New Release: Blood Pact

Publisher: City Owl Press (May 4, 2021)
Releases on: May 4, 2021
Genre: LGBTQIA Dark Historical Paranormal Romance
Language: English
ASIN: B091V1P3FT
ISBN: 9781648980831

Buy Links:
Amazon: http://mybook.to/BloodPact
B&N: https://smarturl.it/Youkai2BN
Kobo: https://smarturl.it/Youkai2Kobo
City Owl: https://smarturl.it/Youkai2CO
Add it on Goodreads: https://tinyurl.com/3b3jec53

Blood Pact by Courtney Maguire is finally here!
This is the latest in Courtney Maguire's Youkai Bloodlines Series, a.k.a., gay Japanese vampires. *wiggles eyebrows* You know you want it.

Blurb

In Hiro’s world, youkai are a supernatural story used to scare children into obedience, and to keep men out of back alleys and brothels. Until Sakurai Hideyoshi walks through his door with a fantastical tale of a samurai who had killed a thousand men and drank the blood of his enemies, a man that lived in darkness but sought beauty to keep it at bay.

A story both terrifying and romantic…and completely ridiculous.

Unless it is true.

Convinced something softer lurks behind Hideyoshi’s hard mask, Hiro follows him home. And discovers the story is real.

Only instead of the blood of his enemies, it is innocent blood taken.

Hideyoshi tells him never to return. Yet after Hiro’s mother is mortally wounded, Hiro runs back to the one being he knows with the power to save her. When Hideyoshi can’t, Hiro begs him for the next best thing: the power to avenge her.

As Hiro becomes youkai, he faces a new threat, something darker, older, and far more dangerous. With Hideyoshi at his side, Hiro must decide what he’s willing to sacrifice--and what he’s willing to do--to protect this new life before he loses everything for a second time.

If you like Bella Forrest, P. C. Cast, AJ Tipton, or Anne Rice, you will love this beautiful dark paranormal fantasy romance.

Excerpt

“What are you doing here?”
I balked at the sight of him. He’d stopped a little more than arm’s length away, posture rigid and expression guarded. Was he always so tall? His cheekbones always so high?
“Hiro?”
“Y-You didn’t come to the okiya.” The words tumbled out of my mouth before I could stop them.
He blinked. The white had left his eyes, returning them to their usual black, and I wondered if I’d imagined it all. “You told me not to.”
“Oh.”
He took a step forward, stopping when I flinched and pressed my shoulders into the wall. His gaze dropped to my bandaged hand.
“What happened?”
“Nothing,” I stammered. “An accident.”
He stepped forward again, slower this time, watching me as if I were a rabbit ready to bolt. Fingers calloused from sword training wrapped around my wrist and lifted my hand out from where I’d tucked it behind me. He cradled it in his, gentle as if it were made of eggshell, and unwound the bandage. Just like every other time he touched me, I felt a wash of warmth.
He drinks the blood of his enemies.
“You saw,” he said, voice soft and full of sadness.
“It’s true what they say about you, isn’t it?” My voice broke around the words.
He nodded, eyes focused on my palm.
“Is she dead?”
He nodded again.
“Who is she?”
“I don’t know.”
I closed my eyes against the prickling that had started there. My slowed-down mind now ran double time, the reasonable part telling me to run, get as far away from Sakurai Hideyoshi and the murder he’d committed as I could. Some other, deeply physical part wanted me to stay just so he’d keep holding my hand.
He traced the line of the cut on my palm, and it stung, but not in an unpleasant way. I sucked in a breath, and a shiver ran up my arm. I opened my eyes and found him pressing the pad of his thumb against a long, pointed incisor. How had I never noticed that before?
A pearl of blood gathered around the puncture. Still cradling my hand in one of his, he swept his thumb across the wound, leaving a thin layer of blood behind. I gasped as a bright, almost effervescent feeling filled my palm and radiated outward. The edges of the wound shimmered and stretched, pulling together like the seam of a garment. I watched, jaw agape, as it went from an ugly gash to a thin red line to clean, unblemished skin in a matter of moments.
“Youkai.” The word dropped from my lips like a lead weight into the silence between us.
Sakurai-han’s shoulders sagged a little, eyes still lowered, the groove between them deepening. He wiped the last traces of blood from my hand and allowed it to curl closed.
“Does that scare you?” His voice was scarcely a whisper.
I thought of my song, of the lonely spirit of the mountain. “No.”
“But I scare you.”
I nodded.
He released a long breath through his nose and let go of my hand, his own falling clenched to his side. His expression closed like a fist. I searched for his eyes, but they never lifted.
“Go home, Hiro.” He spun on his heel and stomped back to the house.
“B-But, Sakurai—”
“Don’t come back here.”
The shoji snapped shut behind him, cutting off any argument. I was left staring at my newly healed hand, still tingling from whatever he’d done to it

Courtney Maguire is a University of Texas graduate from Corpus Christi, Texas.
Drawn to Austin by a voracious appetite for music, she spent most of her young adult life in dark, divey venues nursing a love for the sublimely weird. A self-proclaimed fangirl with a press pass, she combined her love of music and writing as the primary contributor for Japanese music and culture blog, Project: Lixx, interviewing Japanese rock and roll icons and providing live event coverage for appearances across the country.
Her first novel, WOUNDED MARTYR, is a 2019 RWA® Golden Heart® Finalist in the Contemporary Romance: Short Category.

You can find her on social media: Facebook, Twitter or at www.courtneymaguirewrites.com

Love the Youkai Bloodlines Series? Keep an eye out for Blood Bound, coming in Spring 2022.
Worried you might miss it? Join Maguire's Reader Group, Courtney's Coven: https://tinyurl.com/3yuh2vxc or sign up for her newsletter at the bottom of her website: https://www.courtneymaguirewrites.com/about to make sure to keep up to date on your favorite characters.