Ancientt (Elaine Waters)

✅ Ni'ev: Complete

Added 2021-11-23 06:24:35 +0000 UTC

Ni’ev carries himself with quiet restraint, his gaze rarely betraying emotion—except when Rosa drifts into view. She’s a lovely, skittish little human who startles like a bird. To him, she is a fragile, and so he lingers on the edges of her world, content to admire her growth from afar. That is, until fate weaves their paths too closely to ignore.

Rosa is restless. Everyone else seems to have found love, while she’s stuck babysitting and dodging blind dates she can’t survive without turning into a flustered mess. She laughs it off, but deep down she’s tired of being the odd one out. So, when the chance comes to throw herself into an Ezronian expedition—dangerous, reckless, thrilling—she takes it.

.................................

PART 1 | ROSA’S POV

“So yeah,” I sigh. “I’m lonely. All the girls have fun with their men, and I’m always the designated babysitter. Even Vee has a girlfriend! It sucks. And trust me, I’ve tried to date men— humans, Ezronians, you name it.” I sigh. “It just never works out, you know?”

Big, brown eyes blink back.

“Milk?” little Michelle replies.

The baby girl is more interested in milk than my depressing love life. I groan and kiss her smooth forehead. She’s as cute as her mother, but not as good as giving advice. Since Nebula left on a date with Jaxxon, Michelle is the last trace of her I have left.

I give my small, ineffective therapist a bottle of milk and set her down. She knows how the system works— I rant about how this planet is full of eligible bachelors, but the only males I’ve had in my arms in the past three years are drooling, pooping, and wobbling. And then I pay her with milk for her troubles.

Honestly, I think she’s ripping me off, because after I’m done spilling my guts, the only advice she ever has to give is “milk?”

I examine the room full of babies. They’re playing amongst themselves, using the toys Kira designed for them. Their parents are on a couple’s trip in the jungle. Although the girls don’t call it that, I know that’s what it is.

I can’t complain, because they’re honestly good friends who often offer to babysit so I can have free time. I never accept because I hate being a third wheel on trips.

“Who wants to be my next therapist?” I ask the kids as I pat Michelle’s head. “I have plenty of bottles of milk!”

“Rosa.”

I jump, and nearly fall on my sorry ass if it’s not for the hand on my shoulder.

“Are you alright? Forgive me. I did not mean to startle you.”

It’s Nie’v. I think that’s the longest sentence he has said to me all year, because the guy usually keeps to himself. He’s often lost in books, and disappears into the jungle for weeks, probably doing things that would put me in cardiac arrest like hunting, exercising and other sweating-related nonsense.

I know he’s harmless. He never steps too close to females. I’ve seen him play with babies, too.

My ovaries pulse along with my heart whenever I spy one of these jacked, huge guys playing with babies the size of their forearms.

I’ve been around him long enough to know that he’d gut himself before he hurt us, but a part of me refuses to accept that.

My brain shuts down whenever a man comes too close or says anything social. I can work with them perfectly fine, but as soon as they crack a joke or compliment me, I become as silly as the babies I babysit.

“Uh, eh, uh… It’s okay?” I stand up to escape his hold.

I can’t function at all if a man touches me. It wasn’t always like this, but then I confessed my crush to my middle school crush and got humiliated for all of YouTube to see.

One million views, thirty-thousand comments later, and I still have an existential crisis even on a planet that will treat anything with a womb like a Queen.

I could have any man I wanted, but still choose to spend my Fridays with milk-hungry Michelle and her dozen cousins.

Ni’ev doesn’t react to my brain-glitch. He must be used to seeing me freak out over nothing.

“I was wondering if you have seen Kyros,” he says.

“Right.” My shoulders relax, because I can see that he’s not here to hang out.

“He went on the trip with the others.”

Ni’ev frowns. “Why do you never go on trips?”

Uh, because I’m depressingly single? Can you let me ride your dick, give you babies, and solve this problem for me?

Of course I don’t say that.

Instead, I shrug. “Why don’t you go?”

He stares at me for a long, long time. Enough time that I consider picking up the nearest crawling Ezronian baby and cower behind it.

Finally, he looks away, taking those beautiful eyes of his from me. “Tell Kyros to search for me when he arrives.”

“Okay.”

Damn it. Damn it! This is my chance to spark something. Ni’ev is hot as sin, but he’s too respectful to make a move on me even after three years. He’s perfect— not only because he’s seven feet of muscled, well-endowed, and looks great with a baby in his arms.

He’s kind to others.

Michelle grins up at me with a bottle of milk in her chubby little hands, as if screaming, ‘do it! You can stop being a lonely loser, auntie! You got this! I’ll give you some of my milk if you succeed!’

But I let my little therapist down, because I’m a traumatized, horny, lonely mess. I say nothing.

When Ni'ev walks away, I frown at my feet.

“Rosa.”

I tense and look up again. “Y—yes?”

He holds my gaze again, and I stop breathing. My body temperature rises, too. I should be used to this because it happens whenever a shirtless, handsome man looks at me for too long, but the effect is still jarring.

What is behind those intelligent eyes of his? Attraction? Curiosity?

Will he ask me out? Will I say yes?

“You have a streak of baby feces on your left cheek.”

With that, he turns and leaves.

I fall to my knees, ready to cry. Can’t I be the baby for once? Can’t I be the one that’s hugged and cooed at? I’m so tired of trying to be strong.

Why is it this hard to appear as a confident, funny young woman? I do it so well with the girls, so why isn’t it the same with men?

Am I going to die alone after all?

A little hand claims my fingers. Michelle grins at me with the few teeth she proudly owns.

Yeah, I’m not alone. I have Michelle— my useless therapist.

“I love you too, baby girl,” I tell her.

“Milk?” she replies.

My face falls, but then I’m laughing. The noise attracts babies, and now I’m surrounded by laughing, confused babies. I pick up all of them and kiss their cheeks.

A shadow passes by the entrance. I look up and see Ni’ev walking away.

Hmm…. I thought he left long ago.

How strange.