Disclaimer: Still not mine. Still don't sue. Still got jack squat. Also, this is a short chapter. Just a small epilogue to set the tone for the next fic. That's right folks – you lovelies get a sequel! Yay!

Epilogue

Maria Barsi woke the next morning feeling like she had been hit by a truck. A policeman had awakened her at some ungodly hour of the morning. He told her of the 911 dispatcher's complaint of a prank phone call from this address. She stared at him, nonplussed, when wanted to know her whereabouts the previous night. When she could tell him nothing – nothing she could believably mention – he offered to take her to the hospital, in case she'd been drugged. Not wanting this situation any messier than it already was, she told him that she would prefer to let the incident drop.

"Well, ma'am, normally I wouldn't do this, but I'll say okay this time," he had told her. "I do advise you to go to a doctor when you're feeling steadier, just to get yourself checked out."

Of course she had no intention of doing any such thing. She knew what had happened last night. Had a hard time believing it, but there was no way it couldn't have been real. She dragged herself to the bathroom and gave herself the once-over. Yep… The whole nine yards – hickeys, purple bruises around her neck, and a hand print that spanned the width of her right buttock.

She grabbed her comb and tried to force her hair back into some semblance of order. Sniffing herself gingerly, she found that the scent of lavender oil had not entirely been overpowered by the smells of sweat and sex. Smiling, she held the ends of her hair close to her face, comforted by the smell. Thanks to the oil, her hair untangled far more easily than it normally would have.

Her shoulders fell as she looked herself over in the mirror again. How could she ever look herself or anybody else in the face? She had been made to… No. No one had made her do anything beyond being there. She had done all those things with him of her own free will. Some woman she was… All but a trafficking victim and she fucking enjoyed it.

Was it a short-term form of Stockholm syndrome? Could she find some scientific reasoning to explain away what she had done? No… If she was perfectly honest with herself, she didn't want to. It was interesting, having both no responsibility and all of it. No one could blame her for being taken to a place against her will… But everyone would hate her for letting him have his way with her. The best part though was… She didn't have to tell anybody.

No one knew what happened last night. Not one of the seven billion people on Planet Earth would ever have to know. It would be her secret. That was it. She would just never tell anybody. She would keep last night and the man who caused it safely tucked away in her heart and mind. Then she could visit them later. Hell, maybe he even meant it when he said they would meet again.

This brought her to her next thought: he had let her go. Like the Beast did with Belle. He had told her he owed her a gift. And then just like that, he had brought her home, even tucked her into bed and kissed her goodbye. She stared hard into the mirror as if she expected to see him looking back. Of course, all she could see were the marks he had left on her skin.

As she picked up her toothbrush, she paused. Did she really want to wash the combined tastes of their blood out of her mouth yet? It was a powerful feeling. Then her knees went numb for a second and she stumbled on the tile floor. She had bitten a god! And scratched his face! Made his back and chest bleed… and he had rewarded her for it! Would he have that bite mark on his shoulder tomorrow? Or however they measured time where he came from. She looked at her hands – blood still caked under her fingernails.

Should she go get that stuff tested? Was it possible to get DNA from it? If she did, what would it show up as? Or would they just have her hauled off someplace… like the loony bin? She set the toothbrush back down, figuring she'd deal with it as soon as it felt weird. Then she left the bathroom and went to sift through the wreckage of her blanket nest. The blanket from the bedroom in Asgard was still there, plus something else… The dress – that beautiful lavender gown, apparently a gift from the god himself, had become twisted in the blanket.

Carefully, she lifted the dress out of the blanket-tangle. Yes, she would keep this a secret too. No one would ever see it or know about it. Eyeing the clutter on her floor, she crossed the room to her closet. Sighing, she hung the gown up carefully in the very back. She supposed she should be embarrassed at a god seeing her room in this condition. But she didn't really care that much.

Rolling her eyes, she grabbed a T-shirt and a pair of shorts and wriggled into both, leaving the bedroom to feed the cat. The fat gray animal looked up at her as if to say "oh, you're back?" Even the cat didn't care that she had been fucking abducted as a sex slave. But had it really been so bad?

No one she had been with had ever treated her like that before. There was pain involved, but he had been true to his word and done her no harm. He could be rough, even animalistic, but it seemed he genuinely liked being gentle. She could hear a gentle pattering sound outside. That was odd – they'd said it was going to be hot and dry all weekend. Cautiously, she opened the door and went to stand on the back porch. It was raining.

She looked up to the sky. It thundered back.