Regaining his footing as a captain, Bennett Holt finds stepping into Jane Ables’ boots as leader of the battered schooner, Ferocious Pip, is easier than recovering his place as her lover.

Struggling with Jane’s grief, Bennett’s attempts to recapture her heart are bogged down by his need to once again strike a fearsome and respected image as a pirate of note. Progress on both is complicated by a strange, new man who has taken his place as Jane’s trusted confidante, and by unsettling rumors among the crew that flow like cheap liquor.

Jane feels the treacherous gulf between Bennett Holt and herself growing despite their finally being on the same ship once again. Their love is hanging in the silence of lost time, but with resentments so overwhelming and pain so heavy, Jane is anchored to her darkness and cannot seem to find the light Bennett once was to her.

Perhaps the wound in her heart that reopens every time she looks at him is too wide to heal, no matter how much she craves it.

Even as they sail to kill the man responsible for their rift, war has broken out in the eastern seas of Brighal as the sprawling fingers of the Goranese Empire seek more than they already possess.

With war comes prizes for the taking, and the crew of Ferocious Pip long to claim the life of the wicked naval captain, Galen Foley.

Sailing under the blue birds of the Goranese Navy on the warship Stalwart that would be too challenging to sink, even for the fabled pirates Jane Ables and Bennett Holt, Foley seems unreachable. With powerful allies from the east at his side, provoking Foley would surely be a death sentence.

With the desire for vengeance being something they still agree on, chasing Foley east feels like the only thing to do when Jane and Bennett aren’t sure they have anything left to lose.