To the ends of the earth, Draco always thought when he stared into his sister’s eyes. Their love didn’t start the way it is now, but its weight deserves recognition and most days the demon cannot stop himself from thinking of it. To the ends of the earth, he still thinks now, though his eyes are a bit easier to stray. Before, it was Ghaul and Dove, all he needed. Father was gone but the hole in his chest was easy to ignore.

Now it eats him alive, this hunger. The hunger he was born with mingles with the sucking black hole he wears like a badge.

Something—someone—must sate it.

Dusk settles warmly over Draco’s shoulders when the sensation becomes too much. That searing pain and desire he had initially felt with Gospel leaves him wanting. There was too much left unsaid between the pair, too much left that Draco simply does not understand. Like how he would lay at the hooves at any strong woman and open his skin for her—or how he wants to be poisoned by a love or a lust never meant to last.

Desire is an easy subject to test his hunger on, though the demon isn’t sure if she could even be considered a “subject.” He likes her, likes her in a way that makes his stomach churn. When he is bored, the black of her eyes swirls with the stars on her body and he gets so, so lost. Curling against Dove at night settles the burning in his chest but . . . Draco wonders. About what, he is not entirely certain, but he knows there is a reason Desire has stuck with him the same way Despoina and Gospel have.

The pair don’t come close to colliding, but Draco draws close enough that it might appear as if they did. “It’s almost as if we live in the same place,” he responds dryly, though an impressed smile sits handsomely on his face. “Hello, Desire,” he states simply, turning his head slightly to the left and allowing his eyes to drifty lazily to the sky. When his gaze finds Desire’s again, something strange and alien to the demon roils in it. “Do you get many jokes about your name?” Draco muses, coy smirk lifting one half of his mouth. “‘Oh, how you are my heart’s desire . . .’” he croons, teasing her like a schoolboy.

Tell Draco that he has women that find him handsome and he might offer a smug smile. Tell him that his charm works and he might nod his head in thoughtful agreement. But tell him that he will fall for the wiles of a temptress? He might laugh in one’s face. Draco is planned, controlled, suited to knowing what he wants and when he wants it and how to get it.

Yet, women seem to bring him to his knees.

Of course, Draco laughs at the thought. He sits on the throne in his mind and thinks why I’ve got them all figured out. He doesn’t stop to think that the women he is drawn to play games just as well as he does; and he doesn’t stop to think that what he feels beyond lust and desire is the kind of emotion that runs lovers into the ground.

Draco—well, Draco might just be a goddamn romantic, because when Desire titillates he unwittingly falls under spell. She has black eyes to match the gentle glow of his red, depthless and charming in a way that draws even the coy close. He is undoubtedly curious about Desire and considers inching even closer to her. Some semblance of control is managed when he remains rooted to his spot, instead casting his gaze from Desire’s eyes to the curve of her cheeks and ears. He is close enough by memorizing the soft hairs and pretty lines.

“That’s implying I have one,” Draco says and starts to roll his eyes, but instead sharpens his gaze on the flicker of gray that passes over Desire. Strange magic, especially of the perceived mischievous kind, won’t go uninvestigated. A quick dip into Desire’s mind hardly reveals a thing, though it does reveal she finds him handsome; and that makes his heart race. He immediately forgets her illusion.

“I actually quite like you, Desire,” Draco drawls, dipping his nose to barely brush it against hers. “I won’t have you thinking otherwise.”

Draco is almost distracted enough by Desire's touch that her words fall on deaf ears. Almost. But they don't, and he wonders what part of himself is brooding and not just entirely dark. It strikes him, suddenly, that others perceive him (so differently than how he perceives himself), and he can't reconcile those two views.

I'm not brooding, he thinks, nearly frowning. But he certainly is, especially to those that can't climb inside his mind, or those that know nothing of his wrath.

If the demon were to know that Desire can see the wrong way he loves his sister, he might scorn her, or chase her from Pangea, nippping her hard enough to draw blood and leave scars. Only Ghaul knows that their children our their own, and not ones adopted from random one night stands, and Draco intends to keep it that way. To him, it only makes sense that they would keep their bloodline to themselves, but most of the world will see it entirely otherwise - and he knows it to be wrong, deep down, when he isn't convincing himself that this is the only way their world can be.

"What girls, Desire?" the demon whispers, lifting his head to peer down at her. The ghost of a smile barely lifts his lips, but it turns his expression into something dangerous, crimson eyes not glowing but glittering with something almost sweet.

"I only give attention to those that deserve it and . . . that is very few." This is arrogant, and he almost knows that, but it's nearly impossible for him to hold his tongue when he falls into charm.

Suddenly, Draco steps back, lengthening the space between them, and laughs. The tension he had desired to create dissipates.

"Tell me about my heart, then, Desire. What do you think is there?" he says, flirtatious now. Then he adds, almost as an afterthought, brow furrowing with something suggestive, "And then I can tell you all the reasons you're special."