Training that morning had been the usual kind of humiliating.
Not dramatic. Nothing thrown at him, nobody singling him out for special cruelty. Just the quiet ongoing humiliation of being the weakest person in every drill. Watching disciples two years younger move fire essence through their cores like breathing while he stood there pushing against his own limitations and getting nowhere.
Elder Voss had walked past him during the core output exercise and not stopped. Had not even slowed down. Just kept walking with her ledger tucked under her arm like he was part of the scenery.
That was somehow worse than being singled out.
He trudged back to the east wing with his training whites damp and his shoulders low and his mind drifting back to the scroll in his locked drawer the way a tongue finds a sore tooth. He had read it four times since finding it. He had the important parts memorized whether he wanted to or not.
He pushed the door open.
Mya was on the bed on her stomach, bare legs kicked up behind her, reading something. She had already changed out of her training clothes into a loose sleep shirt that stopped at the top of her thighs. Her ass pushed up against the thin fabric like the shirt was losing an argument with it. Round and full and sitting up high the way it always did, dramatic even when she wasn't trying.
She looked up when he came in.
"You look terrible," she said.
"Thanks."
"Voss again?"
"Voss didn't even look at me." He dropped his bag by the desk. "Which is worse."
Mya made a small sound. Not quite sympathy but close enough. She rolled onto her side and watched him pull his damp training top over his head. Her dark eyes moved across his chest and stomach and something shifted in her expression. Easy and unhurried. A decision being made.
"Come here," she said.
"I need to wash up."
"Come here first."
He went over. She sat up on her knees on the bed which put her almost at eye level with him given how short she was. She reached up and put both hands on his jaw and kissed him. Not a greeting kiss. A real one, slow and deliberate, her small fingers curling against his face.
He felt the tension in his shoulders start to come apart.
She pulled back just enough to look at him. Her dark eyes half lidded. Her thick nipples already pressing through the thin sleep shirt, dark and stiff and obvious. "Lay down," she said.
"Mya."
"Rhodan." His name came out flat and final, the exact tone she used when she had already decided something and was just waiting for him to catch up. Then her mouth pulled sideways. "Lay down."
He laid down.
She pulled the sleep shirt over her head and tossed it behind her. Nothing underneath. He never fully got used to the sight of her. She was so small that her body had nowhere to hide anything and didn't bother trying. Her chest was nearly flat, small and dark with those thick stiff nipples that stayed hard even in warm rooms. Her stomach was smooth. And her ass, even sitting on her knees, even from the front, you could see the shape of it in the width of her hips and the way she held herself. She straddled his hips and looked down at him.
"Hi," she said.
"Hi," he said.
She leaned down and kissed him again. Her small hands slid down his chest. He got his hands on her hips and felt the weight of her, slight but solid. The dramatic curve of her ass under his palms, warm and smooth.
She reached down and got his training pants open. Wrapped her hand around him. He was already hard and she stroked him slowly, her grip confident, and he felt his breath change.
"There he is," she murmured against his mouth. Warm. Still sweet.
He flipped her. She made a surprised sound that broke into a laugh and then she was on her back beneath him, her thick thighs falling open. He kissed down her throat, her collarbone, over the small plane of her chest. He got his mouth around one thick nipple and pulled on it and she stopped laughing.
"Oh," she said. Then, quieter, "okay."
He kept going south.
He got his hands under her ass and lifted her slightly and put his mouth on her. She sucked in a sharp breath through her teeth.
"Rhodan."
He worked her slowly. Reading her the way eight months had taught him to. The small shifts in her breathing, the way her hips moved, the difference between a sound she made when something was good and a sound she made when something was really good. She was already wet against his lips, slick and warm, and she tasted sharp and clean.
"Right there," she said. "Don't move. Stay exactly." Her thighs pressed against the sides of his head. "Right there."
He stayed there.
"Oh god." Her hand came down and grabbed his hair. Not gentle. "Okay. Okay that's. Keep going."
He kept going.
"Rhodan." His name came out broken in the middle. "I swear to god if you stop I will actually kill you."
He didn't stop.
Her breathing got ragged. Her hips rolled up against his mouth and he held her down with his forearms across her thighs and worked her through it until her back came off the bed and she grabbed the pillow above her head with both hands and said his name one more time, loud enough that it bounced off the walls, and then her whole small body pulled tight and released all at once.
She went loose. Completely loose, like every muscle in her just gave up at the same time. He came up and she was lying there with her chest heaving, dark skin flushed warm, staring at the ceiling.
"Okay," she said. Her voice was already a little wrecked. "You're decent at that."
He looked at her. "Decent."
"Mmhm." She turned her head toward him, her dark eyes soft and half lidded, that sideways smile starting. "Competent. You know where everything is. That's a skill."
"You just grabbed my hair hard enough to leave marks."
"I'm enthusiastic." She reached up and grabbed his shoulder. "Come here."
He lined up against her and pushed in slow. She exhaled hard against his throat, a low sound that had no words in it, her nails going into his back. He filled her all the way and felt her adjust around him and stayed there a moment.
"See," she breathed. "Solid."
He pulled back and drove forward harder. She bit down on a sound.
"Better," she managed.
He found his rhythm. She moved with him, her small hands gripping his back, her hips rising to meet each thrust. For a while it was just that. Just the two of them and the creak of the old bed frame and the sound of her breath and the way she said his name when she was starting to lose herself.
Then she got her voice back.
"You know what I like about you," she said. Between breaths. Her eyes half open.
"What."
"You really try." She said it warm. Almost loving. Just enough edge underneath to catch on something. "Like you genuinely put the effort in. That's sweet."
He pushed deeper. She gasped and her nails dragged.
"That's." She lost the thread. Found it again. "That's what I mean. See. Effort."
"Mya."
"What? That's a compliment."
"It doesn't sound like one."
"Rhodan." She looked up at him, her dark eyes bright and amused even now, even like this. "Baby. Seven inches is a perfectly good size. Genuinely. Most girls would be very happy."
He grabbed her thigh and pushed it up and changed the angle and she arched up with a sharp cry that cut the sentence clean off. He held that angle and worked her and her eyes went wide and then unfocused and she stopped talking.
For about thirty seconds.
"Okay," she breathed. "Okay that's. That's actually." Her head fell back. "Don't stop."
He didn't stop.
"Right there." Her voice was getting loose and desperate, the bratty edge burning off under the heat of it. "Right there, right there, Rhodan, please."
He kept going. Her whole small body worked against him, her thick thighs shaking slightly, her ass bouncing with each thrust. He felt her getting close again, the way her breathing changed, the way she got quieter right before she got loudest.
"I'm going to." She grabbed his back. "I'm close, I'm so close, don't you dare."
He flipped her onto her stomach.
"Hey." She barely got the word out before he came back in from behind and she buried her face in the pillow and screamed into it. He grabbed her hips, both hands full of the extraordinary soft weight of her ass, and drove forward and she made a sound completely beyond language.
He leaned down close to her ear. "Perfectly good size," he said.
She made a noise that was half laugh half something else entirely and pushed back against him hard.
He grabbed a fistful of her hair and she cried out again, her hands fisting the sheets, her whole body shaking through it. When she came this time it rolled through her in waves, her back arching up, his name coming out of her in pieces.
He followed not long after. Buried deep, holding still, both hands gripping her hips while everything went white for a moment.
They stayed like that. His forehead dropped to her shoulder. Both of them breathing hard.
Then Mya turned her face out of the pillow.
"Stamina," she said. Her voice was completely wrecked, barely above a whisper. "We could work on that."
He laughed. Actually laughed, surprised out of it, the sound coming up from somewhere genuine. She felt it against her back and started laughing too, that bright sharp laugh, real and unguarded, and for a minute they were just two people lying there laughing like idiots at nothing.
He rolled off her. She turned and curled immediately into his side, her small body tucking against him like it knew exactly where it fit. Her head on his chest. Her hand open and relaxed against his ribs.
Her breathing slowed.
The bratty edge dropped away completely the way it always did after. What was left underneath was something quieter. Something she didn't show anyone else.
"I love you," she said. Low and simple. Not a performance.
He looked down at the top of her head. Her hair against his chest. The small warm weight of her pressed into his side.
"I love you too," he said.
She was asleep in minutes. She always went out fast after. Her hand went slack against his ribs and her breathing went long and even.
Rhodan lay awake.
He stared at the ceiling. The heating rune threw faint orange light across the plaster. Mya's voice moved around in his head. Seven inches is a perfectly good size. Most girls would be very happy. Not mean. She hadn't meant it mean. That was just Mya with her guard down, saying whatever her brain produced, the way she only did when she felt safe enough not to filter herself.
He knew that.
He stared at the ceiling.
His eyes drifted to the desk in the corner. The bottom drawer with the small iron lock on it.
He looked at it for a long time.
Then he closed his eyes.
Sleep did not come for a while.