Sirensong by Jenna Black Read Free Book Online

me that much angrier.
* * *
    Both my dad and Finn looked at me in dismay as I slammed the door to the stairway and stomped into the living room where they were waiting for me. There was no way either of them could miss how upset I was. I might have wiped the tears away, but I’m sure my eyes and nose were all red. I suspected this was not what my dad had in mind when he asked me to come over.
    “I don’t want to talk about it,” I declared before either of them could say a word.
    If either one of them had been human, they might have tried to talk to me anyway. However, the typical Fae reserve worked to my advantage. Finn was never big on talking, and my dad looked lost and uncomfortable.
    “I want to go home now,” I said, staring at the floor so I wouldn’t have to see their faces.
    There was a moment of silence.
    “Call me if you decide later that you want to talk after all,” my dad said. “Anytime.”
    His gentle tone almost made me start crying again. A few weeks ago, he hadn’t even known I existed. Now he was the only parent who acted like he loved me.
    As it was, I managed to croak out a thanks, then made a beeline for the door so fast Finn had to run to catch up.
* * *
    The rest of my afternoon sucked—I brooded about my mom and what she would do when Dad let her go. I racked my brain for something I could do or say that would make her decide to stay off the booze, but I’d already proven that nothing I said or did mattered.
    There were probably a million things I should have been doing to prepare myself for the trip to Faerie, but the drama with my mom had robbed me of my will. Instead of being productive, I spent hours playing stupid Internet games on my laptop, lulling myself into a zombielike trance.
    I was playing a really convoluted game involving dice, cards, and—ha-ha—zombies, when I was startled out of my stupor by a knock on the door to my suite. I blinked and glanced at the clock on my screen, seeing it was already eight o’clock at night. Finn is really good at being unobtrusive, and he usually confines himself strictly to the guard room, giving me some semblance of privacy in my suite. I don’t get too many knocks on my door, especially not at night.
    My pulse jumped, and I feared more bad news was on its way.
    “Come in,” I called, crossing my fingers.
    The door opened to reveal not Finn, but my father. I was surprised to see him, because he usually called before coming.
    “Is something wrong?” I asked before he had a chance to say a word.
    “No, no,” he said as he came in and took a seat on the sofa in the homey little sitting area. “I just wanted to see if you were okay.”
    “I still don’t want to talk about it,” I warned, gearing up for an argument.
    Instead, Dad nodded. “Understood. I don’t know what happened between you and your mother, but I know it’s my fault for asking you to come over when she was so overwrought. I’m afraid I was a little out of my element, and I leaned on you when I shouldn’t have. I’m sorry.”
    My throat tightened with gratitude. There was no denying that sometimes, my dad could be a pretty cool guy. “’S okay,” I said, not completely sure how to respond to a sincere parental apology.
    There was a long silence as both my dad and I tried to think of what to say next. This whole father/daughter relationship thing was equally new to both of us.
    Eventually, my dad cleared his throat and said, “I thought you might have some questions to ask me about Faerie and the logistics of our trip to the Sunne Palace.”
    Wow. My dad, volunteering information! I wanted to accuse him of being a pod person, but I didn’t think he’d get the joke. Humor is not his thing, though considering what little I knew about his life, that wasn’t a surprise. My father was something like a thousand years old, and you can pack a hell of a lot of trauma and heartache into a thousand years.
    “If I start asking questions, you’re going to be here