**Chapter 5:**Blood on the Grip Tape
3:33 a.m.
The storm cracked the sky open like a negative held to lightning.
I was already awake, locket pulsing so hard it bruised my sternum.
Grandma Elowene's voice slid into my skull the second I opened the front door, cool and Kyoto-calm.
**"Child, the hour is thin. Ride. The lake is calling its Receiver."**
Rain lashed sideways. I didn't bother with a hoodie. Just Vans, soaked jeans, and the locket swinging like a pendulum.
Skateboard under my arm, I kicked into the street.
Wheels hissed on wet asphalt, glowing faint blue—new trick, apparently.
The storm tasted like ozone and hot springs.
**"Left at the dam road,"** Grandma whispered. **"He's waiting."**
I carved hard, tail scraping sparks.
**"Who?"**
**"The one who drinks without breathing. The one who taught me how to bleed the mist in 1951. Julian Bathory is older than the lake, dragă. And he is *starved* for a Morau throat."**
The high-school parking lot appeared through the downpour—empty except for one black 1960 Jaguar parked under the broken streetlight.
Mr. Bathory stood beside it, coat plastered to his frame, hair slicked dark as oil.
No umbrella. No mist touching him.
Just rain running off him like water off glass.
My board slid to a stop on its own, trucks screeching.
I planted my foot.
"WHAT ARE YOU?" I shouted over the thunder. "And what the hell do you want with me?"
His smile was all canine.
"Language, Miss Morau. You're a lady now."
He took one step.
Grandma's voice cracked like a whip inside my head:
**"No nature here, child. Asphalt and iron. No roots to borrow. RUN."**
"I'm not running."
I backed up anyway—one step, two—until my heel hit wet grass at the edge of the lot.
The lake side. Real earth. Roots under the mud.
Julian moved.
Not walked.
*Blurred.*
One heartbeat he was twenty feet away, the next his teeth were in my neck—just below the spiral tattoo.
Pain lit white behind my eyes.
I hit the ground hard, mud soaking my back, skateboard spinning away.
His fangs sank deeper.
Cold spread like developer in a tray.
**"BIND HIM!"** Grandma screamed. **"Or he drinks the vein dry through you!"**
I couldn't breathe.
But my right hand lit up—silver spiral glowing like molten metal, same shape as the tattoo, the scar, the locket.
A sigil I'd seen over and over
I grabbed his hair with my left hand , yanked his mouth off my throat with everything I had.
With my right—the glowing one—I slammed the sigil against his forehead.
Skin sizzled.
He roared.
The binding mark **seared** into his skull—silver on dead-white, spiral turning clockwise, locking.
My vision flashed ruby.
Eyes bleeding color. my eyes changed from crystal blue irises to ruby red irises.
New Fangs—my own—pricking my bottom lip, sudden and sharp.
Julian's body had been tossed off me like a rag doll.
Rain hissed where it touched the binding mark, turning to steam.
His own eyes—black now, pupils blown—met mine.
He crashed into the ground on his hands and knees.
And he **bowed**.
Forehead to the mud, knees sinking, coat pooling like spilled ink.
Voice ragged:
"*Primavara Rece…*"
The old tongue. Romanian.
"*Mistress of the vein.* I yield."
The storm quieted to a heartbeat drum.
Grandma's voice, soft now, proud:
**"First binding, little spring. You wear the crown now."**
Blood—mine—mixed with rain, running pink down my collarbone.
The bite throbbed, but it wasn't spreading cold anymore.
It was spreading **heat**.
Julian stayed bowed, breathing unnecessary, waiting.
I stood.My Eye sight and my sense of smell increased beyond human norms.
Ruby eyes Replaced My Crystal Blue Eyes, fangs receding until my tongue found only normal teeth again.
The sigil on my palm faded .
I picked up my skateboard.
Grip tape slick with blood and grass.
"Look at me," I said.
He lifted his head.
The binding spiral glowed faintly on his forehead—my spiral.
My mark.
"New rule," I told him. "You don't touch me unless I say. You don't follow me unless I call. You don't drink anything in this valley without my permission. Got it?"
His smile was slow, reverent.
"Got it, My Queen."
Thunder rolled, approving.
Grandma again, quieter:
**"Ask him why he woke the vein early."**
I stepped closer, board under my arm like a rifle.
"Why now? Why me? Why wake the lake before I even knew what I was?"
Julian's eyes flicked to the locket, then to the bite.
"Because the Nakamura found the black garnet," he said. "She's going to shatter the covenant at Homecoming. If the vein chooses no Queen, the mist dies. And everything chained to it—me included—burns."
He touched the binding mark on his forehead as it faded, almost tender.
"I've waited seventy-three years for a Morau strong enough to hold the leash.
Elowene broke my heart.
You, little spring… you just broke my will."
I swallowed.
The storm had stopped entirely.
Steam rose off the asphalt, curling around my ankles like a cat.
**"Now ask about the alliance,"** Grandma murmured.
I crouched so we were eye-level, mud squelching.
"Seras Nakamura. She hates my blood. But I don't want an enemy. I want an equal. Can the binding stretch to her? Can two families hold the Crown together?"
Julian laughed once—soft, ancient.
"Only one way to find out. Offer her the other half of the spiral. But Receivers don't share power, Celeste. They *devour* it."
I stood.
"Then I'll be the first who doesn't."
I flipped my board, set it down.
Wheels still glowing blue—brighter now, fed by storm and blood.
"Follow at a distance," I told him. "We're going to the lake. I need to wash your teeth out of my neck and figure out how to make a Nakamura kneel without breaking her."
Julian rose, coat shedding water like a duck.
"As you command, *Primavara*."
I kicked off, carving through the parking lot, steam parting like curtains.
Grandma's voice rode with me, warm against the cold bite throbbing under my jaw:
**"You did good, dragă. First spell, first familiar, first war.
Now ride, little spring.
The lake wants to meet its new heart."**
I hit the dam road doing forty, wind whipping platinum hair straight back, locket bouncing with every push.
Behind me, Julian followed—not running.
Just there.
A shadow bound to my spiral.
Ahead, Lake Hamilton steamed under the fresh moon, upside-down coyotes racing beneath the surface.
They howled when they saw me coming.
Eight voices.
Then nine.
Then one.
Mine.