. Six hours late.

‘hey did u leave early? lol’

She never went home.

Rachel Santos has been invisible her entire life—the middle daughter, the forgotten friend, the girl the world skips over. When two strangers pull her from a crowd and a third feeds her breakfast like she matters, she doesn't fight it. She sinks.

Into their loft. Into their beds. Into a world where she's photographed like a masterpiece, marked like territory, and fed like something precious. Three men, three kinds of hunger, and Rachel—starving, invisible Rachel—finally full.

By the time the worship becomes a cage and her body becomes a spectacle, there's no outside left. Just a girl who was so hungry to be seen that she let them devour her, and a lock she turns herself.

Nobody Came Looking: A Love Story is a darkly seductive, psychologically devastating debut about what happens when being wanted is the most dangerous thing that's ever happened to you.

For readers of: dark romance with actual teeth, literary horror that crawls under your skin, and love stories you'll need to shower after.

Content warning: This novel contains graphic sexual content, sexual assault, drugging, psychological manipulation, coercive control, and themes of self-erasure. It is not a redemption story.

Welcome to Nobody Came Looking, a darkly sedu

ctive descent into the kind of love story that locks the door behind you.

Not a rescue.

Not a redemption.

A girl so invisible she vanished from a rave and got one text about it — six hours late, ending in lol — and the three men who carried her home and made her the center of everything she’d been starving for.

Due to the explicit and psychologically devastating nature of Nobody Came Looking, this will not be a free serialized novel. It will be available to premium subscribers. However, for those premium subscribers, I plan on putting future serializations on Substack first before Kindle or KU — meaning ALL future publications, from Nobody Came Looking to Letters Between Sex and Violence vol. 4, will be accessible to premium subscribers.

Not only that, but check out the following perks!

Coda Dream Team Perks

1. Character References and Behind-the-Scenes Insights: Get an in-depth look at the characters that inhabit my worlds — Rachel, Colt, Alex, Ethan, and the rest of the Santos universe — as well as behind-the-scenes notes and inspirations.

2. Safe for Work & Not-so-Safe (NSFW) Artwork Galore: Treat yourself to a variety of artwork for my stories. Enjoy Safe for Work illustrations that bring the loft to life, or indulge in more mature NSFW pieces to tantalize.

3. Exclusive Access to Novels-in-Progress before Kindle Unlimited: I got my start by serializing my novels and I hope to continue that trend with my new stories. Nobody Came Looking chapters will be released as soon as they are completely written.

Please consider getting a premium subscription. Your support is already greatly appreciated.

Schedule

Episodes of Nobody Came Looking will, tentatively, be released weekly on Wednesday — perfect for #WreckedWednesday. When an episode is released or scheduled, I will announce it on my newsletter. Comments and a chat dedicated to each episode will open for critique on Wednesday as well.

Without further ado…

Three men. One loft. A girl who’d rather drown in warm water than die of thirst in the cold.

Enter the world of Nobody Came Looking.

Amber made a mistake when she locked me in the writing cell. She demanded I write, so I did. But the deep-rooted mischievousness that lives inside my dark soul whispered, “Rebel.”

Alas, I cannot ignore that little voice. It’s never steered me wrong. And this time, it handed me the blueprint for an exciting new story. One I never would have started with distractions from the real world.

So thanks, Amber. You forced me to write, and I chose to obey. In my own way. Malice and Victoria are still on my list, but right now, I have to get Rachel’s story down.

Rachel and her three hunks.

This story is not completed, and I have not yet begun to upload to Substack, but it’s unfolding inside my head as I type this. Scenes are scratching at my skull, demanding attention. So, I’ll have to get back to them very soon.

For now, let me introduce you to Rachel’s men.

• Ethan: obsessive golden retriever ⇢ villain, morally black love interest, “I’ll ruin you softly,” dark academia energy, camera-as-cage, he named you, and now you’re his.

• Colt: feral himbo with rage issues, tattooed morally grey cinnamon roll, touch-starved possessive, “mine” said through teeth, knuckle-tattoo romance, primal kink, he’d kill for you and cry about it after.

• Alex: caretaker kink, “let me feed you” romance, the quiet one is always the worst one, control disguised as service, wolf-eyed service top, tracks your location as love language, overstimulation aftercare king.

Make sure you follow me on Substack, Instagram, and my page on Facebook if you don’t want to miss updates on this story. It’s going to be epically delicious.

Book Fair

While you wait for me to return… Let me offer up a free story worthy of your attention.

Breaking the Reins by C.L. Slias.

I’ve read it. Hell, I watched the series unfold when it was first released. And I promise, this one does not behave.

It begins with survival and becomes something else entirely. Breaking the Reins isn’t as dark as what you normally get with my stories, but if you’re craving something sharp, defiant, and just a little dangerous…

Go, indulge.

Read Breaking the Reins FREE now!

Make sure that if you read that story, you harass the author in the comments. She’ll love it.

Now, it’s past time for me to get back to working on my newest story. Rachel’s men are demanding to have their way with her.

Stay safe! Stay healthy! Stay happy!

I’m Amber, Administrator of the Fungeon. The one who keeps things running when the Mistress is busy being adored, feared, or otherwise occupied. I usually handle the messier tasks. The ones she doesn’t feel like getting her hands dirty with.

Which makes this situation particularly… entertaining.

Because this time?
She’s…

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The coffee was cold. Made two hours, 32 minutes, and 20 seconds ago.

The caffeine will remain potent for another 21 hours, 27 minutes, and 36 seconds.

Right hand, clad in black surgical gloves, gripped the mug, downing the tepid, oil-colored liquid before setting it behind her. Her eyes, much like her left hand, remained on task. The pipes above her, behind her, took quick breaths. The generator at her feet shuddered and gasped, galvanic mechanisms pumping electric currents. The glass flutes bubbled with clear liquid, flexible tubes pumping cooling fluid through the needles piercing the body underneath the sheet.

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But hey! Last week had a few great meals from my personal chef/husband.

Chili Dogs with pepperjack and shredded cheese in an air fryer, followed by strombo…

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