The Abandoned Luna's Journey to Power (by Emily Reed) novel Chapter 186

Chapter 186 Returning to the Kingdom

Cindy’s POV:

“Astra.”

I called to him softly and took out the small cloth bundle from my arms.

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It was the honey-glazed jerky the elderly Omega had insisted on pressing into my hands before we left. A few days had passed, but I had fortunately kept it safe.

“Look. What’s this?”

Astra turned his head, his nose twitching. That familiar sweet aroma instantly stirred something deep down inside him.

It was the scent of home.

His hand trembled as he picked up a strip of jerky and put it into his mouth.

As he chewed, tears started spilling down his face without warning. He cried as he chewed, biting down hard, as if trying to crush and swallow all the bitterness of the past three years.

When he finished one piece, he looked up and made a gesture to me. It was the Silverpeak wolf cub sign for “delicious,” a raised thumb brushing lightly against the cheek.

Seeing that long-forgotten motion nearly broke my heart.

“As long as it tastes good,” I said, pulling him into my arms and wiping the grease from the corner of his mouth. “From now on, whatever you want to eat, I will make it for you. We’re going home. Everything is there.”

At the words “going home,” the light in Astra’s eyes dimmed.

He lowered his head, his fingers absently picking at the cushion.

“He’s afraid, Cindy,” Diana whispered in my mind. “He thinks that home no longer belongs to him. His parents are gone, and you’re going to get married.”

I understood him instantly.

He was thinking that I would marry the man driving the carriage outside. Once I married, I would no longer belong to Silverpeak Pack, no longer belong to that home. And him? Where was he supposed to go?

A-profound loneliness radiated from this eight-year-old child, so thick it was suffocating.

I tightened my arms around him, resting my chin on the top of his head.

“Don’t think nonsense,” I said firmly into his ear. “Wherever you are, that’s where I will be. No one is taking us apart.”

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15:27 Wed, Jan 21 MG.

Chapter 186 Returning to the Kingdom

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Astra didn’t respond. He only buried his face deeper, his dry little hands gripping my clothes with desperate strength, as if I were the only piece of driftwood keeping him afloat.

The journey back to the kingdom was long, and for Astra’s sake, we traveled rather slowly.

Along the way, Astra showed an extreme level of clinginess.

It wasn’t the kind born from childish affection, but rather a pathological dependence. Wherever I went, even if it was just to use the restroom, he would stand guard outside the door. At night in roadside inns, he refused to sleep in his own bed. He had to curl up beside me, clutching my hand before he could fall asleep.

Aside from the gentle restorative decoctions prescribed by the military physician, I dared not let him eat anything at random. His stomach was far too fragile, and the toxins in his body felt like a ticking time bomb. One wrong move could trigger a chain reaction.

Looking at his current state, skin and bones and constantly on edge, my mind kept drifting back to what he had been like as a child.

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