Combine Eager-Loading and relatedTo(category)
I usually like to use the .find() method and then you can pass in an object in your twig with criteria for the query. This is an example of eager-loading and relatedTo.

{% set entries = craft.entries.find({
    section: 'articles',
    with: ['featuredImage'],
    limit: 4,
    relatedTo: category
}) %}


Let me know if this helps at all otherwise I'd be happy to dig into your use case more.