Building Love in the Dark: What It Means to Write Ethical Dark Fantasy Romance

          Dark fantasy romance has a reputation for feeding readers a steady diet of unhealthy relationships. It’s also well known for not framing those relationships as toxic. This isn’t just a problem that exists in the indie publishing ecosystem of Kindle Unlimited. From Yarros’s Fourth Wing to Sarah Maas’s A Court of Thorns and Roses, there’s no shortage of romances that would be deeply concerning if the characters were real people.

            I can already hear the shouts of, “But it’s fiction!” And to be clear, I’m not here to cancel morally grey characters or unhealthy dynamics. Dark fantasy romance thrives on danger, intensity, and difficult people. I get it. I’ve read an embarrassing amount of it.

            But the deeper I fell into the genre, the more I started to wonder: What would it look like to keep all the darkness, but center a romance that’s rooted in care, consent, and emotional safety? What happens if love isn’t the problem?

            That question led me down a rabbit hole, and I quickly discovered I wasn’t the only one craving dark fantasy romance that didn’t rely on toxicity to feel intense. There’s a growing demand for fantasy romance that still feels intense but features a healthy romantic arc. Readers are searching for that edge, without the ethical conundrum of watching the love interest degrade their partner. Eventually, my curiosity turned into a side project that spiraled into the Nocturne Cage Trilogy, where I set out to write the kind of dark fantasy romance I hadn’t yet found on the shelf.

My Ethical Criteria for Romance

            The very first step, before I did any writing, was to set a list of criteria to define what I meant by “ethical” in terms of how the central romance would function:

1. The relationship needed to be grounded in genuine love and care.

2. If characters started in an unhealthy place, their arcs needed to include a journey toward building a stable relationship.

   • No plots involving betrayals between love interests.

3. Absolutely no violence between the love interests.

4. I later softened this to allow some grey areas early on, as long as the narrative made it clear the behavior was out of line.

5. If boundaries were crossed by either partner, there needed to be a realistic portrayal of repair.

            These guidelines became my compass while building the characters, the world, and the plot.

Pull Quote: “Having a set of guiding principles meant that I could logic-check myself at every step and ask if I crossed the line.”

The “Healthy Is Boring” Myth

            Before we go any further, let’s address the elephant in the room. A common complaint I’ve seen in discussion threads is that if a relationship is healthy, then it must be boring.

            At best, that mindset limits the types of dynamics authors feel comfortable exploring in dark fantasy romance. At worst, it creates an echo chamber where readers are only ever exposed to dysfunctional relationships.

            There are plenty of readers who want intense, romantically charged books but don’t want to wade through relationship dynamics that give them the icks. And there are so many ways to create tension in a story that don’t involve harm between love interests.

            One of those ways is external pressure, which brings me to my male protagonist—Isidore.

Enter the Lamia: Building Ethical Monsters

            Isidore is a lamia demon, inspired by the Greek myth of a woman condemned to eternal mourning and transformed into a monstrous predator. There are several versions of the legend, but I pulled from the ones where she’s part snake, drinks blood and functions a bit like a succubus.

            I knew I wanted to write a monster romance, but not one that romanticized harm. So, the next step was figuring out how to make them function in a modern society without crashing straight into consent problems like a meteor.

            I looked at what I’d built, compared it to the ethical guidelines I’d set, and realized I’d stumbled onto something poetically powerful. Because if a creature born from fear and grief could choose to build safety instead of destruction—if he could love without devouring—that would be the most radical thing I could put on the page.

Sacred Kink, Consent Culture, and RACK

            If you spend any time in queer spaces—especially kink communities—you learn quickly that BDSM isn’t what mainstream culture thinks it is. Practitioners who take the craft seriously have been hammering home the basics since the ’80s: BDSM must be safe, sane, and consensual.

            Nowadays, you’ll also see the phrase Risk Aware Consensual Kink (RACK). The core idea is simple: BDSM is only fun if everyone is on the same page and safe. Consent is key.

            That made it the perfect framework for the ethical dark fantasy experiment I was brewing, and gave me even more structure when designing the relationship dynamics. It also gave me fascinating material to work with when it came to Isidore’s cabal—the House of Crimson Fangs—but that’s for another article.

            What mattered most was that BDSM gave me both a language and a toolkit for writing characters who could be dangerous without ever being careless. It didn’t just make building a love story where consent wasn’t a compromise possible. It made consent the heartbeat that drives every dynamic between my main characters.

The World as Pressure Cooker—But the Focus Is Love

            When constructing the world of Nocturne Cage, I needed the external plot to carry enough of the dark fantasy vibe to feel dangerous and high-stakes, but still leave space for the characters to adapt, change, and question their place in society. All while staying inside my ethical parameters.

            The end product is a mythos rooted in an ancient war between the gods, adapted from Mesopotamian mythology. The plot centers on chaos-beings trying to survive in a post-war world. It’s cutthroat, brutal, and doesn’t leave much room for weakness.

            Nearly all dark fantasy features a world that acts as a pressure cooker. My work differs in where I chose to point the camera. Instead of focusing on the world itself, I centered the narrative on two people trying to carve out an emotional safe haven in that post-apocalyptic, chaos-driven landscape.

Pull Quote: “In a genre dominated by violence, the true rebellion is having the courage to fall in love.”

Where Does the Tension Come From?

            In Nocturne Cage, the tension comes primarily from character placement.

            Isidore is a lamia, a demon classified as a sehru. In-world, sehrus are the result of human creativity interacting with chaos magic that ran wild before the end of the Divine Wars. Mia, the female protagonist, is a lamassu. Her people are classified as divine nishutu. They are the highest class of chaos-beings, because they were hand-crafted by the gods beyond the Heavenly Gates.

            In my mythos, the gods created nishutu to protect righteous humans from being annihilated during the wars. And their primary enemies?You guessed it. Demons.

            That placement alone is full of delicious potential. Even if both characters are committed to building something healthy, they can’t escape the impact of what they were made for. Self-doubt, inherited mistrust, and cultural misunderstandings are gold mines for interpersonal drama.

Power vs. Protection, Freedom vs. Belonging

            The deepest tension in Nocturne Cage doesn’t come from betrayal or violence. It comes from two people trying to love each other while holding opposing core truths about what makes life feel safe.

            Isidore initially helps Mia despite his father’s orders. Mia is forced to rely on Isidore despite her instinctive distrust of all demons. They also have to learn how to accept each other’s essence.

            Mia was created for the sole purpose of protection. Isidore, born from human fear, leans naturally toward destruction. Watching them try to reconcile that is endlessly compelling to me as an author.

            Isidore fascinates me because of how often he contradicts himself without realizing it. His main internal conflict centers on power versus protection. To him, being in control means being safe. By the end of Polyphonic Seduction, it’s clear that if he doesn’t course-correct, he’s headed toward a serious problem. Because Mia will drop him like a hot coal before she lets him get away with shenanigans.

            Mia’s main conflict is about freedom versus belonging. Her arc explores the cost of hiding versus the risk of being fully seen. She wants safety, but she doesn’t want to be caged to get it.

Clashing Ideologies = Romantic Tension

            These two core arcs are constantly in conflict. Sometimes it’s because the external plot aggravates their insecurities, and sometimes it stems from their base natures being fundamentally at odds. The story is about how they navigate that tension as a couple, and how their clashing ideologies become the engine that keeps the narrative moving.

            By focusing on the evolution of their romance, and their shared desire to build something real, I was able to walk the tightrope between characters who are too soft for the genre and characters who slip into malice.

Love as the Ultimate Rebellion

            In a genre full of morally grey monsters, broken worlds, and high-stakes danger, writing an ethical dark fantasy romance is more than just possible, it’s powerful. Because in a genre dominated by violence, the true rebellion is having the courage to fall in love—and to dare to hope that two people can build their own fortress against the darkness.