LOVE AND WAR | THE WHITE QUEEN

17

Nora noticed his actions and opened her eyes. She scoffed loudly, offended that he had declined her affections.

She smiled, shaking her head in disapproval. "Oh, now you want to pull away? Perhaps you should've done that the first time around," She snapped at him in a cold tone, referring to the fact that she had given birth to his child but was married to another man.

Edward frowned in concern, watching as she turned her back to him before walking away. He began to notice since his arrival that she had grown colder, no longer the girl full of light he once knew.

While he had matured since the last time he saw her, Nora had grown colder and meaner, more like her mother than she had ever been before. It worried him.

Nora sighed in frustration, walking over to a chair in her room before she took a seat. "I'm tired of being here, of being alone. I'm tired of my husband. I'm tired of living a lie. I'm tired of life itself," She confessed, slowly turning to look at Edward, "Through it all, the only thing that I'm nowhere close to being tired of is you, which pains me most of all."

Edward didn't respond. He continued to stare at Nora, a sympathetic look on his face.

"I don't understand it, Edward. When we're together, we're good. We're truly good and happy together. Then something goes and ruins it for us. Everything ends up going to hell, but somehow, we end up together once more. It's a never-ending cycle that should be tiring, but it isn't. You've betrayed me more times than I can count, but somehow, at the end of the day, we always find each other again. And it's almost never me running back to you, it's the other way around."

Nora paused, taking a deep breath as she began to process all that she was feeling at that moment. "For months, I rarely thought of you, so caught up in my current problems to think about the fact that there was a chance you were forgetting me."

"I could never forget you, Nora—" Edward began to argue, but Nora continued on.

"Then, I received that letter from you and all went to hell again. I couldn't manage to stop thinking of you after that. You were what sustained me in this awful life I've been forced to live. I thought of you when I needed an escape and it worked. It truly worked," She confessed, tears beginning to form in her eyes, "What I feel for you, Edward, it overwhelms me, but it feels good, better than anything I've ever felt," She paused, her chest beginning to heave a bit as she thought about how he made her feel, "Though if people knew about us and our secret marriage, it could end in two vastly different ways. It could end the war plaguing this country or it could start an even bigger war. It terrifies me."

Edward moved closer to Nora until he was standing right in front of her. He knelt in front of where she sat, meeting her at eye view.

"What I feel for you, Nora, is something I cannot explain. It is stronger than anything I've ever felt before and it scares me just as much as it scares you. I can't even explain it," Edward explained, cupping her face in his hands, "You are the woman I love. You are my home, what sustains me in battle. When I am beaten down and feel as though I want to give up, the thought of you is what keeps me going."

Their faces just inches apart, Nora and Edward's breaths became heavier as they began to lean forward. Their lips brushed against each other yet they feared what would occur if they kissed at that moment.

It was why Edward refused to kiss her earlier on. If they laid with each other and she fell pregnant, Nora wouldn't be able to lie about this pregnancy, not when her husband had been gone for nearly five months.

Edward ran his hands up her back before reaching up to her hair. With one swift moment, he removed the clip holding all of her hair up. Her long, blonde hair fell all the way down her waist, causing him to smile as he ran his fingers through it. It had been far too long since he had done that.