Re: Archenemy
I think a more concrete way of putting it would be that they're afraid of being rounded up and experimented on if their secret ever got out. As long as they remain semi-mythical creatures, then they have a fair amount of freedom - any isolated were sightings will likely be explained away as the result of drunkenness or mass hysteria - but if they are ever revealed as actual creatures living amongst us, then A: people will freak the hell out at having lived alongside monsters all this time, and B: they will be poked and prodded as scientific curiosities. (There would probably also be racial memories of the burnings of suspected werewolves that occurred in medieval Europe.) As long as regular society argues amongst itself as to whether weres ever existed at all, let alone whether they exist today, they can continue living in peace; if the argument is ever concluded in favor of the theory that yes, they do exist - boom. Goodbye peace. So in that sense, I think their sci-magical status would indeed be very precious to them.