Holly Day: How to Soothe a Dragon

This week my friend Ofelia is here in her persona as Holly Day to talk about her new release How to Soothe a Dragon and explain that it’s actually about aliens...take it away, Holly!

Hello! Thank you, Ally, for letting me crash the blog. (You’re most welcome!) I’ve written a story titled How to Soothe a Dragon. I was visiting Nell Iris yesterday where I talked about how this story turned into something completely different from what it was supposed to be.

I believed I was writing sci-fi – I have aliens! – but this is a fated mates dragon shifter story. (I mean, this could happen to anyone! – Ed.)

It has all the components of a paranormal romance story plus a badass alien race that has taken over Earth. The aliens are from the planet Pacuria, and they’re big and burly but mostly human-looking.

Pacurians are working all the top positions in society, leaving only minimum wage jobs for humans, and they can control minds. Most humans are lulled into a false sense of security and believe the Pacurian race has taken control to help them. Derek sees them for what they are, though. He’s not affected by their mind control, but he’s as powerless as every other human.

It has the premise of being a dark story, but it isn’t, not really. All Pacurians are dressed in uniforms similar to those The Beatles wear on the Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band cover, and they’re allergic to lemons.

Yup, lemons.

Derek has heard about Pacurians being allergic to lemons, but he doesn’t believe it. There are still lemons to be bought in the shops, and he doesn’t believe there would be if the rumours were true.

It isn’t until he finds a button in his apartment that doesn’t belong to him – oh, I didn’t say I wrote it to celebrate National Button Day, did I? I wrote How to Soothe a Dragon for National Button Day, which is on November 16, so buttons play an important part in it 😆

Derek comes home one day and finds a button in his apartment from one of those Sgt. Pepper uniforms. A black button and his neighbour Ocren wears a black uniform. Derek has had enough. For years, Ocren has been chasing him up the stairs in the apartment building where they both live, but finding Ocren’s button on his living room floor is the last straw. He cuts a lemon in half and goes to confront him.

Excerpt

He grabbed a lemon, cut it in half, and opened his window. If Casey was wrong about the lemons, Ocren would get a good laugh, and then he’d kill Derek, but this had to end.
His legs were unsteady as he walked down the grid stair to Ocren’s apartment. With a deep breath, he stopped at the landing outside his living room window and squeezed the lemon so the juice trickled through his fingers.
Ocren was there. His green eyes bore into Derek, his dark skin was duller than he’d ever seen it, and the little ridges the Pacurians had where humans had eyebrows stood out like horns. They were similar to humans—lips, nose, the shape of their eyes, everything was the same. But they were bigger, and they had those little horns almost as lizards did. Ocren had one on each cheekbone too—most of the others didn’t.
And the eye color was wrong. Pacurians had different eye colors, as humans had, but they were more intense. And at times they glowed.
Ocren’s glowed a vivid green.
Derek held up a lemon, waiting for Ocren to laugh at him—he didn’t.
Seconds went by and neither of them moved. Derek’s heart banged hard in his chest, but he had no idea what he’d do now.
With the glass between them, they continued to stare at each other. The November chill was creeping into Derek’s core.
An eternity went by, and Ocren continued to stare at him. Slowly, he reached for the sash lift and pushed the window up.
“Derek.”
The growly tone made him shiver more. “Stay out of my apartment, fucker.”
Ocren raised his lips like an aggressive dog, showing off piranha teeth identical to those he’d seen at the bar. What the hell was wrong with the world? Had they suddenly been invaded by crazed aliens? Not suddenly—they’d been invading since long before Derek was born, and he’d always known they were far more dangerous than they’d let on, hadn’t he?
He nodded in reply to his inner monologue which had Ocren conceal his teeth with a frown. The color of his eyes grew more intense and pressure built behind Derek’s eyes.
“Hey! Cut it out!” He flung half a lemon at Ocren but missed, and it swished by him into the apartment. Ocren hissed, and Derek wiped at his nose to see if he was bleeding—he wasn’t.
“I’ll report you. I know you’re a cop, and you can threaten me all you want, but I won’t let you get away with this.”
He took a step back and Ocren paled. “No.”
The hoarse word made him pause. It wasn’t like a demand, more like a plea.
“No?” Derek glared at him, and he clearly had a death wish because he continued to speak. “No, you won’t get away with this? Or, no, I shouldn’t report you? I have the right to be here too, you know? I was here before you moved in, and you have no right to harass me.”
Ocren breathed in deep through his nose. “Derek.” His eyes flashed with the intense green again, and Derek prepared for the pressure to build behind his eyes, but it never came.
“Yes?” He looked away, which most likely was a mistake, but he feared it would be easier for Ocren to control his mind if he maintained eye contact.
“Derek.”
“Yes, dammit! What is it?” He glared at the buttons on Ocren’s uniform—none missing. It didn’t mean anything. He could’ve changed since he’d been there.
“Derek.” This time Ocren whispered his name. Derek frowned at him. The eyes were a soft green now, lacking the intense glow.
“What, Ocren? I’m not a mind reader, I don’t know what you’re trying to say by repeating my name over and over again.”
Viper green flashed in his eyes, and he reached out through the window.
“No! Stay!”
Ocren stilled but narrowed his eyes.
Derek’s heart beat so fast he feared it would stop from exhaustion. “Can’t you be normal for a few minutes?” He was taken aback by the desperation in his voice. “Stay inside and don’t try to grab me. Why are you always trying to grab me?”
Those horned almost-eyebrows pushed down over Ocren’s eyes. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know? You chase me up the stairs, you abuse my door, you break into my apartment, and you don’t know why?”
Ocren’s eyes flashed green. “I’ve never been in your apartment.”
“Your button was on my floor.”
“No.”
Derek huffed. “Look man, your button was on my floor. I might only be a human, but I’m not stupid.” He took a deep breath. “Okay, I’m a bit stupid, but I’ve kept an eye on your Sergeant Pepper fetish, and this is your button.”
Ocren blinked. “Pepper? I don’t know any Sergeant named Pepper, and I have no fetish… I don’t think.”
Derek snorted. “Right.” He took a step back, putting one foot on the first step of the stairs. “I don’t know what you’re up to, but please stop. The piranha act is getting old.” He walked up another step. “The lemons don’t work, do they?”
“Lemons?”
“You’re not… allergic to lemons.”
The expression, Derek didn’t know if it was a smile, a flash of now mostly human-looking teeth, or a wince. “We’re not supposed to talk about lemons.”
“What?” A small chuckle escaped. He was standing on the fire escape, talking about lemons with a Pacurian who had piranha teeth one moment and normal teeth the next.
His life truly had gone to shit.