<span class="bbc_u"><strong><strong>Charlie and Bear<br/>Training Time</strong></strong></span><br/><br/>Charlotte had the radio in the kitchen playing Hayley Westenra's Dark Waltz as she stood at the center island. Her delicate hands smoothed down the Strawberry Shortcake apron she was wearing today. The ingredients she needed for dinner were all laid out on the marble counter top.<br/><br/>She already  had a pinch of salt, pepper, dried thyme, garlic power, onion powder and paprika set aside in a dish and ready to be added. Taking the boneless chicken breasts in front of her on the cutting board, she started rubbing in the mix of spices until the meat was covered all over. The dutch oven was already coated with canola oil and heating up on the stove. She waited for the oil to heat up enough before adding the chicken down and cooking it until it was golden brown. She repeated the process for the other side of the chicken before putting it into the oven and setting the timer for 45 minutes.<br/><br/>As the ravioli cooked on the stove, she took to dicing up the sage and cutting the walnuts into smaller pieces for the brown butter ravioli with rotisserie chicken, walnuts and crispy sage. She took the ravioli off the stove and turned it off.<br/><br/>Charlotte felt herself slowly coming out a fog that had taken her brain over since her foster parent's death. She'd moved into Bear's mansion before the funeral even took  place. The danger to her was to great to maintain her semblance of a normal life. Now here she was, in his lavish kitchen, trying to keep her cooking skills up two months later, and the Alpha had not even tasted one of the dishes she'd worked her grief through for the whole time she'd been here.<br/><br/>If anything, moving into his mansion had seemed to put a distance between them. Whereas before they would meet once a month for sword practice and him helping her to shift and run for the night, now there was not even sword practice. Her saber rested in her room on the third floor, untouched even as her body felt the need to dance to the movements of training with the sword. Two damn months, and it felt as if she'd just met him on the day he came to her and told her what she was.<br/><br/>Her long brown hair unraveled from the loose knot she had it in as she scowled at the ceiling. She barely knew anyone else in the pack. They were friendly, but seemed more interested in her cooking. Charlotte had barely taken a step out of the mansion since moving in, except for the long, silent nights she ran with him through central park. Her cheeks turned pink in anger as she wiped her hands off on her apron. She was the one in mourning, and he was the one up there and isolated from everyone.<br/><br/>She had had enough. Her bare foot stomped on the tiled floor before she rounded on the oven and turned it off. It felt good to be brimming with anger after feeling so much sorrow, and she let the anger fill her as she marched from the kitchen and through the opulent mansion, then up all four flights of stairs. The top floor was off limits, and his personal area. She wasn't sure of the reception she'd receive and she did not care at this point as she entered his personal lair and bellowed out his name angrily.<br/><br/>Wearing just the apron, some cut off jeans and a simple blue tank top, she brazenly walked through the halls, calling to him to show himself in the most irreverent of ways. She may be the lowest of the pack, but if her life was to be turned upside down, by him, it was his duty to help her through it.<br/><br/>She yelled at the top of her lungs. “I want sword practice, and I want it now!” She didn't care if anyone else heard her. Truthfully, the house was so well built that she doubted any sound she made up here could be heard on the lower floors. She put her hands on her hips and tapped her foot on the floor as she waited for him to emerge from whatever room he was in and show himself.