Pink flushed to her cheeks as her eyes darted to the side. “I am.”
Good. Hungry meant she was not sick. I stood, walking to the open kitchen area. I kneeled in the middle of the room and pulled open the tile and shelves attached under it.
Remembering the list the human male had given me, I selected the fruits, cheese and some dry meat they knewwere safe for their species. I had been collecting and hoarding these like they were precious for three whole days, worried that I would poison my mate on day one.
I sat back on the floor in front of her and Melanie surveyed me with parted lips, lifting her legs to fold them against her chest. She did not stop staring as I cut open the fruit, removing the thick red skin and cutting around the seed before handing the yellow fleshy bit to her.
“It is duri,” I said when she did not pick it, eying the fruit like it would grow teeth and eat her instead. “Do you not have fruit in your home land?”
“I—yes we do. They’re watery and don’t taste good, but…” She grabbed the small piece and brought it to her nose while I sucked the juice from my fingers. Her eyes flared and she looked away, the flush deepening on her cheeks.Maybe she has a fever.“It smells good.”
“Tastes good too. Not my favorite, but duri grows everywhere and is safe for humans.”
It finally landed in her mouth and her eyes widened. I forced myself to stay firmly seated on the floor when a haunting sound came out of her throat. I handed her another, eager to hear it again.Why do I like this sound so much?
“Oh, yeah. We don’t have anything like it on Earth.”
My head tilted to the side. “Earth?”
She swallowed the bite and I gave her more. “The planet humans come from. It’s a stinky dumpster fire and food is basically poison—but at least, it feeds you if you have enough money for it.”
Fascinating. “I did not understand half of what you just said. What is a…dumpster fire? Why would food poison you? What is money, and why do you need it to feed?”
Her face fell. Did I say something wrong? The only humans I knew were the ones based in our system. The ones who were responsible for the Zodiac Fertility Program.
“The place I come from is dying,” she answered, a grim expression crossing her face. “Nature is gone and sky-high metal and stone buildings took its place. Most humans are constantly sick because of the bad quality of the air and food. I never had a fruit that didn’t taste like water and animals were treated so poorly that they all died and we stopped having meat to eat hundreds of years ago. As for the money…it’s what we need to have things. You can’t get food, medical care, clothes—nothing without it.”
This place sounded awful. How could people accept to live like this? “How do you get this precious money?”
She muttered under her breath, fumbling with her empty hands.Empty. I hurriedly gave her slices of cheese and dry meat.
“We need to work. Some are fortunate enough to be born in a family that already has lots of it.”
“Work?” I asked.
She shrugged. “Something we do most hours of the day.” Her face became somber as she chewed on more food. “I used to be cleaning some rich family’s house.” She paused, noticing my confusion. “Rich means they had a lot of money.”
Oh. “A family that worked a lot then.”
Melanie’s dry laugh echoed in the silent room. “Oh, no they did not. But it doesn’t matter, I lost that job not long before I came here.”
Okay, I did not understand then. How did they have money if they did not work? Did she not say humans needed to work to acquire the precious thing that allowed them to feed—poisonthemselves?
“Anyway, how do you buy food here?”
It was like our translators were turned off. “Buy?”
“Humans use money to buy food and other vital things,” she clarified, surprisingly patient. “How do you get yours?”
“We search and pick our fruits and vegetables,” I said, cutting and handing another fruit. “Hunt for our meat. Trade with others if we have too much or if we need something else.”
She looked down at the clothes that hugged her body like they were made to display her beauty. “What about clothes? You can’thuntfor those, right?”
“Farms are held by elders. They grow the fibers used for the fabric and they trade what they make for food, since they are too old or tired to hunt and pick up their own fruits and vegetables.”
She pointed at the last piece of cheese in my hand. I gave it to her and she wiggled it in front of my face. “What about this?”
“Same.” I titled my head to the side. “Elders raise the tamable beasts that produce the milk and turn it into cheese. Then trade with other things to have what they need, and so on.”
