“It’s the artist in me,” she returned, “And besides, Drahcir, who was it that set her up to eat a bone?-and an old one at that. If you were a little more conscientious when you did the shopping instead of stocking up on junk food . . .”
“Oh, don’t worry about me. Hairy and Handsome,” Massha interceded smoothly, dropping into her vamp role. “I’ve got no problems discussing my body, as long as we get equal time to talk about yours. I’ve always liked my men with a lot of facial hair, if you get my drift.”
I noticed Idnew’s ears flatten for a moment before returning to their normal upright position. While it may have been nothing more than a nervous twitch, it occurred to me that if we were going to solicit help from these two, it might not be wise to fan any embers of jealousy that might be lying about.
“Tell me,” I said hastily, eager to get the subject away from Massha’s obvious admiration of Drahcir, “What got you started campaigning for better relationships between humans and werewolves?”
“Well, there were many factors involved,” Drahcir explained, dropping into the lecturer mode I had grown to know so well in such a short time. “I think the most important thing to keep in mind is that the bad reputation humans have is vastly overrated. There is actually very little documented evidence to support the legends of human misconduct. For the most part, werewolves tend to forget that, under the proper conditions, we turn into humans. Most of them are afraid or embarrassed and hide themselves away until it passes, but Idnew and I don’t. If anything we generally seize the opportunity to go out and about and get the public used to seeing harmless humans in their midst. Just between us, though, I think Idnew here likes to do it because it scares the hell out of folks to be suddenly confronted by a human when they aren’t expecting it. In case you haven’t noticed, there’s a strong exhibitionist streak in my wife. For myself, it’s simply a worthy cause that’s been neglected for far too long.”