A/N: And I'm back! I hope that you all are happier with the quicker update schedule. I've found some solid blocks of time lately, and I've found myself just writing new chapters to my stories. It's like a form of calm-therapy.

Anyway- the story is definitely rolling now. I'd like to thank all the readers that stuck through 3 chapters of snail-pace plot, but your wait is over.

Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I own nothing but the situation.

Warnings: Eventual explicit content.

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Hermione was running.

Not literally—she was actually on the Knight Bus. But in essence, she was running. After the meeting with Malfoy the previous day, she had fled from the room, all semblance of maturity gone with the frightening word 'mate' ringing through her head.

There was no way she was Draco's mate. It wasn't possible. Hermione Granger was not the mate of anything, much less the mate of one of the most dominant creatures in the wizarding world. The very word suggested subservience—and there was nothing Hermione loathed more than the feeling of being less.

So she was running. Draco had let her run, making not one move to stop her hasty escape from the offices. She had fled to her home, where she had abruptly packed her bags and contacted the Knight Bus. And then she had disappeared.

She had left a note for Harry and Ron, knowing that they would come looking. It didn't say why she was leaving, just that she had felt the urge to travel for the first time since the war had ended. In the end, she thought they would believe her. They had both taken a brief hiatus from the real world after the war, but Hermione had rejected their offer of accompanying them. She had thrust herself directly into the Ministry, where she had felt her help was needed. She hoped that Harry and Ron would just take her note at face value, and not look into it.

To Dave, she simply wrote a letter detailing her unexpected plans to tour the world, taking her several year's worth of paid vacation time and using them. He would be grateful for her break, sure that she was just letting herself relax.

Only one person would know why she was running. Draco Malfoy would know. He had known, she thought cynically, that she would run. He had seen the look of terror on her face when he had mentioned the word mate.

He hadn't stopped her, though.

Hermione scrunched up her forehead. That was the only thing that didn't make any sense. Malfoy had to have known that she would leave. Why hadn't he at least asked her where she planned to go? She hoped he didn't plan on following her.

Shivering at the thought, Hermione looked out the window of the speeding bus. They were almost to the edge of London.

Really—Hermione had been on the Knight Bus to gather her thoughts. She hadn't wanted to rush off into an Apparition with only a vague idea of where she wanted to go, but now she was sure.

It was time she finally visited America.

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Draco sat at the foot of the staircase in the Malfoy Manor and put his head in his hands. His wings, unfurled in the privacy of his own home, cascaded behind his back, the ends coming into contact with the stairs behind him. He flexed them slightly in agitation.

His mate didn't want him.

The Arkkien in him snarled with pain. To lose a mate was torturous to any Arkkien, much less one who could command the storms. A storm Arkkien could control the weather with their mood, and an Arkkien without a mate was unpredictable, and often suicidal. In the old times, when Arkkien had still roamed the wizarding world, one of the storm Arkkien had lost his mate in a rock slide. He had been unable to reach her in time, and because her element was the air, her powers were suffocated, and she died. His suicidal anguish had caused devastating lightning storms, and storms that rivaled the apocalypse. The poor man had eventually died.

For an Arkkien could not live without their mates for long. While they were almost unequaled in power and raw strength, and Arkkien was very weak when it came to their mates. The mate bond was intrinsic to the Arkkien's mental and physical well-being. The mate bond was what kept the Arkkien's emotions in check, and balanced out their power with their very presence.

And his mate had rejected him.

With his eyes closed against the backs of his hands, he could still see her horrified eyes when he had made the observation.

What would have happened if he hadn't mentioned it? Would she have reacted differently?

He thought about it. No. Hermione Granger would have reacted the same. And it was understandable…to the human portion of his brain.

In the Arkkien culture, a mate was a prized possession. To have a mate was to have peace and happiness, and the means to being immensely powerful. For that reason, the story that had been passed down through the wizard culture had been the one about Rafael and Eponime.

In the story, Rafael, one of the cruelest members of the Arkkien, had been so drunk with the power he had gained from his mating with the human Eponime, he became insane with covetous jealousy. He forbade his mate to leave their eyrie, and as the time wore on, she was restricted one thing after the other, until eventually the only thing she was allowed to do was go out into the garden in the afternoons to read.

But one day, Rafael decided to watch his mate read in the garden. He discovered that his mate had been meeting with a human male on the side. Not a sexual affair, but the male came up to the garden to tell Eponime about the outside world. Rafael, insane with rage, refused to believe Eponime, and killed the male. Eponime was then placed with lock and key in the house, and was never let out again.

That story had ceased to become an Arkkien legend over time, and had instead become a tale regarded by the wizarding population as a moral tale about jealousy. Rafael, who had existed, had been so mentally instable; the Arkkien had been forced to put him down. However—they failed to do so before the wizarding population had gotten wind of it.

So it was no surprise that Hermione was running away. If the circumstances were reversed, Draco was sure he would have done the same.

But the rationality behind it did nothing for his Arkkien side, which was screaming at him to fly, find her, and bring her back to his home. If Draco had been full-blooded Arkkien, he probably would have done so. But his father had been half Veela, so Draco managed to suppress the need to find her immediately.

Besides. If he ever wanted her to let him near her, he needed to take it slow.

Draco flexed his right wing towards the front of his body and felt his wing feathers. Reaching down to the tip, he looked in sad acceptance at the gray tinge at the end of his sky blue primary at the tip of his wing.

He needed to get her to accept their mating bond before it killed them both.

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A/N: Well there we are…..we find out that both of them will be affected by Hermione's refusal to accept the mating bond. Will she accept him before his wings turn all gray?

Review and I'll update so you all can find out!

Sincerely,

TLA