Page 124 of Tamed By Her Touch

The tray glided past them and settled gently onto the low table near the enormous bed. Then a message appeared in glowing letters above it which read,

EVENING NOURISHMENT FOR THE JOINED PAIR. PLEASE ENJOY PRIVATELY.

Clair read it twice and felt a surge of relief.

“Oh, thank God!” she exclaimed.

Kaelus frowned.

“For what?”

Clair turned to him, excited.

“It doesn’t smell like goosenburly.”

Kaelus’s expression immediately relaxed.

“A definite improvement,” he admitted. “The goosenburly was…not exactly to my taste.”

“That stuff wouldn’t be to anyone’s taste,” Clair told him. “I know it’s supposed to be a delicacy here, but it’s definitely an acquired taste—only I don’t know anyone outside of Titus Four who’d want to acquire it.”

“Well, let us see what it is,” Kaelus suggested. “Just because it’s not goosenburly, doesn’t mean it’s appetizing.”

“Let’s hope for the best,” Clair murmured.

Together, they approached the tray cautiously. Apparently both of them had been traumatized by breakfast, she thought.

Luckily, the evening meal looked much more appealing. Rather than strange gelatinous piles containing ground insect legs, the tray held an enormous assortment of alien fruits arranged around several small bowls of creamy sauces and what looked like thin slices of fragrant bread. There was even a small, written guide to tell them what everything was.

Clair’s eyes widened as she took it all in.

“Oh, this looks amazing,” she breathed.

The alien fruits were unlike anything she had ever seen. There were clusters of translucent white berries, each one roughly the size of a large grape, with faint silver veins running through them like tiny streaks of moonlight. Beside them sat a large oval fruit with metallic-gold skin that had already been cut open to reveal brilliant blue flesh surrounding a glossy black center.

There were deep purple pods which had split naturally into curling ribbons of soft pink pulp, and small crystal-clear berries that looked like glass marbles with red and gold seeds suspended inside them. A pile of round crimson fruits sat at one end of the tray, each covered in fine golden fuzz, while another platter held star-shaped green slices which smelled vaguely like citrus and mint.

Clair sat down eagerly.

“Now this is alien food I can get behind,” she exclaimed. She hadn’t had anything since the goosenburly, and the lavender shake that morning because she and Maera had worked through lunch. By now she was starving.

But Kaelus remained standing.

“What are you doing?” she asked, looking up at him.

He frowned.

“Examining it.”

Clair sighed in exasperation.

“It’s fruit. The little written guide says so.” She pointed at the note that had come with the tray. “Come on—let’s eat.”

Kaelus still looked uneasy.

“On this planet, fruit may contain legs,” he growled.

Clair burst out laughing.