Captain Stellan Stroud is a name carried on uneasy winds, whispered through taverns and royal courts alike. Master of the infamous Bleeding Ruby and leader of the Reavers, he rules his ship with disciplined authority, unwavering loyalty, and a code few pirates can claim: harm no innocents, protect your own, and answer cruelty without hesitation.

Before legend hardened around him, Stellan was a devoted sailor, known for steady hands and a gentler heart. Every voyage he took was for the future he was building with his beloved wife, Nadaria, who waited at home with their unborn child. But a single violent misunderstanding changed everything. When Hammond Gumphrey, a stowaway, attacked a royal navy inspection, the crown branded Stellan’s crew pirates despite their surrender. Fear spread faster than truth.

Unable to capture him, the authorities accepted a cruel offering from the very town he once supported: Nadaria. By the time Stellan returned, he found her slain, their child lost with her. Arrested before he could properly grieve and sentenced to die for crimes he never committed, the man he had been shattered on the gallows.

Yet Stellan did not hang.

In a desperate revolt, he and the remnants of his crew seized a navy vessel and escaped execution, renaming the ship The Bleeding Ruby, a quiet promise that the crown would one day answer for the blood it spilled. Chosen as captain without contest, Stellan forged the survivors into something stronger than a crew: a family bound by loyalty and shared ruin.

Fifteen years later, rumors paint him a monster, a crown-breaker sailing toward vengeance. The truth is more dangerous. Beneath the scars and storm-grey stare lives a captain who protects fiercely, trusts rarely, and carries grief like armor. Those welcomed aboard his ship find an unshakable guardian.

Those who threaten what is his discover why the sea itself seems to part for Captain Stroud.

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The Bleeding Ruby