Page 31 of Harley & Her Ferals

River talks about me becoming the heir without any jealousy. Yet the one thing I know about his past is that he was once a mafia heir himself to a powerful family.

He lost that position and now is here, serving my family.

How good a man is River that he doesn’t resent me?

I retrieve my sponge, scrubbing at the floor.

I wrinkle my nose at the chemical scent of disinfectant and sweat.

I can’t look away from River, however, and his infectious movement and joy.

He was never meant to be trapped inside. He vibrates with energy and life.

Fuck, he’s gorgeous.

In his mid-twenties, River is lean and barely taller than me.

He’s dressed in cheap, stained jeans and a black t-shirt.

A ‘C’ for Companion is stitched onto his top. It’s a humiliating job for him that he has to sew thatConto his own clothes to mark himself out.

He doesn’t look like any other Beta in the Underworld, however, for another reason.

His beauty.

River’s curly, raven black hair bounces as he dances. It falls over his face with its olive skin and dreamy, blue eyes that have the longest lashes I’ve seen on any man.

I fell in love with his eyes.

Then I fell in love with the most positive and sweetest man I’ve ever meet. River has the type of golden retriever personality that I didn’t know could survive in my brutal world.

Every time I see River, I’m shaken with how desperate I am to protect his spark oflife.

He’s like a slice of a sun-drenched Sicilian countryside, which is struggling to thrive in this concrete hellscape.

River’s charisma takes up the whole room.

But it’s also what gets him in trouble because Betas as a dynamic are meant to be quiet and sensible. They’re not expected to be beautiful and draw attention to themselves like Omegas do.

“Hey, am I doing all the work here?” I protest, wringing out the sponge.

“Looks like it.” River twirls himself dramatically closer to the shelves, as I roll my eyes. “Did I tell you that your amazing brother gave me some new flower seeds and herbs? I’ve been wanting themforever. I can make a better medicinal paste to ease people’s bruises now. Plus, the flowers are spectacular. You will love them, bella, absolutelylovethem.”

I try to smother my grin but can’t.

Is it okay to tell River how cute he looks when he becomes passionate about nature? Especially as in his excitement, his Italian accent becomes thicker and he begins to speak even quicker than normal.

He looks like a sunflower with his face turned up to the sun.

My expression steels.

I won’t let River be crushed under Dad’s boot like Feral’s paper rose.

Dad knows that River is friends with my brother.

But River isonlyfriends with Lionzio. He doesn’t love him as more than that.

Why is Dad so determined to break River? What’s the Beta’s past?

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