Page 56 of Loving Amari

I scream in frustration, spinning around. “No! Come back! Tell me what you mean!”

Nothing. Just white light stretching on forever. The silence is deafening.

Then I hear her. A voice that makes my very soul tremble. It’s everywhere and nowhere, inside me and outside me, gentle yet absolute.

Hello, Carla Blackwood. It’s nice to formally meet you.

Holy shit.

Mother Fate.

19

CARLA

Out of all my children, you are the most formidable.

The voice reverberates through me, inescapable and total. It’s everywhere and nowhere, inside me and outside me, gentle yet powerful enough to unmake reality itself. The white void pulses with each word, responding to the entity that created everything I know.

“How so?” My voice sounds small in this vast white expanse.

It is simple. You don’t need anyone, not even me. And you’ve proven that time and time again.

“But you’re wrong.” I spin around, searching for a form, a shape, anything to focus on. There’s nothing but endless white. “I do need you. I’m failing now. Look at what’s happening to Wintermoon.”

Ah yes, Wintermoon is certainly in an interesting position. Yet still, you don’t need me.

“Why did you call me away from them?” Frustration bleeds into my words. “My children are in danger. Amari is fighting alone. And I’m stuck here.”

I didn’t call on you, child. Aya made the decision to send you here. You could have gone back and saved Wintermoon. However, it would have cost you.

My face hangs low. The weight of that truth crushes down on me. “I know. It would have cost me Amari.”

Tell me, Carla Blackwood, why did I create the mate bond?

I blink, caught off guard by the question. “I... I don’t know.”

The mate bond was not born from necessity, but from observation. I watched my children struggle alone, bearing burdens too heavy for solitary shoulders. I watched them break under the weight of immortality, of power, of responsibility. The mate bond was my gift to ease that burden.

The voice grows warmer, more intimate.

The mate bond keeps you tethered to Amari, changes both of you, makes you choose what will make your love flourish rather than what will merely keep you alive. It transforms survival into living. Duty into devotion. Obligation into choice.

The white void shifts slightly, like breath moving through silk.

I created supernaturals to maintain the balance on earth. To keep humanity from destroying itself and everything around it. But how can you maintain that balance when you don’t understand the balancing dynamics of love? How can you protect what you do not cherish?

“I don’t know,” I murmur.

Oh, but you do know. You know better than anyone.The voice gains warmth, almost maternal.You served as Wintermoon’s deputy for years, protecting people who feared you. Who called you monster. Who crossed the street when they saw you coming. And still, you showed up. Every single day.

I grow nervous as I continue to listen.

You stood at borders, faced down radicals with weapons designed to kill your children, and you never abandoned yourpost. You lost Verde and Petra protecting shifter children fleeing to safety. Your children. Murdered. And still you returned to duty the very next night.

“Stop,” I whisper, but Mother Fate continues.

You fought a creature made from your own DNA, created in a laboratory to destroy you. You could have run. Could have hidden in the shadows again. But you stood your ground. You protected Wintermoon.