Straight toward the helicopter pad.
“NO, NO, NO,” Vic yelled, and took off after him without thinking.
Snow slapped at her face. Her boots slid, caught, slid again. Vesa was surprisingly fast for something that looked like it should move majestically in slow motion. His hooves clattered on the flagged path as he careened around a corner.
“Vesa!” Jarmo bellowed behind her. “Püsi! PÜSI!”
“I don’t think he speaks Estonian,” Vic gasped.
“He understands tone,” Jarmo said.
The helicopter pad lay just beyond the low wall that separated the main courtyard from the outer approach. It was currently empty—thank God—but the idea of a rogue reindeer making merry hoof-prints all over a critical piece of royal infrastructure was enough to propel Vic forward with fresh energy.
She rounded the corner at speed.
For a split second, all she could see was white and grey and a blur of antlers. The pad ahead was a clear, circular patch of darker stone, surrounded by low lights half hidden by snow. Vesa was making a beeline for it like it contained the reindeer equivalent of a spa day.
“I swear to God,” Vic muttered. “You are not certified to take off.”
She lunged, arms out.
And something hit her from the side.
Hard.
One moment she was upright, reaching for the trailing lead rope. The next she was airborne—just for a heartbeat, a horrible flailing heartbeat—and then she slammed into the snow-covered ground with a force that knocked the breath out of her.
Snow exploded around her, cold and soft and shocking.
For a second she saw nothing but white. Then awareness filtered back in in bits.
Heavy weight. On top of her.
An arm across her chest, shielding.
A familiar scent—soap, wool, the faint metallic tang of winter air.
“Jesus Christ, Vic,” Erin’s voice said, right against her ear. “Do you have a death wish?”
Vic blinked, focused, and found herself staring up at the sky. Snowflakes drifted lazily down onto her face. Erin was sprawled across her, half on, half off, one knee in the snow, one hand planted by Vic’s shoulder, the other arm still clamped around her like a safety bar.
“What the fucking fuck, Bodyguard?!”
Beyond Erin’s shoulder, Vesa thundered past, missingwhere Vic had been by what felt like inches. He hit the pad, skidded a little, then slowed to a confused trot as Jarmo finally caught up and managed to grab the rope again.
“Got him!” Jarmo called, triumphant and breathless.
“Fantastic,” Erin said tightly, not taking her eyes off Vic. “Let’s try not to turn the Queen’s best friend into reindeer roadkill next time, yeah?”
“I wasn’t going to die,” Vic protested once her brain caught up with her mouth. Her heart was racing, adrenaline roaring in her ears. “I was just… intercepting.”
“You were standing directly in the path of a frightened half-ton animal with spiky headgear,” Erin said. “That’s not intercepting. That’s auditioning for A&E. They aren’t the same as horses, Vic.”
Her grip loosened, just enough for Vic to sit up. Snow slid down the back of her jumper.
“Ugh,” Vic groaned. “Gross. Cold. Everything’s cold.”
“You’re welcome,” Erin said. “Cold is better than concussed.”
