Three Brothers

Prologue

---Alec's POV---

The long grass tickled against my bare legs but I didn't focus on that, since Liam was huffing behind me, growling while I dashed forwards to catch up with Marcus. Liam pushed himself up from the fluttering creek, in which I had shoved him in after breaking free of his headlock.

Marcus glanced over his shoulder and merely sighed when I grinned broadly at him, reaching up to thumb the shock of white blonde hair before my eyes. When he looked behind me, I glanced too and sidestepped my second eldest brother when he charged at me.

"Guys, come on." Marcus breathed out warily as I smirked at Liam while stating innocently, "What? He started it!" Liam cocked his eyebrow slightly, as if to say, "Seriously?" before shaking his head slightly.

I rolled my eyes and stepped up to walk beside Marcus, knowing that Liam would retaliate sooner or later. "So.... where are we going again?" I asked after a very long and silent walk. Liam snorted and playfully shoved me to the side, nearly crashing me into a tall pine tree before I managed to straighten myself. Damn my brothers and their strength!

Oh, it wasn't that I was a twig, far from it. I knew I had nice abs and enough muscles to show clearly, though they're not as well defined as Liam's, and definitely not like Marcus, who's shirt clung to him as a second skin.

Marcus glanced back at my question and smiled slightly, his golden brown eyes twinkling with amusement before he shook his equally brown hair, amused that I had already forgotten. Well, he did tell me where we were going before, but Liam decided to pick on me, again, and I wasn't exactly able to listen to our older brother when Liam was rasping his knuckles over my skull.

Liam stepped up beside me as we came at a halt to overlook the mountains we were climbing down from. I glanced up at him as he leaned on my shoulder, warm blue eyes gliding over the surroundings before glancing at me and smiling. His hand playfully ruffled through my hair, making me hiss as I shoved him away and ruffled it back in shape.

"Knock it off!" I snapped, though smirking when he raised his eyes in challenge towards mine. Marcus sighed and squeezed between us to stop our playful bickering and turned our heads to the valley below with his hands.

"Tell me you guys see the same thing and there's smoke coming up there?"

I glanced and perched up slightly, my own pale blue eyes settling on the plume of white being pushed apart by the wind. Liam glanced around and quickly jumped up a branch, skillfully climbing up a tree so he could get a better view.

"There's a village more up north. Should we head that way or avoid it?" he shouted down, eyes set on the smoke that obviously came from said village. I looked up at Marcus as he closed his eyes and rubbed a hand over his face.

"We have little choice." His eyes instantly searched for mine as I let out a small groan, knowing that if we went to town, I'd most likely had to follow some form of education. We did this in a few other towns but each time we didn't settle down and decided to move on.

Marcus sighed deeply while Liam made his way down before sitting on a branch a few feet above the ground. "Look Alec, we need to go to town and depending on the situation there, you might not even need to go to school. We're out of food-"

"We can hunt." I butted in but Marcus ignored me, like he did every time I protested against going into a town. "And we're getting out of water as well." Marcus replied dryly, making me turn to look at the creek flowing a few steps away from us, cocking my head slightly.

"It has been contaminated with Liam's sweat but we can risk it." I joked, earning myself a scowl from my elder brother before he looked up at the sky with a frown. "I think there's a storm coming." He threw out, sending a shiver over my spine before I spun around and headed towards the village.