Book Review: The Skull Ruler

Title: The Skull Ruler
Author: Penelope Sky
Genre: Dark Romance, Fiction, Romance

What It’s About:

Cassini is upset when Heath and Case take her back to Balto’s apartment. While she’s there, she finds the diamonds skull ring that he had always worn with a note for her—that she is his queen. She realizes that she cannot live without him and cannot imagine a life without him, so she convinces both Heath and Case to take her back to Lucian’s property because she knows how to diffuse the bombs as Lucian had taught her how to do it while she lived with him. Balto is taken by Lucian and his men to Lucian’s house, where Lucian places on a vest with a bomb on it. Then Lucian takes Balto into a separate building that is specially made to contain the blast. He puts Balto on a chair, and tells him that other men had begged, cried or pissed their pants, but Balto truly is holding out. Lucian also tells Balto that there is a 10 minute timer, and that he will blow up after the 10 minutes, after which Lucian will be rid of him and he will go after Cassini.

Cassini, Heath and Case make their way to Lucian’s property, and Case helps Cassini make her way through the grounds to the building, where she finds Balto sitting with a bomb vest on him. Balto recognizes her and tells her to get out—they only have a couple of minutes left before the bomb goes off, but Cassini tells him that she needs to concentrate so that she can get him out of it. She does cut the bomb correctly, with seconds to spare, and they get out of the building before Lucian detonates the bomb remotely. Together, they get out the fences with Case to Heath.

The four of them return with Balto’s men, and take over the property—many of Lucian’s own men give up their arms when Balto talks to them, and they even go ahead and search for Lucian in his own house. Balto knew that they would most likely take him over Lucian because of how Lucian treats them. The men bring Lucian out to Balto and Cassini, and Lucian is surprised that Balto is alive, while also feeling betrayed by his men and by Cassini. Balto leaves the decision on how to kill Lucian to Cassini, and Cassini silently walks into the house, before coming out with another bomb vest. She has it placed on Lucian, and asks his men to go drop him off at the house. He is begging while he’s being dragged back to his house, but neither Balto nor Cassini find any mercy for him. Once the men come out without Lucian, Cassini blows up the vest, killing Lucian and destroying the house that acted like her prison. Balto is proud of her.

They return to Balto’s compound, with Case going home, and Heath heading to his apartment. Cassini and Balto spend some time together, but Balto pushes her away, telling her that now that Lucian’s dead, they are going their separate ways—after all, he would not be changing his ways for anyone; he is the Skull King. He refuses to tell her that he loves her, but he does tell her that she will always be his Queen, and tells her to keep the skull ring as it will give her protection. Eventually, Cassini packs up and leaves with Case to his home, while Balto just stays stoically away from her. Before the doors of the elevator close as she heads down, she tells him that she loves him.

Three weeks pass by and one night, Case comes home with some products for Cassini, including tampons. She realizes then that she hasn’t had her period in two months, and that she had missed her shot for the birth control, which means only one thing—she’s pregnant. She goes to the doctor and they confirm that she is two weeks pregnant. That same night, while having dinner with Case, she is stand-offish before revealing to Case that she is actually pregnant, with Balto’s child. Case tells her to go to speak to Balto and tell him, because he deserves to know. So Cassini makes her way to his apartment building, because he has been ignoring her phone calls and texts. She refuses to leave until Balto speaks to her, and when he has his butler send her up, she tries to talk to him to tell him about her pregnancy, but Balto cuts her off before she’s able to say anything. He reiterates that they are done, and that he wants nothing to do with her, so she better go and stay gone. Cassini leaves without telling him anything, and when Case asks her what happened, she lies and tells him that Balto did not care so she’s on her own. She starts working at the pasta factory, and Case and her agree that if Balto comes by for his drug money, she will hide so that they don’t have to see each other. This happens once while she is working, after she had agreed to a date with Case’s friend, Alessandro. Balto comes into the factory, and she hides with her pregnant belly. Case talks to Balto, but he is antagonistic towards Balto, especially when Balto asks him about Cassini. Case does tell Balto that it’s none of his business but that Cassini has a date on Friday.

Balto goes home, and talks to Heath. The two of them have been going out but while Heath has been coming home with women to take to bed, Balto has been rejecting every advance left and right, and has been in a sour mood. Heath even told him that he’s not looking well at all, and that he clearly cares about Cassini more than Balto lets himself acknowledge—after all Balto has been the happiest and most at peace when Cassini is around. So Heath had questioned Balto on whether it makes sense for him to stay in the game when he would be better off with Cassini, but Balto brushed him off. This time Balto tells him about the date, and Heath tells him that of course she should move on if he doesn’t want her to be with him. This doesn’t sit well with Balto.

Cassini meets up with Alessandro at their date spot—she is now six months pregnant, and has started to move into her own apartment with Case and Dirk’s help in setting up the apartment and the nursery. Alessandro is Case’s friend who has always been interested in Cassini. They meet up and they start talking with Alessandro being interested and engaged in their conversation, and Cassini decides to give it a chance. Balto drives up to the location with the intention of just watching them to see if the man that she is meeting is going to be good enough for her. He realizes that her body has changed and that she is pregnant—this realization has him running out of his car and towards her. Alessandro intercepts him, but Balto pushes him away to talk to Cassini. She asks Alessandro if he’s okay, and tells Balto to stand down, before telling Alessandro that she’ll take a rain check for this date as they have some things to work out. Balto and Cassini get into a discussion at which point she lies to him and tells him that she is pregnant with Lucian’s kid making her seem like she’s further along than she really is. Balto deflates and goes away after that, and when Cassini returns to her apartment, she speaks with Alessandro, who agrees to do a different date on a Saturday.

Balto sneaks into Cassini’s apartment while she is making breakfast soon after, and she has a gun trained on him thinking him to be an intruder. They talk, but since Balto is unwilling to speak those three words, she tells him to get out. He tells her that he hasn’t told anyone he loves them since his call with his mom before she died. Balto leaves after not being able to convince her. He speaks with his brother, and tells Heath that he can’t imagine Cassini being all alone while raising Lucian’s kid—something that he feels is not a good thing for Cassini because she will be looking at the child’s face only to see Lucian, her prisoner, but at the same time, he wants Cassini and the child to be taken care of. He realizes that he would get over it with the child not being his, raising the child as his own though it might take time, as he is the only one who is capable of taking care of Cassini. Heath is somewhat surprised to hear that Balto would get over the child not being his, but isn’t surprised about his feelings for Cassini, and offers to take over the Skull Kings. They put a plan into place to get Heath to become the Skull King, with Balto supporting him—though Balto warns him that he will have problems with Vox, one of the members of the group that believes he should be the Skull King. The other thing that they do is get rid of the auctioning of women—Balto hasn’t ever liked that part of the business but he allowed it because it was something that made the Skull Kings a lot of money, but after Cassini’s imprisonment with Lucian, he doesn’t think anyone should go through that ever again. So they end it, and Heath offers to get the madam that came to them for protection several weeks ago to make an agreement where they can auction her women off so that everyone makes money. He does agree to keep the no auction of women for purchase going after becoming the Skull King. Balto on the other hand also changes one of the Skull rings into an engagement ring for Cassini, to be given to her at an appropriate time. Balto then goes to see Case and tells him that he has left the Skull Kings—the two men talk, and Case tells Balto that he will try to put in some good word for him with Cassini.

Cassini in the interim speaks with Case and reveals that Balto doesn’t know the truth about her pregnancy because he was so cruel to her during that time she went to speak to him, that the next time she saw him she made it out to be Lucian’s kid. Case tells her about Evan and the truth that it was a set up, but that Balto carried out justice by putting Evan in the hospital—she is not as upset at finding this out, and is grateful that Balto had done what he did. Case tells her that Balto not saying the three words is not necessarily indicative that he lacks those feelings for her or the depth of his feelings—after all, he wouldn’t have done that to Evan or gone to the lengths he had to give himself up to save her, if he didn’t love her. He tells her to give it some time to think it through and that if she cares for Balto, she should not give up on him.

Balto shows up at her apartment, and Cassini had cancelled her date with Alessandro for Saturday. They end up talking, with Balto confessing his feelings for her, and Cassini is overjoyed. Before he does anything else, she tells him the truth—she is pregnant with his child and the whole thing about the baby being Lucian’s was a lie. Balto freezes for a moment and then they end up having sex in her bedroom. They talk afterwards some more, and Balto isn’t even upset that Cassini lied—he realizes that she had come to him to speak with him about her pregnancy, when she was afraid too, and he had been so cold and cruel to her. They make up, and eventually on another morning while they’re together sleeping in bed, he puts the engagement ring on her and tells her that he will marry her. She asks him if she can still say yes, and he tells her that she better say yes, so she says yes. Cassini decides to walk away from the Pasta factory business and asks her brothers to remove her from the sales and the money—they agree on the condition that it will always be open to her if she ever wants to return. Balto then takes her to see a house nearby and before even seeing the inside of the building, she says yes to the house.

A little over a year later—Balto Jr, Cassini’s and Balto’s son, is having his first birthday party. Cassini is pregnant with twin girls this time around, and is struggling to get back outside for the party. Balto comes in, grabs what she was looking for and picks her up before taking her back to the garden, where Balto sits down and stares at his own son intently. Cassini tells him that she’s not having any more of his babies, and he smirks at her, telling her that Twins run in the family and that they’ll see. Heath, Case and Dirk are there to celebrate as well.

My Thoughts:

I enjoyed the ending of this series and the outcome of the relationship between Cassini and Balto. One thing that I really appreciated in this book is the fact that the author did not shy away from the consequences of having so much sex—pregnancy. I do feel like a lot of the steamy romance/smut stories avoid depicting pregnancy or touching upon it as a natural consequence. Obviously, it doesn’t happen in every situation, but having read so many romance/smut stories, the fact that many of these do not even have a situation where birth control fails, or a pregnancy scare, etc, it makes it a bit unrealistic. So I was really happy to see that at least in this one, the author had the main character face this situation and make the hard choices of trying to let Balto know only to be shut down, and then making the decision to lie to him because she doesn’t want him to be in the relationship because of the baby but because he genuinely loves her. A lovely story and one I enjoyed for a quick read.