That unheard sound tingled through their flesh. Krinata shivered, her skin prickling into little bumps. He knew that in a human it didn't signify the ultimate sexual arousal, but when Jindigar's fingers hesitated, she moaned in protest. Never had any woman meant more to him. Never had any woman's plea-' sure been more important to him.
So he didn't flinch when Krinata's left hand rose to the base of his neck, seeking the sensitive spot Takora would know very well. And it was Takora's touch. Relief spread through him, and behind it came a wondrous adoration.
At last he was flung into the upward spiral of final arousal, hardly noticing Dar's fingers freezing at Krinata's boldness. He surrendered to Krinata, barely aware when her tentative touch shifted to a firm, mature search for her own gratification from his responses. He didn't care—he didn't care about anything but that marvelous touch that derived its own pleasure from him.
The Oliat shuddered with him, urging him on. But it was slow, much too slow. The linkages were soaking up most of the energy that should have propelled him into climax. He felt only Krinata's peaking sensitivity, felt the incredible satisfaction her fingers found in touching him—felt Dar's gratification as if Krinata's fingers were her own—felt Takora joining them, making them whole.
Dar's body came against him from behind, her cheek against the side of his head, her hands guiding Krinata's knowledge-ably, needing him to go on as much as he needed it, but he could get no farther. None of them could tolerate this anymore.
He had to end it. He sought to wrench free and turn to Dar, but he only managed to move his hand from Krinata's cheek to Dar's fingers. Dar's mouth brushed his cheek.
And that was finally enough. His tongue tensed against the roof of his mouth, and his jaw fell open to release the bony tubes thrusting themselves upward from the floor of his mouth in the most powerful and satisfying reflex. He wanted Darllanyu with the perfectly startling need of the very first full arousal.
Yet he could not take his hands off Krinata, and he was afraid he'd forget, in the final moment, to avoid strangling her. It had been a long time since Ontarrah.
The three of them and the other two couples behind them hung at full extension, throbbing with primal need, yet not culminating, for all the energy drained into the linkages, raising their vibration. The volume of the hum escalated with every straining urge toward fulfillment.
//Jindigar!// sobbed Darllanyu, unable to take it anymore. //To me! You must.// Her frustration ate at him as much as his Own, and as much as Krinata's.
All at once it came to him. Krinata held the key to their release. She, the other Center, was barely aroused. She enjoyed arousing him, but now she craved more from him than his touch on her neck could give her. Shaking with unresolved tension, Jindigar forced his hands to slide downward, closing his eyes to concentrate on the human sensations through the linkages, trying to convince his hands to seek lower for her sensitive places. He had to do it. He was aflame with a need to feel her responding to him.
Darllanyu's whimper of strangled protest lanced sharply through him. She needed his touch—and he needed more than that from her. But if he turned to Dar, it would send the Oliat into wild oscillations and disruption as it had when they'd called Eithlarin back.
He let his hands cup Krinata's breasts and felt the linkages respond, smoothly heading for Dissolution. He focused on her pleasure to swamp out his physical revulsion. She couldn't help what sort of body she had. He wanted his hands to tell her that her body was as beautiful as she was, as treasured as she was. She was everything that a woman should be.
His hands remembered the skills they'd learned to please
Ontarrah, and without volition they dropped lower and lower. Her face tilted up to him, mouth open, inviting as she became wholly caught up in what he was doing. And it felt so good to do it to her.
The linkages fairly hummed with new energies, new tones and undertones, adding to the complex shaleiliu chord.
Suddenly the linkages tapped into the worldcircle directly. In that same moment both sets of linkages expanded to the ends of time, then contracted toward Jindigar and Krinata, compressing them together. For eternity all he knew—all any of them knew—was that at last, at long, long last, the intolerable tension gripped tighter, and then ever tighter, so good, so very, very good. In sudden, swift, satisfying rhythm, it broke into wave after wave of the delicious, anticipated catharsis.
They gave themselves to it gratefully, Jindigar glad he had lived to enjoy the end of Renewal onset once more.
But curiously he was still alive, as if something held him tight. There was still that nagging, doubling sensation, and the subliminal impression of a tiny white point embedded somewhere in his consciousness.
Melting onto the dirt floor, Jindigar buried his face in his hands, the taste of human saliva bright on his lips. The interior of his mouth rearranged itself with dismaying swiftness. He was dimly aware from the lack of a particular taste that the catharsis had not been the slightest bit physical. Yet, impossibly, he felt drained, at peace, specifically in the way he had not felt since last Renewal.
Probing as for a sore tooth, he found that the linkages were gone. And he was still alive. It took a considerable while for that to sink in.
Worried about Krinata, he struggled to focus his eyes and found Threntisn injecting the Rustlemother with serum. His other officers were picking themselves up, arranging their clothing and brushing off dirt, marveling to each other that they had all survived. They were totally inconspicuous among the dozens of Natives packed densely all around them. Some of them were still very involved in one another, while others were matter-of-factly preparing to return to work.
In front of Jindigar Cyrus knelt and pulled Krinata against him. She was crying and laughing simultaneously, and there was no blood on her mouth, / didn't hurt her.
Cyrus's eyes met Jindigar's, and the human gave a tentative smile. But his eyes betrayed pain. How much had Cyrus seen? Would he ever understand?
Jindigar turned to scoop Dar up beside him, at last able to place his hand on her neck—where it belonged. Very deliberately, in Cyrus's sight, he raised Dar's face to his and covered her mouth with his own, putting all his long-denied yearning for her into the contact, trying to let it explain that he had not chosen Krinata—and never would. The touch didn't have the import it would have carried but a moment ago, for she, too, was relaxed now. But neither did her mouth taste of satisfaction.
None of us had a physical release? The curiosity faded more rapidly than he could form the thought. All that mattered was' the surge of mutual response engulfing them. Whatever release they had shared wouldn't last long. Soon they could enjoy each other fully. And in private.
Before they could get too involved, Jindigar broke away and told Cyrus, with the greatest sense of satisfaction that he had ever known at fulfilling a vow, "Krinata's yours now. Just as I promised. It's not that I don't care for her, Cyrus. Don't ever think that I did—what I did—without caring for her. She is precious to me beyond all measure—" To Krinata he added the final words of the Aliom divorce celebration, "I'll never stop caring.*"
She met his gaze levelly. When she intoned solemnly, "Through all of what must yet come, what has been will be as a flame extinguished," he knew she recognized his words.
Everything that they'd ever meant to each other passed between them again. And somehow he knew they, were each thinking how very beautiful it was to give an ex-spouse into the keeping of such a fine new mate.
"I don't think 1 like it," said Cyrus, "when you look at her like that."