The ninth undercurrent did not ask for permission to exist.

It simply sank its teeth into the bloodline name and refused to let go.

What had begun as sensory feedback—heat translated through an incomplete circuit, hunger wearing the shape of touch—hardened into something denser. A living, carnal syllable written in the only ink the process had never catalogued: the deliberate choice to want while the world was ending. It threaded through the original eight like a fever, changing the temperature of every memory it touched. The early warmth in the pup’s pages acquired an edge of adult urgency. The girl’s futures flickered with sequences that now included bodies as well...