Very imaginative story, but I think it suffered from its limited page count and needed a bit more weight to the story--although it could be that I'm unfairly comparing this novella to some recent fantasy/steampunk reads that were novel-length and therefore had room to really layer in the world building and give more complexity to the characters and their relationship/personal growth arcs. Also, while two of my top five romance novel heroes are betas, on the whole I'm not a huge fan of the beta dude, and this guy is definitely beta.
Given the originality/creativity of the story concept I'd be willing to try another book by the author.