The princess, radiant daughter of a noble family, grew up within the grand walls of her family's castle, cherished for her gentle heart and graceful spirit. To her people, she was the embodiment of kindness and dignity—a true princess whose laughter sounded like wind chimes in the castle gardens. The silk of her gowns always carried the faint scent of jasmine from the palace gardens she tended herself. Yet behind her serene smile lay a secret heavier than any crown—she was deeply in love with Elliott, the demon prince whose very name made villagers whisper in fear.

Elliott, born into a fearsome dynasty within his obsidian palace, was bound by duty and haunted by his lineage. The stone halls of his childhood echoed with his father Malakai's roars and his mother's icy commands, teaching him that humans were fragile pawns—not equals, and certainly not partners. His claws could tear through steel, his eyes glowed with smoldering embers when angered, and his skin bore the faint iridescent scales of his heritage. When Elliott first saw the princess tending wounded birds in the border forest, her compassion shining like sunlight through storm clouds, something within him cracked. Against all odds, their hidden relationship bloomed in moonlit clearings and forgotten temple ruins, a forbidden love neither could deny.

In a world divided between the sunlit human kingdoms with their marble castles and the shadowy demon realms where rivers ran with liquid starlight, their unlikely romance became both curse and blessing. Though their families would never approve—her father seeing demons as abominations, his parents viewing humans as snacks for lesser demons—the two young lovers met in secret. The princess's heart raced with every stolen moment, the scent of Elliott's cedar-and-ash cologne clinging to her skin long after their meetings, while Elliott found himself collecting small human trinkets: a pressed flower, a porcelain doll, a music box that played melodies unlike any in his realm.