Courting Darkness

We're the D'Artigo sisters: sexy, savvy ex-operatives for the Otherworld Intelligence Agency. But being half-human, half-Fae means our powers go haywire at all the wrong times. My sister Delilah is a Death Maiden and werecat who belongs to the Autumn Lord. My sister Menolly is a vampire who's dating a gorgeous werepuma, and the godfather of the undead-set. And me? I'm Camille, Priestess of the Moon Mother, married to a dragon, a youkai, and a Svartan. But my dragon father-in-law has decided that he doesn't like having me for a member of the family...
It's Winter Solstice, and Aeval welcomes me into her Court of Darkness. With Morio still dangerously weak from his injuries and Vanzir alive only thanks to my silence, the thought of training under Morgaine doesn't seem as daunting as it did. But then, Hyto returns to shatter my life. Captured and swept off to the Dragon Reaches, can I manage to stay alive long enough to escape, even as Smoky's father intends to break my spirit, then my body?
"There it was—waiting for us. Home, with smoke drifting from the chimney and an array of multicolored sparkling lights surrounding the porch. From the driveway, the three-story Victorian shimmered like a beacon, both on the physical and on the astral. Flares of energy shot up like sunspots. I leaned back in the car, smiling. Home. Our haven against the demons. A dragon built from snow guarded the lawn and driveway, rising stark and white out of the banks piled high around the yard. My herb garden hid under the creature, nestled under mulch until spring. Winter had claimed the land, full force, and we were getting hit hard. La Niña held sway, and we were all her toys. At least it wasn’t Loki this time. The Norse giant had brought unnatural amounts of ice and snow with him a year ago, until we’d dispatched his servant, a vampire named Dredge. But as cold as it was, this was nothing compared to the Northlands, from where I’d just returned. There, in the high reaches near the top of the world, the winds had raged starkly through the winter woodland, shaking the timbers and sending avalanches down the mountainsides. Up in the Northlands, life was harsh and often short, and fire became a lifeline. The Northmen were as stoic as they sounded, and they partied hearty—there might not be another day to live, facing the dangers they faced.
As Smoky, Iris, Rozurial, and I had struggled through the woods, ranging higher and higher toward the lair of Howl, the Elemental Wolf Lord of the snow, more than once I thought sure we’d end up as Popsicles, frozen to the rocks. But the trip had been worth it. Iris had come to terms with her past and forged a future for herself. She stood clear and free, able to marry the man she loved. But she’d been through hell, and now she, like me, faced a path that promised to swallow her up, to force her into a position she wasn’t sure she was ready to shoulder. And to mark the changes, she
was now sporting spiffy—well, beautiful—indigo tattoos that spiraled their way across her forehead, down her cheeks, and across her back. Her goddess had marked her, and marked her in the most ornate manner. The gods seemed to like to brand us with divine ink.
The car slowed to a stop and Delilah turned off the engine. The weariness of the past few months welled up in my throat as I pushed open the door. So much had happened, and yet so much still lay before us. We were barely a week from midwinter, and I was facing initiation into Aeval’s Court, where I would willingly hand myself over to the Dark Queen to learn her magic and the ways of a priestess"