Chapter 172

• “When they encountered me on the road, they gave me the option to give them my belongings and leave with my life, so I offered them a similar choice: leave untouched, or leave cursed,” he said. “Their alpha laughed at my threat. He said I looked weak and that he wasn’t afraid of what I could do to them. After losing your mother, Ifeltweak, and being called out on that feeling was overwhelming. I never should have cursed them to begin with, but I was wracked with grief. It’s not an excuse, but I wanted to explain.”
• “What curse did you use?” I asked.
• “I was going to use a standard curse that would force them to transform on the full moon and remain human for the remainder of their lives, but something more powerful happened instead,” Tom continued. “Seeing all those young faces with their lives ahead of them… I wanted to punish them for what I had lost. Instead of containing their transformation to one night, the spell made their instincts unstable. It cursed them to feel the rage and lust for death that I felt at the moment I cast it.”