He submitted, pointed out her human.

I don't care, I'm hungry and he smells good, countered the she-wolf.

He smells familiar. Although she could not be certain, her wolf only recognised the scents she had encountered since she was turned.

The she-wolf was about ready to take a bite out of the grey wolf when a shift in the wind brought a strange new scent that gave her pause. Something wasn't quite right. Her eyes scanned her surroundings but the forest was denser here and she could not see too far in any direction.

The grey wolf took advantage of her distracted state and made a dash for it. He did not get too far as he unfortunately ran straight into something and ended on his butt on the ground. The grey wolf was quick to get back on his feet but stopped dead in his tracks when he took in the beast scowling at him.

The name of the strange rhinoceros-like creature eluded her, but Hermione recognised it from one of Luna Lovegood's magizoology books as an extremely dangerous beast. Although it stood over a foot taller than her and had more than five times her bulk, she could tell from the underdeveloped horn sitting rather prominently above its nose that this one wasn't an adult. Instinctively, she knew to keep away from the horn that had begun to glow eerily ever since the creature locked eyes with the grey wolf.

Alas, the she-wolf did not share her human's concerns. Excited by the prospect of a worthy opponent, she raised her tail, stood as tall as she could and bared her fangs before letting out a challenging roar. The grey wolf was her prey and she wasn't going to let an oversized hog steal it from her!

Focused solely on the grey wolf that had dared to attack it, the creature paid no mind to the larger black wolf growling in the background. Head lowered, horn aimed at the offending wolf, the creature prepared to charge.

But, the she-wolf wasn't to be slighted in this manner and she wasn't going to let someone else kill her prey. She ran at the horned beast, making a flying leap over the grey wolf to hit her target squarely in the chest with enough force to shove the hefty creature back a few steps. She landed on her feet between the two creatures, to protect the grey wolf from the unknown beast.

Mine!

Her claim, though voiced as a growl, was clearly understood by the strange creature. It responded with a wide swinging motion of its bulky head, easily knocking her out of the way. Seeing the creature's attention was now centred on her, the grey wolf scrambled backwards in an attempt to get away. He was sent sprawling on his arse with a gentle nudge from the creature, who glared at him in a manner meant to pin him in place. The grey wolf had inadvertently become a prize, to be claimed by one of the two ferocious beasts at the end of their deadly match.

Despite having the wind knocked out of her, the she-wolf quickly recovered. Using her powerful legs to get on her feet and jump back into the fray, she easily cleared the gap between her and her most recent opponent in a single leap to resume her attack. Swiping downward, the she-wolf attempted to carve into the creature but her razor-sharp claws barely scratched the surface of its thick hide.

Thinking a different approach was in order she rolled to a safe distance and shifted into her human form. Still in control, the she-wolf assaulted the beast barrelling towards her with a succession of spells: Stupefy, Diffindo, Confringo, and out of utter frustration even a Rictusempra, all to no avail. The creature's hide appeared to be invulnerable to her spells as well. It must have stung though, as the beast looked beyond enraged when it butted into her midsection.

Hermione narrowly missed being grazed by the deadly horn, but she crumpled to the ground and doubled over in pain. The creature raised one of its massive hooves, poised to stomp on her prone form, when for no apparent reason the creature bellowed and tottered to the side just as Hermione rolled away from under its body. She could not understand what was going on until she saw the grey wolf swinging from the creature's tail. The grey wolf's fangs were lodged so deep into the creature's tail, that however hard it tried it was unable to shake him off.

Recognising the futility in attacking the creature's hide, the she-wolf took her cue from the grey wolf and sought out other parts that could be vulnerable to an attack. She immediately looked at the glowing horn that beckoned to her like a beacon in the dark. In the midst of the creature thrashing about, Hermione cast a perfectly aimed Diffindo at its horn. Fluid erupted from the wound and burned its way down the creature's face, making it howl in pain.

By now, the grey wolf had disentangled himself from the beast and lay on the ground, catching his breath while the beast floundered about blindly. Eager as the she-wolf had been to fight the mammoth creature a few minutes ago, she lost all interest in it once she was able to best it. That the grey wolf had contributed to that feat irked her as it meant her human would never let her kill him now.

Still hungry and not allowed to feast on her prize, the she-wolf left to resume her hunt. But first, she returned to her true form and dragged the grey wolf by the scruff of his neck to her cave where he was bound and left to be dealt with after sunrise.

The actual task of leaving Britain turned out easier than imagined given the current travel restrictions. As planned, the pack split up into smaller groups and scattered to different parts of the country. They portkeyed to multiple locations on the continent before finally travelling to Uganda. Several different departments in the Ministry were likely alerted when the pack put to use Draco's stash of stolen portkeys accumulated over the years, but they were counting on the Death Eaters considering the newly formed pack not worth the amount of trouble it would take to hunt them down.

All the groups had arrived, seemingly without incident, by late afternoon at the foothills of the Mountains of the Moon, but the pack was suffering. Transformations were taxing enough for any werewolf, but the life-and-death battle coupled with the debilitating nausea from travelling via portkey multiple times and over long distances meant not one of them was capable of doing anything more than groan in pain for the first couple of hours after their arrival.

Draco was among the first to move. He went around with his betas as they did a head count, saw to their injured and checked on their supplies. It was only then he discovered that Cora and Oskar were missing and no one recalled seeing either one of them since they left Bleidd.

It did not make sense for either Oskar or Cora to have stayed behind as they had bonded with him long before the events of the previous night. Although a few pack members had unwittingly switched allegiance even earlier, Oskar and Cora, along with Gunnolf, were among the first to consciously choose him as their alpha. Their absence was disconcerting. There was still so much he did not know about being an alpha, or even a werewolf, he doubted he could successfully lead the pack without Oskar's counsel to rely upon. Cora was equally indispensible in her role as the pack's mediwitch. With their aggressive natures, werewolves tended to attract trouble anyway and there was no knowing what kind of dangerous creatures or unfriendly humans they would have to fight during the course of settling into this foreign land.

Lacking the means to travel back to Britain, even if it were safe to do so, all he could was hope Oskar and Cora were part of a group of stragglers, despite knowing there was little chance of that being the case. Every one of the werewolves Draco had spoken with the previous day had joined in the exodus this morning. Even a few who had no idea of his plans, ones Oskar had claimed would only accept a new alpha once Fenrir fell, had preferred to follow Draco when offered the choice. Werewolves respected strength above all and it was what they sought in their alpha, the ability to protect the pack. Draco had failed the pack members who had stayed with Fenrir when he failed to kill their cruel alpha. His only consolation was that he had done his part to ensure no lives were lost the previous night.

He could not do anything about two of the three pillars of his pack, but he could do something about the third. Draco recalled Theo's tip for where he might find Gunnolf.

He hesitated to visit the location of his mate's captivity and suffering till he realised he was being a hypocrite, after all Bleidd had also been a prison for Hermione. Draco had mixed feelings about the times he had forced his desires on his mate. His wolf was unapologetic about claiming his mate but it would have eased his conscience if Hermione had willingly participated in the act because he had won her affections, not because a potion had made it so.

There was no changing the past and, as far as he knew, Hermione did not hold their first coupling against him. Still, would she have chosen the Order as easily over him and their sons if not for such an ugly start to their relationship?

"Oh Merlin! Gunnolf?" Hermione stared in disbelief at the human form of the grey wolf. "What are you doing here?" she demanded, disregarding their naked state.

"Me? What in Hades are you doing, Hermione? You tried to eat me last night," Gunnolf rebuked. He had been terrified of her last night but was more confident now that he stood, towering over her familiar human form. In the moment that followed, she knocked his confidence right out.

Eyes flashed yellow and claws emerged. "Watch your tone, wolf," she warned in a tone that made him instantly hang his head and lower his gaze. She may have resembled the frail-looking witch he knew from Bleidd, but the Hermione before him was a dangerous beast.

She closed in on him, invading his personal space while she appraised him. He was more impressive in this form, she noted, using a single claw to lightly run across his pectoral muscles and then down his abdominals to stop just short of his manhood. She watched his proud member shrink in fear and let out a peal of laughter. She was right about him last night; this specimen was only good as prey.

Pack, her human insisted. He was a werewolf, he had submitted to her last night and helped her defeat the strange beast, maybe even saved her life in the process.

"I believe I asked you a question, wolf. What are you doing here?"

"Incredibly, I was here yesterday, looking for you."

Eyes kept lowered, Gunnolf proceeded to inform her about his reasons for arriving in Uganda and everything that had happened since.

"Will and Marty are with Draco and the pack?" asked an anxious Hermione, wrestling away control from the she-wolf.

"Yes."

"And they're okay, they're safe?"

"Yes, absolutely. The pack's been ordered, Fenrir is to never again be left alone with the twins."

She stepped away, reflecting on what she had just learnt.

"... you never realised something had happened to me until you arrived here? ... Draco doesn't know I'm missing?"

"No," he said, daring to finally look up. His shoulders sagged in relief when he saw her eyes were their normal shade of brown. "As far as we knew, you had escaped. Still, Draco grew concerned when you didn't contact him like you were supposed to and wanted confirmation you were okay. He planned to return Ginny Weasley to the Order to confirm your whereabouts."

"Ginny—" Her voice cracked. Once again, she had forgotten about her friend. "She's okay, then?"

It took Gunnolf a moment to understand the nature of her concern.

"Oh, yes. She's alright," he assured with a nod. "It was a close call, but thanks to Cora and Draco's efforts, she survived. Though the baby couldn't be saved..."

Hermione felt no guilt knowing she had caused the death of an innocent. For Ginny's sake, she was glad the baby that was a continued source of her friend's nightmares and anxieties, had not survived.

"Does that mean she's been sent back to the Death Eaters?" She was worried Ginny was returned to her rapists to be impregnated once more.

Gunnolf shook his head.

"Lucius Malfoy himself arrived to check on his heir after he received word that Ginny was too weak to travel for the revel held during the previous full moon. Cora fooled him same as the rest."

He told her about Cora's inspired ploy to fool everyone into thinking Ginny was still pregnant and of Ginny's recovery in the aftermath.

"So she's back to being herself?" asked Hermione, beginning to feel hopeful.

"I can't say, I didn't know the witch before she was brought to Bleidd," he said with a light shrug of his shoulders. "She sounds far more reasonable when you talk to her now—most noticeable is the absence of vitriol when someone mentions Draco. Considering she's still a prisoner, Cora thinks she's shown remarkable improvement in her mental health since her miscarriage. "

"And Draco's going to help Ginny escape only to get news about me?"

"Unless something's happened since I left, the witch is most likely back with her family by now."

Hermione looked visibly shocked that Draco would take such risks just to confirm she was okay.

"We needed to talk to the Order anyway," Gunnolf explained. "Draco thinks the Order would naturally be our ally if we are to go against the Dark Lord."

"Draco wants to fight the Dark Lord?"

They had discussed it before she left, but Hermione was still surprised to hear Draco wished to take on a more active role in the fight against Voldemort.

"He says he wants a world where he can raise his family without worrying about people trying to kill his sons, his mate, his pack or himself."

Hermione leaned against the cave's wall for support. Her vision blurred by the tears flowing freely from her eyes.

"Why didn't he come for me? Why didn't he sense my distress?" she whispered under her breath.

"Why didn't you return, Hermione? Clearly, you aren't being held a prisoner, probably haven't been since you were turned. Why didn't you return?" he demanded.

Gunnolf flinched as Hermione's teeth elongated and her eyes rapidly changed from brown to yellow, then back to brown again.

"It's complicated," she replied dismissively, "I haven't quite been myself."

"Have you been alone all this time?" he asked, curious about how she had survived as a lone wolf. "I'd say you're doing pretty well, all things considered."

Hermione shrugged.

"Looks like Oskar was right about you."

She gave him a questioning glance.

"You must be the Promised One. I mean, you're a dire wolf, Hermione! And you managed to defeat that erumpent last night."

"Is that what that creature was, an erum-?"

"An erumpent, yes. Thanks to a terrible translator, we ended up learning about quite a few African beasts while looking for you. When we heard about a dire wolf sighting in the Mountains of the Moon we weren't really expecting to find anything even though we did go up to Uagadou to check."

"While you've been running around looking for me, where's this so-called mate of mine? If we have a bond why didn't he stop Fenrir from violating me?"

Hermione and her wolf were of one mind in that moment. She hated having to even mention the degradation she had suffered at Fenrir's hands, but she needed to know why Draco had failed her.

"The Dark Lord punished Draco for your escape. I'll spare you the gruesome details, but he was tortured and left for dead. He's alive, thanks only to the timely actions of a few childhood friends... Hermione, I don't know how you've remained sane all this time all by yourself, but we aren't meant to be on our own. Unless you want to go on a murderous rampage like Fenrir did, you should return to Bleidd with me and be part of the pack."

"Isn't that where Fenrir is as well?"

Gunnolf nodded.

"I don't trust myself around him. I'm not sure I'll be able to remain sane when I see him."

"Then we'll get rid of Fenrir. Your place is with Draco, your pups and the pack, Hermione. We're social creatures, we can't handle being on our own. We think and act irrationally, becoming more and more of a threat to those around us, as well as ourselves, the longer we remain without bonds. Come back to Bleidd, you don't have to physically be with the Order to work with them."

There was truth to what he said. Hermione herself had grown concerned over her erratic and irrational thoughts.

"You need a pack, Hermione. I can see you have a powerful beast, but you have little control over it. You need bonds to banish the chaos in your mind before you can successfully master your wolf... And, your sons need you. Have you any idea how rare it is for our kind to meet our true mates and to have children with them?" asked Gunnolf, sounding both angry and resentful. "You already spat in the face of this incredible gift from the fates when you abandoned your children and mate. Do not repeat the same mistake twice."

Hermione was exhausted. She still wanted to keep away from Bleidd for the safety of her children. She was still angry with Draco despite the explanations. She wanted to see her sons again, she wanted to be held by Draco again, and a part of her still wanted to kill Fenrir, along with every Death Eater and salt their lands after she had burnt everything they owned to the ground. She was unable to distinguish the irrational from the rational thoughts. The she-wolf was surprisingly quiet.

"Let's go back to the Death Eater base. Theo's most probably waiting there for me. We can portkey back to Bleidd together."

"There's no need for that." There was no way she was returning to that place, unless it was to torch it down. She summoned her own portkey. "This one can take us to Britain."

"I suppose that is safer than having you just show up at Bleidd."

Gunnolf wasn't looking at her so he missed the predatory look in her eyes.

"Sure, but before we go, wolf, I think it's time for you to pick an alpha."

Draco arrived at the co-ordinates given to him by Theo and the first thing his keen werewolf senses noticed was the unusual colour of the soil in the adjacent field. A closer inspection nearly drove him mad with grief and rage as he realised it was Hermione's blood staining the ground.

She attacked the werewolf and escaped. He reminded himself.

By Mipsy's account, Hermione had not only escaped but also done some damage first. From the copious amount of blood residue—belonging to both Fenrir and Hermione—still present a month later, the two must have engaged in an epic fight. His wolf was proud to have a mate powerful enough to leave that ugly scar on his former alpha's face, but the wizard worried about how much his witch would have suffered trying to cope with such injuries all on her own.

Draco forced himself to go inside the base to look for signs of Gunnolf. Once he could finally see the place, its current state surprised him. An entire quadrant of the structure resembled a war zone with the walls showing signs of being struck by several confringos.

He searched for Gunnolf as well as the cellar, where his mate had been held captive and abused. He wasn't powerful enough to demolish the entire place by himself, but he was capable of wrecking one room. However, someone else had beaten him to it as he found the cellar's roof had caved in so it was no longer accessible.

Something began to flutter in his heart. Who else would have wanted to damage this room, except for Hermione?

The scent of the smouldering remains of the building overwhelmed his senses. The magic employed in its destruction was strong enough to leave a trace of its source even hours later. Hope soared within his heart when he identified the caster as Hermione. She was alive, and well enough to pull off something like this. Awestruck, he took in the scene of destruction around him. His wolf grew restless, far too excited and eager than ever to claim his stunning mate.

There was no sign of Gunnolf. It may have been the smoke still messing with his nose, but Draco failed to pick up his head beta's scent on any of the entry points. However, since Gunnolf did not possess a portkey to return to Britain, like Hermione he too was quite likely still in Uganda.

It wasn't prudent to stick around any longer. There was no telling what wards were triggered when Hermione attacked the place and a group of Death Eaters could be well on their way to investigate. Before leaving, Draco left his scent all over the base—for Gunnolf to find, should he return—but did it in the most disrespectful manner possible to express his contempt for the place.

Draco returned to the site of the pack's makeshift camp on the other side of the Mountains of the Moon. He checked on their injured followed by a meeting with the betas to plan their tasks for the next few days. Past midnight, he finally called it a day. Worn out as they were by the trials of the last twenty-four hours, they would be able to function more effectively after a good night's sleep.

He did not immediately join the others to retire for the night, but went for a walk instead. Despite being the alpha now, he ended up performing a perimeter check. The task had been a part of his routine for so long it would be a while before he outgrew the habit.

During his solitary stroll, he thought about Gunnolf. Had he already gone looking for Theo and encountered Hermione this morning? It may have only been wishful thinking on his part, but with two werewolves missing in the same region around the full moon, there was a chance Gunnolf had already found Hermione. As he lay on the pile of rugs besides members of his pack who were fast asleep, Draco tried to sense Gunnolf through the alpha bond.

Nothing.

Either he was doing it wrong or Gunnolf was too far out of range. This was just another thing he would have liked to discuss with Oskar.

Sometime in the early hours of the morning, one of his betas woke Draco and led him away from the tent serving as their sleeping quarters. His mannerism suggested that whatever had led Adrian to disturb his alpha's sleep was important, but nothing to be alarmed over.

It was a relief to see Oskar and Cora sitting beside the campfire, so much, he did not immediately notice Cora's reddened eyes or how frail Oskar appeared.

AN: Uganda is 3 hrs ahead of the UK.