Chapter 144: Reign’s Blood & Sweat

Reign:

My Black Season was at its peak, and under normal circumstances, there was no chance in hell I would have stepped outside the basement beneath the east wing of the Estate, especially after sunset.

During the good days, I only had to suffer from fever and body pain that left me bedridden. During worst days, my body became a prison I couldn’t escape from. The fever would rise until my skin felt like it was burning from the inside, my muscles would ache as though I’d been beaten for hours, and even breathing could become exhausting. The pain my wolf experienced was almost unexplainable in words.

So the only reason I had been dragged out of that basement tonight was because my father had apparently decided that Selene’s latest performance was important enough to interrupt what little stability I had left.

For hours, I had been forced to sit through the same argument dressed in different words while Selene demanded justice for her precious brother, Adrian Black, as though the man hadn’t nearly driven one of the most important business projects into disaster. By the time everything was finally settled, I had a headache that felt worse than the fever.

Adrian had been a problem from the beginning. I had opposed his appointment the moment my father suggested giving him an executive position within Valemont Corporation, and I had made my objection very clear. Adrian had neither the experience nor the discipline required for the position, and putting someone like him in charge of a major division simply because his sister had married my father had never made sense to me.

Unfortunately, Selene had pestered my father until he finally gave in. She had argued that Adrian deserved an opportunity, that he was capable, that I was being unnecessarily harsh, and that refusing him would make it appear as though I didn’t trust my own family.

My father listened to her instead of me, and exactly what I had predicted happened months later. Adrian made one disastrous decision after another until his incompetence finally collided with a project worth hundreds of millions.

The damage had been enormous. The company had lost hundreds of millions, a long-standing business partnership had nearly collapsed, and the project itself had come dangerously close to becoming a complete failure.

Yet instead of removing Adrian from his post, my father had summoned me and calmly informed me that this was an opportunity for me to prove that I was capable of handling the corporation.

I had stared at him for several seconds because I genuinely couldn’t believe what I was hearing. "Prove myself?" I had asked, unable to hide the disbelief in my voice. Apparently, despite everything I had accomplished, my father still believed the empire bearing our family name had somehow been built by him and merely handed to me.

Perhaps he had forgotten that I was fifteen when I started.

I hadn’t inherited Valemont Corporation. There had been no enormous empire waiting for me to take control of. I had started with a small business in a basement, using whatever resources I could gather and every scrap of knowledge I possessed.

For seven years, I worked until exhaustion became normal, reinvesting every profit, expanding one operation at a time, taking risks no one else was willing to take and personally handling problems that would have made most executives quit.

By the time I was twenty-two, Valemont Corporation had become the largest business empire in Starfall. Seven years of blood, sweat, sleepless nights, and relentless work had transformed a tiny operation into an empire, and I had done it without my father’s help. He neither offered monetary help nor manpower even once.

So hearing him talk about checking whether I was capable of running the business would have been amusing if I hadn’t already been trying to not get on his bad side because of a certain someone.

Therefore, I hadn’t argued. Instead, I took the mess, fixed it, and saved the partnership.

I personally negotiated with the other company, rebuilt their confidence in the project, replaced the incompetent management overseeing the operation, and somehow managed to salvage enough of the original plan to prevent the entire investment from collapsing.

Then I dealt with Adrian. He was demoted, exactly as he should have been, although Selene’s reaction was dramatic enough to make me wonder whether she had forgotten whose money had been nearly destroyed. She cried, shouted, accused me of humiliating her family, and eventually turned the entire thing into an emotional spectacle for my father.

He wasn’t happy about the demotion either. However, in the end, he gave in, although naturally he couldn’t bring himself to remove Adrian completely. Even after everything, my father ensured that the man retained a senior position in one of the departments. I didn’t care anymore. At least Adrian would no longer have enough authority to destroy another multimillion-credit project.

I would have left the estate immediately after that if my body had allowed it. Unfortunately, the timing couldn’t have been worse.

My Black Season was approaching its end, but the worst part hadn’t passed yet. There were perhaps two or three days left before the fever and weakness would finally begin retreating, and until then, staying at Valemont Estate was the safest option.

Returning to Moonveil Academy in this condition would have been reckless, and staying anywhere else without people who understood what happened during these days would have been even worse. Exams were less than a week away, yet I had no choice but to remain here until my body stopped trying to destroy itself.

I moved through the corridor toward the east wing, forcing one foot in front of the other. Sweat had begun forming along my forehead despite the cold weather, and my shirt clung uncomfortably to my back. My vision blurred for half a second before recovering, and I clenched my jaw as another wave of heat rolled through my body.

My wolf stirred restlessly beneath my skin, equally miserable and increasingly irritable. I hated this. I hated every second of it. But what I hated most was knowing my father had summoned me despite knowing exactly how bad this period could become.

He knew.

He had watched this happen for twenty-three years. He knew the fever, the pain, the weakness, the nights when I could barely remain conscious, and the days when my wolf seemed determined to tear itself apart from the inside. Yet he had still called me out of the only place where I could safely recover because Selene wanted her brother protected from the consequences of his own stupidity.

Perhaps there was another reason too.

My father desperately wanted to believe I was getting better.

He had asked several times whether the Black Season was becoming less severe, whether the symptoms were improving, whether the duration was shortening. Every time, I gave him the same answer - nothing had changed. I knew he didn’t like hearing it. I knew he hated being reminded that he made a mistake.

If there was anyone in this world who had more reason to hate my Black Season than I did, it was Darren Valemont.

Because twenty-three years ago, his choices had created the circumstances that left his son carrying this curse.

And no matter how much he pretended otherwise, neither of us had forgotten it.