Not bad. I can crib from yours to shortcut my original:

Dead

Read

Rend

Rind

Mind

Mine

Line

Live

We're all at 7 now, if I count right. Is there a 6?

Lind is a variant of the word lend, at least according to the Oxford dictionary. And lene is a variant of lean according to the same.

So you could do:

lead

lend

lind OR lene

line

live