"Love to, but can't."
"Why not?" Sam asked.
"If I go, Thorn will cry foul and refuse to honor his part of the bargain by saying you cheated with me."
Dev frowned. "Won't he do that with Fang?"
"No. Fang's not omnipotent. There's a good chance Fang could get killed. With me, not so much."
Sam screwed her face up. "That's just sick."
Ash shrugged. "No one's going to argue anything else. Thorn doesn't exactly have many friends."
"I've noticed," Fang said under his breath.
Ash inclined his head to Dev. "Remember, you have to get to the center and defeat the guardian."
"How do we get back?"
"No idea. I've never been inside the maze."
Dev sighed. "This would be funny if it wasn't pathetic."
Ash cut a wide grin. "Welcome to my existence. Now if you'll excuse me?"
"Wait!" Sam stopped him from leaving. "We still don't know what to do to get there. You said it's another dimension?"
Ash nodded. "Drive to the end of Elysian Fields where it connects to UNO. There's a circle there. Stand at the outer edge, facing Pontchartrain and--"
"Won't the Research and Tech Park interfere with the view?" Fang asked, interrupting him.
"Not for long."
Dev was still baffled. "But there's nothing in the circle. It's empty."
Ash held his hands up in surrender. "I didn't create the hole. I'm just telling you how to access it. Face the park and the moment the sun sets below the horizon, the way will be shown. It'll only last for sixty seconds. Move fast. Once the door closes, it won't be open until the next sunset."
"Which is out of time for us," Sam said under her breath.
Ash nodded. "Good luck, guys." This time he vanished before they could ask him anything else.
Fang blew out an elongated breath before he looked over at Dev. "Since there's nothing we can do for the next few hours, I'm cutting out of here to spend time with my wife...just in case I don't make it back."
Sounded like a good plan to him. Fang left the room through the door. A weird move for a Were-Hunter but sometimes in their chaotic paranormal existence you just needed to be normal.
Now alone with Sam, Dev wished he could touch her. She looked so sad that it made him ache for her and all he wanted was to see her smile again. "We'll get the girdle, babe. Trust me."
Sam wanted to believe him, but she couldn't get her premonition out of her mind. Over and over, she saw Dev dead. It was so clear. So torturous. What would she do if he went down?
Would she be able to survive it?
"I wish you hadn't made this bargain with Thorn."
Dev offered her the kindest, gentlest smile she'd ever seen. "We're both fighters. You know what I do. We won't go out lightly and we'll find some way to defeat her. Believe in me."
If only it were that easy, but she knew the ferocity of her people. Yes, the Amazons were women and physically weaker than men. However there had never been a more skilled set of warriors assembled and Aello had been one of their best.
As the old saying went, it wasn't about the size of the dog in the fight. It was the fight in the dog.