A/N: Here's the start of the full Designs of Destiny story that I wrote for The Age of Adeline. Hope you give it some love.

***

No one is born of starlight and dreams.

We all start somewhere dark and small and uncertain except for the pounding of that other heart that makes ours beat in a matching rhythm.

Destiny is, after all, a matter of destination, not of origin.

I was born in the stifling summer heat at a servant's shack along the Mississippi River, on the outskirts of the great Belle Terre, one of Louisiana's grandest plantations. According to my mother, my wail stirred currents in the swamps, as if proclaiming the incontestable truth of my birth and protesting the means by which it came about. My father, the despicable, dishonourable and dissolute youngest son of the Barrineau patriarch, had forced his attentions on my mother, then lady's maid to one of the family's three daughters, discarding her as soon as he'd caught his breath. Mama lost her post as soon as her belly showed and it was only at the mercy of one of the many slaves in the plantation that she'd found herself a roof over her head.

I was a baby with skin the color of cream, hair as golden as that of corn and eyes as vivid a turquoise as that of the Barrineau family. There was no doubt in all of Belle Terre who'd sired me.

My mother worked in the plantation, laboring along with the other slaves for a bit of food and as soon as I was old enough to be of use, I accompanied her, unaware that the elegantly dressed men and women I caught glimpses of here and there when they toured their vast property were somehow linked to my creation and destruction. I could scarcely avoid their notice, as blue-green-eyed and as fair as I was, even with the sprinkling of freckles that marred my already lightly bronzed skin. My father, finally married to another planter's daughter, barely acknowledged my existence but his wife, vindictive and vicious Marcellina, couldn't dismiss the similarities.

When I was fifteen, I applied to work as a lady's maid in the great house, confident of the little things that my mother had taught me. She had long warned me to stay away from the family but I insisted that the only way up the ranks was to find a position in the household.

Marcellina hired me and it didn't take long for me to piece together her mockery and insults and understand why she loathed me with fervor. It infuriated her more when I let her ridicule bounce off me. I steeled my heart as I did my backbone.

I was four days past eighteen then and just a few hours before sunrise, one of my father's guests stumbled accidentally into my quarters and insisted that I be accommodating to his needs. I accommodated such needs with a heavy, polished oak branch I kept under my bed. Clutching a sizeable swell on his head where the skin broke and bled, he screamed the house down and not long after that, I was tossed out to the back in nothing but my ratty shift, my hands and feet bound with thick rope.

The sun was rising, pink and gold streaking across the soft blue of the skies, when I felt the first lash of the whip, cutting cleanly across my skin. I shivered at the burn of the leather and the numbness that soon settled in as Marcellina's hand created its masterpiece on my back. I eventually passed out, eyes dry and mouth tangy with blood from the screams I bit down, seeing nothing but prisms of sunlight and smelling only the rich earth.

I was in a fever for days, the wounds on my back festering. The moment my fever broke, Mama dragged me out of the bed and into the back of a wagon. She said we had to leave before Marcellina could pass down my death sentence for surviving her beating and that my father had given her some money to send us away.

We headed north, aiming for the free states and a life that would never be the same for me again. Danger shadowed our entire journey and culminated at a dusty roadside just outside of Augusta, when a band of men demanded our meager possessions. I was still very weak but when my mother tried to seize back the pouch of coins one of the men had filched and got in the way of his gun, I leapt to my feet and pushed her down.

The echo of the gun rippled through me as the bullet punched through flesh and tissue, abruptly concluding my existence into mere minutes of life and death and my delicate dance in between.

Why did I tell you all this?

I did simply to impress upon you the fact that no life is a foregone conclusion—that time can be warped, destiny can be altered and love can find its way home no matter how long the journey.

I was born a long time ago but I didn't start to live until now.

There is an allure to the forbidden—the greater the risk, the more tempting the prize becomes.

It was a truth the gods of Detroit's underworld embraced and capitalized during the Prohibition, when the country was rich and restless, only able to indulge their vices in the dark.

That evening when he first strode in, shoulders squared like a king on a march, I wondered who the forbidden was between us—the brooding prince who'd fallen off his white horse and down the dirty lower east end or me, the cocktail waitress in a fancy dress excessively embellished with sequins and fringes to hide the holes and frays while waiting for her destiny to change.

Maybe it was neither of us exactly.

Maybe it was us, together, that was forbidden.

"What can I get you, handsome?" were the first words I said to him after sauntering to the far corner table he settled in, my left hip jutted out, my smile coy and my lashes half-lowered. It was an instinctive move, well-practiced in my last two years of uniting man and his drink every night and getting generously compensated for it. I didn't relish being salivated on like an expensive bottle of vintage but most men only ever looked. Cyrus, our bouncer who looked more like a boulder than a man, didn't often intrude on the kind of customer service some of the girls here provided for an extra fee but when it came to a few of us who only worked the tables and nothing else, his fists imprinted the reminder hard enough on the stupid eggs who dared for more.

The stranger's eyes—more brass in the golden cast of the chandeliers than what was probably a typical hazel—looked up to inspect me much like any man's would. Except that he wasn't like any other man that had walked into The Magnolia. The speakeasy was not in the nicest part of town. The denizens of this side of Detroit spent tainted money and lived tainted lives. This man, while possessing a certain fierceness that his relaxed posture couldn't belie, did not belong here. His clothes, although casual, were too fine. His gaze, alert and assessing, was also arrogant and intelligent. He smelled of the other side of the law which was repeatedly broken here on a daily basis. In summary, he was trouble.

"I don't care for a drink," he said, his tone dismissive, his gaze back to sweeping the saloon just as Rita took her place at the microphone up on the small stage.

"Then you're in the wrong place," I said in a droll voice. "You better leave before you find yourself in an even worse spot—dumped in a dirt hole, never to be found again."

I turned to leave, satisfied with my small act of kindness, when a strong hand shot out to grip me by the wrist. I didn't want to draw attention—the deadly kind—so I slowly turned back around to face him, planting myself right in his view to block him from the rest of the uneasy eyes that were always watching the place.

In a low voice, I spoke. "Let me go if you wish to continue breathing."

"Why all these threats?" he asked, his eyes narrowed, his grip loosening only by a fraction, his thumb absently rubbing a spot on my wrist. "People just come here for a good time, don't they?"

I raised a brow. "If you're trying to get yourself killed, either by sheer stupidity or simple recklessness, don't let me stop you. But don't drag me down with you."

He was quiet for a moment, speculative, and I started to get restless, aware of the strength and warmth of his hold on me and the danger he was putting us in.

"I don't think I can drag you down further into hell when you're right in the belly of it," he said softly, his eyes trailing a slow path down my body, the heat of his gaze burning right through me. "If hell has sirens like you, I can see why no man wants salvation."

His words shouldn't have affected me. The moon and the stars had all been plucked and offered at my feet by staggering drunks who couldn't remember their own names. Pretty words meant nothing to me.

But they weren't just words. They were an invitation to a very dangerous game I couldn't afford to play.

I wrenched my arm away and forced a smile. "Then I'll take my leave before I can truly trap you in this hell. Run fast and don't hit your head on the door on your way out."

I'd taken no more than one step when he called me again, his voice gentler this time that it locked my feet to the floor.

"What's your name?"

I glanced over my shoulder, my smile sincere and softer this time. "Charlotte."

I saw something in his eyes that moment—a peculiar flicker of emotions as he took in every detail of me in that gaze like I was some mysterious artwork. Brows knitting in a brief flash of confusion, he sucked in a deep breath, his chest and shoulders rising with the effort.

Impossible. If I'd met him, I would've never forgotten it.

Familiar instincts took over and despite my suddenly unsteady legs, I turned and left.

I stayed away for the rest of the evening, busying myself with the other customers, making my money and reminding myself to stay on track.

Eye on the prize, Charlotte. Make money and get out in time only to do it all over again.

It was my nightly mantra as I navigated my way through the rowdy crowd with a pleasant smile and a swift hand at whipping out drink after drink. I flattered, I flirted, I faked—all necessary evils. I excelled at all the necessary evils of my job, whichever it may be. It was the only way I survived, staying under the radar and keeping mobile. I was in never the same place for more than two years because the longer I stayed, the more people remembered me and noticed the changes that never come.

Oh, I sometimes wished for better but a dead woman—or at least one who could not live a normal life—didn't get those whimsical options. This might be pretty bad but the alternatives would be worse. It was one thing to live as a prisoner of time. To be literally caged for the sinister amusement of humankind was another.

I never had a problem keeping clear sight of my goals until tonight when all I could see were those golden hazel eyes that worshipped and condemned me at the same time.

They continued to follow me around the saloon, like a predator tracking its prey, and I had no choice but to bear it because to come near him again was to inflame a fire that should've never been started.

I didn't see him leave but when I saw that his table had been vacated, I walked over to clean it up. The man did order a drink after all, leaving behind an empty bottle of beer and an unused napkin. I saw the bill tucked in its fold. I flipped half of the napkin open to get the money and that was when I spotted the elegant scrawl:

Sirens can be saved, too, if one is willing to brave the way to hell and back.

I shook my head, losing my fight against a smile, and tucked both bill and note into the pocket sewn secretly on the side of my dress.

It was bittersweet—to glimpse the light and lose sight of it—but I was resigned to the fact that in the world of shadows I lived in, time—gnawing and interminable—was my only company.

It was nearing sunrise when I exited the flower shop which actually bore the name The Magnolia on the street front. The speakeasy was housed in its basement, accessible through an organized set of trap doors, secret panels and an ever-changing password.

The small apartment I rented was just down the block. It chipped at my income, slowing my savings a little, but it was necessary for the secrets I kept.

"It's not safe for a lady to wander the streets at night unescorted," a familiar voice spoke from somewhere in the shadows.

I paused in front of a hat shop, squinting through the dim light of the gas lamps that dotted the sidewalk. I could make out the outline of a figure leaning casually behind the thick columns of the front door that concealed him. I relaxed my grasp on the pocket pistol I had strapped on the garter of my stockings and turned toward him as he slowly emerged from the shadows.

"And are you here to prove it to me?" I asked jauntily. "Make no mistake, sir. I can find your heart with a bullet in the dark."

In a long black coat and a fedora, he was tall and forbidding but a shaft of light touched his face, exposing his bemused smile.

He really was a handsome devil—or, as I would amend later on, a handsome hero.

"Ah, so the siren can shoot," he said, stopping to stand in front of me, those golden eyes of his gazing at me again with fiery intensity. "She can take care of herself. She baits hearts and breaks them. She also saves fools like me."

I shrugged, giving him a cheeky smile. "What can I say? I'm talented with survival and charitable to those who aren't."

"What other talents do you have?" he asked huskily, raising his hand to brush the back of his fingers against my wind-kissed cheek. The contact secretly scorched me. "Do any of them extend to guests who fancy you?"

I went stone cold, all of my humor fleeing, my face tilting to the side so that his hand could fall away. "I have nothing for sale, if that's what you've come to me for. I should've thrown your arrogant hide to the wolves but even they won't like the crude taste of you."

I turned away but his arm snared me around the waist, pulling me against him as he stepped back to dissolve into the shadows of the columns once again. My heart thundered against my chest—as wild as it had ever been—and a dangerous thrill shot down my spine. We were by no means safe on the street because anyone could happen along but pressed up against his large, solid frame, wrapped in his powerful arms and warmed by his body heat, I let my walls crumble. When you've held them up alone all your life, it was tempting to let someone take their weight, even for just a moment long enough for you to take a breath.

"Do you know how fascinating you are, crackling like fire, when you're angry?" he asked and I could hear the smile in his voice.

"And since you're clearly lacking a sense of self-preservation, you want to play with fire and get burned?" I shot back.

I felt the tip of his nose brush against my cheek, his breath warm on my skin. "Like moth to a flame. Like a sailor to a siren. I should be terrified but I can't seem to stay away."

I swallowed hard, fighting the urge to lay my head down on his chest and breathe him in. "It should be easy enough. We're strangers to each other."

"My name is Brandon Maxfield," he said. "And no, you're not a stranger to me. Your face is a face I've gazed at for hours every night in the shadows of my study where nothing glows brighter than the broken beauty of this woman in an oil painting."

My heart constricted, my breath wedged painfully in my lungs.

There were no photographs of me. The only time I allowed myself to be captured in a moment frozen forever was many years ago, in Paris, when the aged and reclusive painter whose flat I'd cleaned for six months, asked me to pose for him in exchange for a generous fee that let me sail back home to America later that year. I'd coaxed him to deepen my hair color to a red gold instead of the dark honey blond and keep my face in the shadows. He refused to show it to me when it was completed, saying that the painting will remain in his keeping because the world would not understand. Thinking I would never set foot in Paris or see him again, I let it go, too young and too naive still to recognize the consequences the smallest of actions could bring into the future.

I pulled away, breaking off any contact with Brandon and trying to build my damn walls back up again. "For someone who had one drink, I fear you still had too much, my good man. You're sprouting nonsense and I've had enough of that this evening."

I tried to bolt but Brandon's hand clamped around my elbow.

I grimaced as I tried to shake it off to no avail.

Tenacious, for sure, and a great threat all the more.

I slowly turned back to him, exhaling sharply and switching on my full scowl. "Fine, you're not drunk. You're just delusional. Unfortunately, neither is my kind of man so please detach yourself from my person and be on your way. My charity doesn't extend to lechers and lunatics."

He didn't let go. Nor did he say anything.

Then the foolish man smiled—smiled!

"I must say that this quite a change for me—watching your mouth move and listen to it heap insults over my head," he said, his hold gentling but not releasing me. "In spite of myself, I find that I prefer it to the everlasting silence from your haunting portrait."

I gritted my teeth, not in an effort to be angry, but more to rally my defenses. "I told you, I'm not in some blasted portrait. If you don't stop going on and on about it, I will have no choice, sir, but to heap more than just insults over your head. There will be rocks and bricks and possibly the block heel of my shoe. Maybe that'll finally knock some sense into you."

I wasn't a particularly frightening fellow—as long as you didn't ask too many questions—but nothing fazed this man.

"So it's a just a coincidence then that the portrait is named Charlotte," he drawled, not so patiently anymore, I might add. "Even though I'm looking at you, Charlotte, and seeing no difference."

Oh, there's a difference but not one I'll ever show you.

My name was one of the few things I held on to, always staying Charlotte no matter who I was to the world—Charlotte Hemmings, Charlotte Stockton, Charlotte Devine, Charlotte Samuels, to name a few. My last name meant nothing to me, the same way the man who sired me didn't either. But I was always Charlotte to my mother, to myself, to the world. It was a whimsy I thought was harmless until it eventually caught up with me.

Maybe the only way out of a lie was to tell the truth.

I took a deep breath and looked straight into his eyes. "Alright, for argument's sake, let's say your ramblings have some merit about how this woman in this portrait and I look alike. How old is this painting?"

He frowned for a moment as if the idea had just occurred to him. "The year and title were written in the back of the canvas. Emile du Villier painted it in 1875 in Paris—just over fifty years ago."

I smiled brightly despite the thundering of my heart. "So... Do I look like I'm at least fifty or so to you?"

Brandon's frown deepened. "No, you don't."

I beamed even though a pang of disappointment tinged my relief. No, not because I wanted him to agree that yes, I looked like I was at least fifty to him. It was another lie I got away with, just the newest to the many I will continue to tell for years to come. There continued to be no end in sight.

I slowly extricated my arm from his grip, which he finally relaxed, and pertly patted his chest. "There. Logic trumps all kinds of fancies. I rest my case."

I really should've walked away. Hell, I should've sprinted off like a rabbit with a wolf at its heels.

But I didn't.

While he no longer held me physically on the spot, his fierce gaze held me immobile.

Yes, much like a moth to a flame, I was.

"Whether or not you're the woman in the painting, Charlotte, the fact is that you do not deserve this hell any more than she did," he said, his tone serious. "You don't belong here."

"You're correct in that assessment," I said. "But I also belong to no one but myself. If you're going where I think you're going, don't. You're not the first to offer me a pedestal, Brandon, but I know that those pedestals are nothing but mere steps to your bed. Keep it. I'll climb out of hell on my own."

A second after the words left my mouth, his own took their place, seeking trust and giving it. My arms went around his neck as I kissed him back with abandon, stoking that liquid fire burning vibrantly through our veins. It was beyond reckless of me but with the exhilaration came a surprising sense of rightness—like a distant memory you remembered all of a sudden, connecting the past to the present until they finally made sense together.

Breathing hard, Brandon pulled back to take in some air, his hand cradling the side of my face. "I don't have pedestals to offer you, Charlotte. But if I have to sweep you off your feet and carry you away on a white horse, I will, because I fear for you the same fate as the woman in the portrait—broken."

With time, I'd gained some emotional distance from the memories but in that instant, I recalled the first lick of the whip as if it had embedded itself not just into my skin but into my soul as well. It was a wound that would never heal, the pain only dulled by far too many days and years.

I struggled for a lie, knowing how close we were to the truth, and in the end, it took all of my strength to step away. "I appreciate the concern, Brandon, but I can take care of myself. I always have. I will not become the woman in your portrait."

For I already am.

It might have been that first good glimpse he had of me in the saloon, or our quiet walk to my apartment that spoke of a certain trust—whichever it was, it moved destiny's pieces around, perhaps in a different direction or possibly, exactly where it meant to go.

It's hard to know now and much, much harder to resist the pull of the inevitable, so you don't.

You let it happen.