diff --git a/scraibe/docx_cover.py b/scraibe/docx_cover.py
index ac429d6..55634c0 100644
--- a/scraibe/docx_cover.py
+++ b/scraibe/docx_cover.py
@@ -21,7 +21,7 @@ Environment variables:
 
 import os
 import io
-import requests
+import httpx
 from datetime import datetime
 from typing import Optional
 from docx import Document
@@ -65,9 +65,9 @@ def _add_page_break(doc: Document):
 def _download_image_bytes(url: str) -> Optional[bytes]:
     """Download image from URL and return bytes, or None on failure."""
     try:
-        r = requests.get(url, timeout=10)
-        if r.status_code == 200:
-            return r.content
+        with httpx.stream("GET", url, timeout=10) as resp:
+            if resp.status_code == 200:
+                return resp.content
     except Exception:
         pass
     return None