Ashleigh was asleep. She had kicked the heavy covers from her body and now lay sprawled across the bed, her body wrapped in a white sheet. Lying on her front, one arm used as a pillow, her dark hair falling over her face, breathing steadily, she was exposed and vulnerable. Something happened deep within her dream, and she frowned, shifting position until she was comfortable once more, and fell back into a deep sleep.

Dressed in a dark robe, Alec sat across the room, watching his most recent lover as she slept. The vodka was beside him, and finding his glass empty he refilled it. Disturbed once more he took another mouthful of the cold liquid.

Ashleigh Kain had preyed on his mind recently, since he had first made love to her nights previously. Like a memory he couldn't quite grasp she had flickered in and out of his thoughts, irritating him with its frequent occurrence. He couldn't lay his finger on why it upset him so much. He could remember her as a child, a girl with huge watchful brown eyes and a shyness that made her hide behind her long dark hair. David, David Kain, his friend, had been so proud of his daughter, and besotted with both her and his beautiful wife Emma. So much so that Alec had secretly scorned him for being weak. Emma had died, and Alec saw David's devastation, but had not been able to understand it. In the end David had lost everything, killed in action. And Alec had always blamed his weakness. Ashleigh was a woman now, and already Alec could see that she had the same weaknesses inside her as her father.

It had begun as a power game. The sudden realisation of who exactly had been lying at his feet in an unconscious heap, and the bargaining chip he had now possessed. He hadn't expected to be attracted to her, but he had suddenly become obsessed with the idea of her, having what James had, and then going further than James had been, so he had taken her to his bed. But now... now something had changed.

Despite his reluctance to admit it, Alec was still in possession of a conscience, a deeply buried one, but it was still there. The lessons after Goldeneye had taught him humility, trapped within his helplessly shattered body. He had no regrets, well if he did, he wouldn't confess to them, following the aftermath of the incident, but now he faced reality. He was still a powerful man and the name Janus could still strike fear into a rival's heart but that was it. He had rivals now that were getting stronger and Alec could no longer be considered top dog. The question that haunted him constantly was 'what next?'

He gazed almost enviously at the sleeping woman, jealous at the simplicity of her life, she had her career to focus on, she went to work, she went home, saw her friends, worked towards her next career stage. Simplicity itself.

He frowned. He was getting weak. He should have killed her when he had the opportunity to. Or at least kept her captive. It would have been easier, and it would have destroyed James. Instead he had let emotions and the past rule him. If she hadn't been David's daughter, would that have made a difference? Or was it the very fact that she was a Kain the reason she kept creeping back into his thoughts?

He had a decision to make. He sat still once more, and let the darkness surround him.

Caught in the void between dreams, Ashleigh turned over, seeking a more comfortable way to sleep, and in that brief moment of waking she opened her eyes. Seeing Alec watching her from the shadows, she started, pulling the sheet closer around her, and sitting up.

'You scared me,' she accused him. 'Couldn't you sleep?' she asked, and then cursed herself inwardly for stating the obvious.

Very slowly he began to speak. 'It wasn't me. I didn't kill Vaskov, or Gregory Fraser, and I have no involvement with the Hermes project.' His eyes bored into her, trying to convince her of his innocence. He wanted her to believe him.

She bit her lip. 'How can I trust you Alec?'

'I'm a dead man. I have no interest in biological warfare.'

'Yet every question I've asked, you can answer it. You're very well informed for someone with no interest.'

'I like to be aware of things, to know what happening in the shady underworld.' The sarcasm in his voice was clear.

''So you have no motive, no reason to be involved at all?'

'Exactly.'

'Except revenge.'

'I wouldn't call it revenge on Deronda.'

'And James?'

'No.'

She narrowed her eyes. 'You deny you want James dead?'

'James is another matter. You'll have to trust me on that, and on Hermes.'

He saw the scorn on her face, the derision in her voice. 'I've already said that I can not trust you. I have no reason to do so.'

He could move so quickly, the words were barely out of her mouth before she found herself pinned to the bed, Alec demonic above her.

'You have to Ashleigh. Because you won't live unless you do.'

Ignoring the pains in her wrist from where he held them, she studied his face, searching his eyes as if she could find the truth in them.

'I want to help you,' he whispered, so softly she could barely hear the words. Her temper flared again.

'Why would you bother to help me? Do you feel you owe me something because we slept together?' she struggled beneath him, hissing the words at him, 'Because I can tell you now, you owe me nothing. This is all a damned game to you, and I'm not going to play any more. Now let me go!'

With a vicious jerk she pulled him off balance and swung her legs over the edge of the bed. He held her back.

'I'm helping you because I want to. Not because of James, James is nothing anymore. Not because of anything other than the fact I want to help you.' Drawing her to him once more, he murmured just before their lips met again, 'I shall do everything in my power to help you. Truce?'

And so Ashleigh's deal with the Devil was struck.

*

Afterwards, it was Alec who fell into a deep sleep, curiously at ease, in rest his face losing all tension. Uneasy, Ashleigh lay awake watching her lover sleep. Her body was sated, and still, but her mind worked frantically, stopping her from sleeping. It seemed wrong, almost sadistic that he could reduce her to a trembling wreck with a single touch, or that she craved it so much. It seemed so right to be with him, but the guilt almost destroyed her as she lay there, eating away at her. She thought briefly of her other most recent lover, a rugby player called Dan whom she occasionally saw in London. She wondered what made Alec so different from him, or any other lover she had had, why he made her feel this way.

Now she lay in cool cotton sheets, a killer beside her, and knew that if she could describe this moment in years to come, she could, down to every last detail in the room.

A memory came to her, shocking her with its clarity; her twelve year old self at home for once at her parents' London townhouse, on a break from school. She would have to return to Westerly the next day, so she had gone to her father's study to say goodnight for the final time. The door had opened wide as soon as she had knocked, and not only had her father been there, tall, handsome, well built with the same smiling brown eyes as her, but also James, still as smooth and as wonderful as ever, and who had hugged her fiercely. But there had been a third man, waiting patiently in the background, grey eyes crinkled against the cigar smoke that had filled the room, until he had stepped forward and introduced to her. At that moment she had become instantly shy, and alarmingly tongue tied.

Her father and James had always been her heroes, but now almost painfully her loyalties had switched to this new man before her. Tall with stormy grey eyes and sleek blond hair, his hand had dwarfed hers when he had offered it to her. Thrown by these unfamiliar and crazy feelings she had been paralysed with her shyness, barely able to move or speak. Alec Trevelyan had shaken her twelve year old self to the core, now thirteen or so years later, she was in his bed, her twenty five year old self as shaken as her younger self had been.

She realised it had been six months later she had heard of his death in a car crash, while abroad on business. An accident, her father had explained to her while she was on half term, a terrible tragic accident. So disturbed had David Kain been by his friend's death, he hadn't noticed his daughter's own shock. Ashleigh's adolescence had begun when she had met Alec, she had eagerly hoped to see him again, or that he might visit the house again, even hearing his name was a thrill. It had been hard for her to imagine he was dead, to think he was no longer a part of the world had been surprisingly painful, so she had buried it away inside herself. Mere months later her father had died, and no pain in the world could compare to that agony. It had been so intense she had never once questioned the mysterious circumstances surrounding David Kain's death, she had simply accepted it. Later, after her graduation, M had given her father's papers, and encouraged her to apply to MI6, to follow in her father's footsteps. It seemed the right career choice to make, as everything about her father, James and Alec had fallen into place. Now, having been at MI6 for nearly four years, she found herself in the strange surreal scenario of being Alec's lover.

Idly, pushing away all thoughts of her father and her childhood, she brushed a hand over his hair and gave him the lightest of kisses on his lips. Then she tried to sleep.

Like the morning previously when she awoke, she was alone. This time she didn't feel sick at his actions, but rather she accepted them with a grim stoicism. Showering she wondered idly at how she was supposed to return to St. Petersburg wearing only a thin satin evening dress. She didn't relish the thought, and once she glanced outside and saw the grey sky and the tops of the evergreens shivering with the cold, the thought was even less pleasant. Watching the trees with an absent mind, she at first didn't notice the clothes neatly folded and waiting on the bed. Black, well cut trousers, a crisp white shirt, and the softest cashmere v neck. Next to them, as neat and tidy as the rest, sat her dress. She paused for a moment, slightly stunned, even more so when she saw how accurate the sizes were. Once dressed, she heard the familiar tap at the door, and she found herself once more following a faceless man along dark corridors.

Why do I keep doing this? She thought as she hurried after the man, why do you let your hormones rather than common sense rule you? It was as if all her brain cells abandoned her when a dangerous and powerful man came into view... And speak of the Devil...

Alec stood waiting for her, his hair damp and spiky from the shower, watching as she walked up to him, approving of the clothes she wore, even if she did have to team them with the kitten heels from the night before, her damp tousled hair soft around her fresh face, and returning the shy smile she gave him. He picked up a heavy coat and wrapped her in it, securing her against the cold morning, and tugging her forward by the lapels so he could kiss her.

'Outside.'

Blinking in the weak sunshine that had fought its way through the greyness, Ashleigh found herself standing on a wide set of stone steps. There on the drive below her, the pale sun glinting off the gunmetal grey paint work, illuminating the harsh lines of the body, was a Mercedes CLK. Coming up behind her, Alec handed her a set of keys.

'Yours. For as long as you need it.'

She was suspicious, but took the keys all the same, walking around the car, admiring its cruel stark beauty. She loved cars, especially fast ones, with a fierce passion. Clicking the key fob, her heart leaped at the satisfying heavy clunk and flash of lights that occured when the doors unlocked. Opening the drivers door she leaned against it.

'Thank you,' she said simply.

'One more thing,' he said, walking down to her, 'If you need my help, or just want to contact me, use this. Only you have a direct line.' He tossed her a small silver mobile phone, compact and fiddly. Flicking it open, she saw a single number illuminated there. She nodded and stepped forwards, seeking his mouth for a soft kiss, and with a whisper of goodbye, slid into the drivers seat. With a roar and a squeal of tires, she was gone, whipping the car around and speeding up the drive.

Alec watched her go, all gentleness gone from his eyes, the coldness had returned. Kristov stood behind him, his pale blue eyes trailing icily after the Mercedes, watching emptily as the brake lights flickered briefly and the car turned sharply out of sight.

Alec never even turned. 'You know what to do.'