Don’t Tame It [Novel]

1.

“Waaah!”

Dark clouds gathered on the horizon, moving with a rhythmic, martial precision. It did not take long to identify them: the Divoa military.

The Alvar general hoisted his sword, goading his terrified ranks.

“Do not fall back!”

“Let’s wipe these Divoa bastards out, just like we did at dawn!”

“Waaah!”

The battle erupted with a roar. Under a sunset the color of fresh blood, cold steel clashed. *Clang, clang*—a sharp, metallic ringing filled the air, cutting through the screams.

Diego leaped from his horse with a jagged, fishy smile. Beside him, Javier surged forward, his boots tearing into the earth.

But Diego ignored him; his focus was entirely on the Alvar soldiers. For a fleeting second, the dying light caught his eyes, staining them a deep, predatory red.

“…….”

Javier mistook the glow for the sunset, but his instinct remained sharp. He lunged, slicing the throat of a soldier who had crept up behind Diego.

Diego ran wild, a colt with no bridle. Every flick of his blade sent Alvar soldiers collapsing like harvested wheat.

“Grand Duke Cassis!”

An Alvar adjutant, seeing an opening, gripped his sword with both hands and lunged.

“Your Highness!” Javier roared in warning.

Diego simply shifted his weight, his grace effortless. The adjutant, having committed the full force of his momentum to the strike, staggered, his face twisting in realization.

Diego did not miss the gap. He drew a clean, horizontal line across the man’s throat.

“Gah!”

Blood erupted in a fountain. Diego twisted his head, though not quickly enough to avoid the spray.

*Psst.*

With a languid curl of his lips, he wiped his cheek. A long, bright red streak remained where his fingers had dragged through the gore.

“The God of Death.”

The murmur came from an Alvar soldier nearby—a name whispered in terror, the moniker they used when they thought the Grand Duke wasn’t listening.

The scent of copper hung thick in the air. Diego brought his stained fingers to his mouth, his tongue darting out to taste the warmth.

“Fishy.”

In an instant, he was already moving, his blade seeking another throat. His eyes burned, once again reflecting the crimson sky.

“It’s the Grand Duke!”

“It’s the God of Death!”

The shouts swarmed around him like gnats. As Diego thrust his sword deep into an enemy’s stomach—

“!”

An Alvar soldier lunged from the shadows to his left.

“Die! You wretch of the Alvar Kingdom!”

*Damn it.* Diego’s sword was buried in the first soldier, and the man had seized the hilt with both hands—a desperate, dying vow to drag his killer into hell with him.

The soldier’s face, glistening with a mixture of hatred and triumph, twisted into a sneer. He raised his blade to strike.

“…….”

For a split second, Diego thought that death might be a relief. To succumb to a sudden, instantaneous end felt better than waiting for his tedious life to slowly wither away.

Perhaps this was the moment he had been waiting for all along.

But then.

*Kang!*

“Ugh.”

The groan came from the Alvar soldier. Javier had slammed into the man’s flank, knocking the sword aside before delivering a fatal blow to the chest. The soldier, still drunk on the phantom scent of victory, collapsed.

Javier stood over him, his shoulders heaving with ragged breath. He turned his head toward his master.

“Are you alright?”

Diego pulled his sword from the first soldier’s gut. The man’s hand, now slack and lifeless, flopped against the dirt.

Diego turned, his movements lethargic.

*Flinch.*

Javier met his eyes and involuntarily stiffened. Diego was smiling—not with malice, but as if he were having the time of his life.

“……Your Highness.”

“Saved by you again.”

Diego muttered the words carelessly before thrusting his blade toward Javier.

“!”

It was so swift that Javier couldn’t dodge. He couldn’t even tell if the words were meant as gratitude or a veiled threat.

The blue-steel blade whistled past Javier’s ear, slicing into the air.

“Argh.”

Behind Javier, an Alvar soldier collapsed, eyes wide with shock. Javier glanced back, exhaling sharply. “Thank you.”

“Mutual.”

Diego turned, diving back into the heart of the carnage. Javier followed, one beat behind.

*Whoosh!*

A sword grazed Diego’s ear, shearing off a few strands of hair. He narrowed his eyes, a jolt of electricity racing through his veins.

What if that blade had left a wound? If he had bled, how long would it take to stop? Would it stop at all?

How deep would the cut need to be to bridge the gap between life and death?

Ironically, Diego only felt truly alive when death loomed over him. Only in the center of the slaughter did his existence feel like anything more than a dull ache.

Suddenly, the image of Irene Rios surfaced in his mind—another source of amusement to color his gray world.

Yes, just like war.

“Die!”

Diego clicked his tongue at an enemy spouting clichés. He bent at the waist, avoiding the blow, and sliced deep into the soldier’s thigh.

“Gah!”

The soldier crumpled, clutching his leg as blood pooled on the dirt. Diego peered down at him with heavy, listless eyes.

“That is why this is so boring.”

From the soldier’s bloodied lips, a final, choked name leaked out.

“The King of Slaughter…….”

Diego smiled, the red sunset framing him like a halo. He looked brilliant.

Yet, a chill that had nothing to do with the wind crawled up the spines of every Alvar soldier watching him.

* * *

“Drink this.”

Irene held out a bottle to the soldier who was groaning in agony. He blinked, his eyes unfocused, casting a questioning look at the woman standing over him.

“Who……?”

She was too stoic, too empty of pity to be an angel of mercy. Just as he thought it would be better to be led to the afterlife by someone kinder, she pressed the bottle closer.

“Drink this.”

Her tone was devoid of comfort. The soldier’s gaze drifted downward. Recognizing the vessel, he snatched it and drank, ignoring the sting of the alcohol as it washed down his throat. The sharp, biting liquid offered a brief, merciful retreat from the fire in his gut.

Irene watched him with clinical detachment.

“It would be better to lose consciousness.”

She glanced at his blood-soaked abdomen and added, “Well, given how much you’ve lost, you’ll lose consciousness soon enough anyway.”

“Physician Rios!”

Mia came scurrying over, carrying a heavy bucket. She wiped her brow and beamed with a triumphant, if exhausted, air.

“I’ve brought clean water and cloths.”

She didn’t mention the difficulty of scrounging for supplies on a war-torn battlefield. Boasting was not a trait of a loyal maid.

Irene removed her gloves and scrubbed her hands. She opened her medical bag, her movements efficient and practiced. Mia craned her neck, her voice laced with bewilderment.

“What are you going to do with those?”

Irene didn’t answer. She soaked a cloth in the water. The soldier, now hazy from the alcohol and the shock, was trembling.

“…….”

Irene reached out, then hesitated. Her fingers twitched. Without the layer of leather between her skin and the world, she felt a sudden, sharp repulsion.

He was a living thing—not a specimen, not a corpse, but a creature of blood, warmth, and fragile, messy pulses.

*Could she touch him?*

Her fingers curled inward. Goosebumps rose on her skin. A self-deprecating laugh escaped her.

*What can a failure like you do?*

Leticia’s voice hissed in her memory, cold and sharp. *Maybe she was right,* she thought. *Maybe I should just stand still.*

Just as she started to pull her hand back—

“Ugh…….”

*Gurgle.*

A fresh, dark tide of blood surged from the soldier’s belly.

At that moment, Irene’s hand moved of its own accord. The hesitation vanished, replaced by an instinct sharper than her own will. Her fingers, which had been paralyzed with doubt, began to work with a terrifying, rhythmic precision.

Her mind was a storm of static, but her hands knew the terrain of the body better than she knew herself.

“Hic!”

Mia clapped her hands over her mouth, muffling a scream. Irene had plunged her fingers directly into the open wound.

Irene focused every scrap of her consciousness on her fingertips. The internal architecture of the soldier unfolded in her mind’s eye, clearer than any illustration.

*There’s the fascia… and that… was that a vessel?*

The inferior vena cava and the abdominal aorta. If those were severed, prayer was indeed more useful than medicine.

She probed, delicate as a ghost.

*The vessels are intact. So where is the hemorrhage coming from?*

Something soft yet resilient brushed her skin. She frowned.

*Not the duodenum. That feeling… it’s the kidney.*

Irene navigated the abdomen, her long, pale fingers mapping the injury. As if her touch held sight, she traced the site of the damage.

“Ugh.”

Mia, who had squeezed her eyes shut to avoid the gruesome sight, dared to peek through her fingers.