Reborn as a Duke's Son… I Became Her Yandere Villain Chapter 2: The Vampire in the Room

The walk back from the summoning platform was the longest twenty seconds of my life.

Not because I was nervous. I was not nervous. I was Caelum Dravenmoor, Duke’s son, Sovereign Mark bloodline, and I had just summoned an Ancient Vampire Queen in front of the entire student body of Veyrath Academy. Nervous was not the right word.

The right word was sothing closer to acutely aware.

Every pair of eyes in that hall was on us. I could feel them the way you feel sunlight on your back, that specific weight of attention that has no physical presence but presses against you anyway. Students who had been chatting a mont ago were silent. The faculty along the walls had gone very still. The summoning instructor who had given the standard guidance was holding his clipboard with both hands and staring at Seraphine like he was trying to decide if he needed to sound an alarm.

Seraphine walked beside with the easy grace of soone who had never once in her existence felt out of place anywhere. Her white hair moved slightly with each step despite the fact that there was no wind in the hall. Her crimson eyes were forward, composed, faintly amused. She had shrunk her presence down from whatever it had been in the summoning circle, that tidal weight, to sothing that still made the air feel different but would not cause anyone to pass out.

Considerate of her.

I found my spot in the formation again. Seraphine stopped exactly one step behind my right shoulder and stayed there. Like she had already decided that was her position and intended to keep it.

The instructor cleared his throat. Twice.

"Caelum Dravenmoor," he said, and his voice only wavered a little. "Ancient Class binding confird. Please report to the summoner assessnt office after the ceremony for reclassification."

"Of course," I said.

Completely calm. Just two words, pleasant and cooperative, the way you answer a teacher when you have done nothing wrong and also nothing they expected.

The ceremony continued.

I watched the remaining students take their turns at the circle with one part of my attention while the other part was running through calculations. The original story had not included this mont because the original Caelum had summoned Aldric, a respectable warrior class knight who drew polite applause and mild interest. Nobody had needed to be reclassified. Nobody had stood in that circle while an Ancient entity touched their face in front of five hundred people.

The reclassification was going to an additional faculty attention. Possibly interest from people higher up than academy instructors. The Sovereign Mark combined with an Ancient Class summon was the kind of combination that made powerful people either want to recruit you or neutralize you, and I needed to figure out quickly which way the faculty’s interest was going to lean.

I also needed to talk to Seraphine before she decided to handle any of that herself.

Evelyne took the platform near the end of the first year group.

The hall’s attention shifted to her the way attention tends to shift toward people who carry themselves like they expect it. She stepped into the circle and closed her eyes and reached with a calm focus that was visible even from where I stood. Her summon appeared in under a minute. A white griffin, young but clearly high quality, feathers bright and eyes sharp. It pressed its head against her hand when she opened her eyes and she touched it with a composed affection that she probably did not realize was visible on her face.

The applause for her was genuine and imdiate.

She stepped off the platform and returned to her place without looking around for reactions. The griffin walked at her heel like it had always been there.

I watched her for a mont. Then I looked away before she could catch at it.

The ceremony wrapped up, students were released to find their dormitory assignnts, and I made my way toward the assessnt office with Seraphine moving silently behind through the hallway crowds.

Students moved out of our way. Not rudely. More like the way water moves around sothing solid. They stepped aside and then turned to watch us pass and then imdiately started talking to whoever was nearest to them.

"You are enjoying this," Seraphine said from behind .

"I have no idea what you an."

"Your shoulders," she said pleasantly. "You carry yourself differently when you are pleased about sothing. It is a very subtle shift. I noticed it imdiately."

I filed that away. She could read my body language with the precision of soone who had centuries of practice understanding people. That was going to require adjustnt on my end.

"The attention is useful," I said. "People who are busy being impressed or unsettled are not asking questions I do not want to answer yet."

"Mm," she said. The sound managed to convey both agreent and sothing that was not quite skepticism but lived in the sa neighborhood.

The assessnt office was a narrow room off the main administrative hall, bookshelves along two walls, a large desk in the center, and a woman behind the desk who looked up when I entered and then looked at Seraphine and beca very carefully expressionless.

Her na was Instructor Vael. I knew her from the novel. She handled advanced summoner cases, was genuinely competent, and was one of the few faculty mbers who had treated the original Caelum as sothing more than just the Duke’s heir. In the original story she had eventually beco a minor antagonist by accident, not through malice but through doing her job too well and discovering things Caelum needed kept quiet.

I intended to manage that relationship better this ti.

"Caelum Dravenmoor," she said. Her eyes moved between and Seraphine with the careful focus of soone cataloguing everything. "Please sit down."

I sat. Seraphine did not sit. She stood at my shoulder again, in that sa position, and looked at Instructor Vael with the polite attentiveness of soone at a social event they find mildly interesting.

Vael opened a folder. "Ancient Class binding at sixteen is unprecedented in the academy’s recorded history. The Sovereign Mark affinity accounts for the contract stability, but the depth of reach required to find and bind an Ancient entity at your stage of developnt is sothing I need to understand better." She looked at directly. "Walk through what happened in the circle."

"I reached deeper than the standard layer," I said. "The Mark responded to the depth. Sothing was already there. It accepted the contract."

"Sothing," Vael repeated. She looked at Seraphine. "Can you tell your classification and origin?"

Seraphine smiled. It was a beautiful smile. It was also the smile of soone who found the question charming in the way adults find children’s questions charming. "I am Seraphine Noctra. Ancient Class, vampiric lineage, sovereign tier. My origin is my own business. My contract is with my master and it is stable and complete." She tilted her head slightly. "Is there a specific concern you would like to address?"